I usually build machines around compatibility more than performance, so you may want to keep in mind which software titles you aim to run which are picky. For instance, you may want to stay on AGP if you're targeting Splinter Cell and PT.

This thread has devolved fastest XP era hardware to fastest hardware I can get XP running on. XP era hardware would be about up until 2014 and thats pushing it. Contemporary hardware would probably be until 2012. And MS stopped shipping XP to retailers in 2008, while some OEMs shipped it until 2010.

Its kinda a pointless thread if you ask me.

mothergoose729 wrote on 2023-08-03, 03:37:

It's possible to get at least a 9900k to install XP if you slipstream drivers.

you can install XP on any modern hardