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Windows XP Help me pick a CPU

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Reply 20 of 43, by .legaCy

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frudi wrote:
Honestly, I wouldn't use either. Any Core 2 Duo will run circles around both of these at half the power draw and you can get one […]
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Lo-ResBros wrote:

P4 521 HT Technology 2.8GHz. 1MB cache, 800MHz FSB
or
Pentium D 930 3.0GHz, 4MB cache, 800MHz FSB

Honestly, I wouldn't use either. Any Core 2 Duo will run circles around both of these at half the power draw and you can get one for absolutely dirt cheap, like $5 or less. You can put together a very quiet C2D system with just a cheap $10 cooler, but for a Pentium 4 and especially Pentium D you will need either a beefy cooler or put up with obnoxious fan noise.

Also both of those CPUs are socket 775, so whatever motherboard you have for them will most likely also support at least some range of C2D CPUs. And if you don't have a board yet, it's trivially easy to get one that supports the entire C2D range. Just settle on a budget and desired features - if you don't want to overclock and can make do with 2 RAM slots and other basic connectivity, you can probably find a usable board for as little as $10. Or 2-3 times as much if you want something fancier for decent overclocking and lots of expansion options.

So really, unless you have some nostalgic reason to go with a Pentium 4/D, there is really no good reason to not go with a Core 2 Duo instead. It basically doesn't cost any extra and is much faster and especially power efficient that it's not even funny.

And as for needing a quad core for Windows XP, no, you really don't. There weren't even any quad core CPUs available until Vista was already out. XP was absolutely still primarily the era of single core computing, even dual cores barely showed up towards the end, a year or so before Vista. And then games took even longer to make use of even two cores. So unless you want to also run late 2000's games on your XP build, you really don't need more than two cores.

Agreed, i mean, when i got my C2D i had Vista installed, previous to that i used an Athlon XP (which is running Windows XP to this day).

Reply 22 of 43, by Duouk2000

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I've been thinking about this as well recently. I want to build a super quiet XP system that handles games from 2001 to 2007ish. Anything after that still runs just fine on modern hardware but games before are starting to have compatability issues.

I'll probably go for a C2D, maybe a Quad just because as mentioned they are so cheap.

Reply 23 of 43, by frudi

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Well, some quads are cheap, like Q6x00 or Q8x00 series. But anything above Q9400 starts getting expensive fast, especially the Q9x50 chips. Of course there's always Xeons, they're cheaper, but you have to deal with modding the chips and your motherboard's bios. Not a huge deal, but it can put some people off.

I decided on a similar goal recently, to make a quiet and fast XP build for early to mid 2000's games. I already had most of the parts lying around, including a bunch of s775 CPUs to try - E6420, E5800, E8400, E8600 and Q9400. After playing around with them I came to the conclusion the quad was simply not worth it. Even with a decent cooler (TRUE 120 with two 12 cm fans on it) the Q9400 would push temperatures high enough to start ramping the fans up to clearly audible levels. Not obnoxiously loud or anything, but louder than I wanted and I didn't fell like spending a further 40€ on a pair of quieter fans. And overclocking was more or less out of the question since it wouldn't hit even 2.9 GHz without requiring a voltage bump, which only made the cooling situation worse.

So in the end I went with the E8600, though the E8400 would have done do almost as good. My chip ended up doing 4 GHz easily at stock voltage and at that overclock power consumption was still well below the Q9400 at stock. I can keep the cooler fans at minimum even under full load and the core temperatures don't go above mid 60s. And in every single period correct benchmark I ran on it, it outperformed the Q9400, often by a mile. The extra clock speed is simply worth way more than 2 additional threads for XP era games. Though, to be fair, 4 GHz is also way overkill for 99% of them and a stock clocked quad, even at 2.5 or 2.66 GHz, would also be enough for almost anything from that era.

Reply 24 of 43, by chinny22

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Re the Xeon 771 CPU's on a 775 board, Good chance you don't even need to mod if you don't aim too high.
I've run a Xeon x3320 successfully on both a Asus P5KPL-AM and a Asus P5N-D with no modification at all, admittedly its a lowly 2.50Ghz

its probably safer sticking to the x33 family as they are closer related to the 775 family but as long as you keep to the tdp of supported cpus' of the motherboard should be ok
https://www.delidded.com/lga-771-to-775-adapter/3/

Reply 25 of 43, by oohms

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I can't think of any games that run better on XP that need (or even make use of) a quad core cpu. An e8400 is like $6 on ebay here and performs + overclocks fantastically - there is really no need to mess around with 771 modding and the like

DOS/w3.11/w98 | K6-III+ 400ATZ @ 550 | FIC PA2013 | 128mb SDram | Voodoo 3 3000 | Avancelogic ALS100 | Roland SC-55ST
DOS/w98/XP | Core 2 Duo E4600 | Asus P5PE-VM | 512mb DDR400 | Ti4800SE | ForteMedia FM801

Reply 26 of 43, by Duouk2000

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Hmmm, an E8400 or 600, Thermaltake Sonic Tower or similar, 2-4GB RAM and my 6800GT. Throw in the right motherboard and sound card and it should be good to go for games like KOTOR and FEAR.

Or maybe just say screw it and buy a refurbed Dell OptiPlex or similar so I can plunk my CRT on top of it and have my 9x machine to the side.

Reply 27 of 43, by Tertz

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rodimus80 wrote:

Quads are overkill for a XP build. But even Quads are dirt cheap.

GTA IV seems worked smoother on 4 cores, at least.
But most games and apps would work better with faster 1/2 cores, while quads are harder to achieve those Hz and may need better PSU and cooling, mb also higher quality MB for stability in OC.

The main good with quads is that being overclocked they allow to play later games, in case video card supports DX11. GTX 4xx-5xx video cards have good compatibility with XP games, while support DX11. In OC quads are comparable with 2cores and give good speed. In case someone wants to mess with OC and to have more versatile old games PC - quads are better choice. If their price is cheap now, I'd prefer a quad for XP.

The last compatible with XP are seems MB for Intel 2xxx and GTX 9xx. They are still "modern" and have singificantly higher costs still. But such systems (especially having 2 video cards) may cover ~20 years range of games.
The last of comparable universality had PII/P3 machines, which allowed DOS -> Win9x stuff to work.
If a mediocre compatibility is acceptable, then all retro machines park can be reduced to 2 PCs.

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Reply 28 of 43, by oohms

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GTA IV also works on windows 7-10

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DOS/w98/XP | Core 2 Duo E4600 | Asus P5PE-VM | 512mb DDR400 | Ti4800SE | ForteMedia FM801

Reply 29 of 43, by frudi

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GTA IV is a late 2008, practically 2009, game. If you want to play games that recent on an XP build, then it does make sense to go with a quad core. Though in that case you might as well go for a socket 1155 build with an unlocked i5/i7. A bit more expensive, but performance upgrade is also massive. But that's all already well out of scope of the build we were talking about, which was meant for XP-era games. You may as well play newer games on your modern system, provided you have one of course.

Reply 30 of 43, by SPBHM

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ahh GTA4, it's clear now that you need an i7 for your Windows XP build 😎

x0pclc.png

(it gets a lot better with Sandy Bridge+)

for perspective
https://pclab.pl/zdjecia/artykuly/focus/cpu20 … f/gta4_1920.png

fastest core 2 quad made = 26FPS
i5 2500 stock = 42FPS
on this test, maybe this is not really game worth looking into as a "retro build" !

Reply 31 of 43, by appiah4

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Why you would want a retro PC to play a 2009 game beats the hell out of me..

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 32 of 43, by Tertz

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oohms wrote:

GTA IV also works on windows 7-10

The idea of the theme is a machine which runs good all of XP games (and mb some apps), but not only games not working good in other OS. Or you'd need to use an additional PC to run good some XP games.

Xbox360/PS3 have CPUs with 6-8 threads and hence all multiplatform games since 2006 may (with some chance) work better with >2 threads. This may rise 0.1% low fps in them, to reduce stutters and other delays. GTA4 used CPU more than average, had many games objects, - that could make the lack of threads as more noticable.

core2quad is harder to build as OC is recommended on them for games and being more rare they cost higher. but for late XP games they should fit better from technical point. for how many of games and how much better - this would need to measure and compare 0.1% low fps (at least) with 2-4 cores in games, better at 800 MHz and 1066 memory clocks. there are no such stats for old games. most probably the difference is not significant in ~90% of games on common games settings

appiah4 wrote:

Why you would want a retro PC to play a 2009 game beats the hell out of me..

many games work good in emulators and VM, but people have and buy retro stuff anyway 😀
your signature has some. you should to know

in the context of XP machine. some years later a "2009 year game" may do not work good on modern PC of the future. meanwhile being XP game, in case it does not work good enough on your XP machine - you'll need to have additional computer for it, what is lesser comfortably

SPBHM wrote:

ahh GTA4, it's clear now that you need an i7 for your Windows XP build 😎

the situation is worse. it's not 0.1% low fps, so you'll miss micro stutters possible there
also would be good to look at fullhd stats. and for perfectionism - at 100% viewing distance 😀
and it's only one of late XP games

// I plan to build Intel 2xxx machine for XP and 2010s

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Reply 33 of 43, by red_avatar

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It's a tricky situation if you want an XP system that runs all late XP games. 2006-2010 was a weird zone of games that sometimes don't work in Windows 10 without tweaks or because Nvidia drivers broke some elements but very late in XP so often requires high end hardware for an XP system.

My system has a 2011 CPU (i5-2500k) which I found to be perfect for my late-XP retro machine. I have an early-XP retro machine as well that I re-installed to Windows 98 because the late-XP machine runs pretty much every single game I can throw at it anyway and the early XP games run in Windows 98 as well so ... .

So I can really recommend the i5-2500k. Yes it's a quad core but I've had no issues with it. Main issue I ran into, was the mouse behaving oddly - like being very laggy, unresponsive, slow, ... due to it being a modern mouse that refreshes too quickly. Easily fixed by using an older mouse.

Retro game fanatic.
IBM PS1 386SX25 - 4MB
IBM Aptiva 486SX33 - 8MB - 2GB CF - SB16
IBM PC350 P233MMX - 64MB - 32GB SSD - AWE64 - Voodoo2
PIII600 - 320MB - 480GB SSD - SB Live! - GF4 Ti 4200
i5-2500k - 3GB - SB Audigy 2 - HD 4870

Reply 34 of 43, by Tertz

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red_avatar wrote:

It's a tricky situation if you want an XP system that runs all late XP games. 2006-2010 was a weird zone of games that sometimes don't work in Windows 10 without tweaks or because Nvidia drivers broke some elements but very late in XP so often requires high end hardware for an XP system.

What are most noticable XP games having issues in Win10 ? And mb some XP games with known issues in Win7-8.1 ?

> My system has a 2011 CPU (i5-2500k) which I found to be perfect for my late-XP retro machine. I have an early-XP retro machine as well that I re-installed to Windows 98 because the late-XP machine runs pretty much every single game I can throw at it anyway and the early XP games run in Windows 98 as well so ... .

With your i5 2500 which are motheboard, video card, sound card?
The version of video driver?

> So I can really recommend the i5-2500k. Yes it's a quad core but I've had no issues with it. Main issue I ran into, was the mouse behaving oddly - like being very laggy, unresponsive, slow, ... due to it being a modern mouse that refreshes too quickly. Easily fixed by using an older mouse.

Would be interesting a more concrete info. In which games and which modern mouses behaved not good. Which older mouses should to work good.
May be there are software fixes also. Mb to reduce mouse's DPI, the speed slider in OS settings.

With i7 2600 @4GHz, >=1866 MHz DDR3 today games should to work good still. With DX11 video GTX 570 (PS4 level of 30 avg fps) or better card.
AMD FX 8300 @ >4 GHz (+CPU NB, HT), >=1866 MHz DDR3 is another comparable option, which is some cheaper and slower.

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Reply 35 of 43, by cyclone3d

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Well, well, well. All this talk of a high-end XP machine got me thinking.

I will have a spare Intel x79 system with a 4930k CPU hopefully today. (My current system).

I just checked for drivers for the chipset, etc. and they are all available for XP.

I knew x58 had XP drivers but didn't realize that x79 did as well. I feel a dual-boot machine coming on.

I just looked it up and the Intel 7 series platform is the newest to support XP. So technically, the LGA 2011 platform is going to be the newest/fastest with official XP support.

Looks like you can get 9 series working with XP as well. See here:
https://msfn.org/board/topic/173867-has-anyon … hipset-support/

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Reply 36 of 43, by frudi

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For an i5/i7 build, I'd go with a dual-boot of Windows XP and Windows 7, both 32-bit for maximum compatibility (since some late 2000's games can have issues with 64-bit Windows and 4 GB RAM is enough for games up to about 2010-2012 anyway). That way you get proper support for DX10, DX11 and SSDs in Win7 and still keep the great compatibility and EAX support of WinXP. Throw in a GTX 750 (Ti or regular) for great power efficient performance and it still supports pretty old driver releases in case you run into issues with recent drivers. And an X-Fi or at least Audigy 2 for sound, for the already mentioned EAX support. That will cover you for most games from ~2000 up until 2011-2012. It should also work pretty well for many late '90s games if you don't have a dedicated 98/ME system for those.

Reply 37 of 43, by agent_x007

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cyclone3d wrote:
Well, well, well. All this talk of a high-end XP machine got me thinking. […]
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Well, well, well. All this talk of a high-end XP machine got me thinking.

I will have a spare Intel x79 system with a 4930k CPU hopefully today. (My current system).

I just checked for drivers for the chipset, etc. and they are all available for XP.

I knew x58 had XP drivers but didn't realize that x79 did as well. I feel a dual-boot machine coming on.

I just looked it up and the Intel 7 series platform is the newest to support XP. So technically, the LGA 2011 platform is going to be the newest/fastest with official XP support.

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Reply 38 of 43, by red_avatar

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Tertz wrote:

What are most noticable XP games having issues in Win10 ? And mb some XP games with known issues in Win7-8.1 ?

Lord that's hard to say because Windows 10 keeps getting significant updates. Games I used to be able to play, suddenly stop working or the other way around. I can say that games using Direct Draw have issues in Windows. For example Desperados will be EXTREMELY slow unless you use patches and tweaks (especially when there's smoke on the screen).

Tertz wrote:

With your i5 2500 which are motheboard, video card, sound card?
The version of video driver?

I'll check next time the PC is hooked up but the sound card is the Audigy 2. I also have the Sound Blaster Xfi but the Audigy 2 has always been very reliable. The video card is an ATI HD 4850 which works great too. Surprisingly few compatibility issues. The driver version was the last one available for XP I believe but I may be wrong. The motherboard I don't know - probably ASUS but I'd have to check. The entire PC was built using spare parts so I didn't pay too close attention to the components (it was meant as a Windows 8 PC for my nephew) but when I installed Windows XP as a test, I was so impressed by how well it worked, I just kept it for WinXP (and my nephew got another PC built using spare parts :p ).

Tertz wrote:

Would be interesting a more concrete info. In which games and which modern mouses behaved not good. Which older mouses should to work good.
May be there are software fixes also. Mb to reduce mouse's DPI, the speed slider in OS settings.

Well I know one off the top of my head and that's Ground Control (1 or 2). The behaviour in all games is almost identical though: small movements are not registered, large movements are but are not precise.

Still, these are my findings of my particular build. I think now is the perfect time to get hold of an early 201Xs PC for dirt cheap.

Retro game fanatic.
IBM PS1 386SX25 - 4MB
IBM Aptiva 486SX33 - 8MB - 2GB CF - SB16
IBM PC350 P233MMX - 64MB - 32GB SSD - AWE64 - Voodoo2
PIII600 - 320MB - 480GB SSD - SB Live! - GF4 Ti 4200
i5-2500k - 3GB - SB Audigy 2 - HD 4870

Reply 39 of 43, by Tertz

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red_avatar wrote:

I'll check next time the PC is hooked up but the sound card is the Audigy 2.

Thanks for the info. MB is important.
There were several cards of Audigy 2.

What older mouse model you've chosen to avoid compatibility issues?

> The video card is an ATI HD 4850 which works great too.

the signature has 4870. 4850 at now?

> Surprisingly few compatibility issues.

The issues you've noticed besides with some of modern mouses would be interesting. This would allow to compare the compatibility with other XP builds.

Your video and sound are from XP era. The good compatibility is expected.
Sound card does not need an upgrade for later games, except mb for EAX. Experiments with DX11 video card mb tried still - AMD 6970, Nvidia 570 - these series relate to XP era still, while having PS4 GPU performance.

> Still, these are my findings of my particular build. I think now is the perfect time to get hold of an early 201Xs PC for dirt cheap.

With the next generation of consoles they'll become cheap alike Core2 PC are now.

frudi wrote:

Throw in a GTX 750 (Ti or regular) for great power efficient performance and it still supports pretty old driver releases in case you run into issues with recent drivers.

The problems may go from different GPU architecture also. For example, Stalker has issues with DX12 Nvidia GPUs. Mb it can be overcome by other drivers, but not sure.

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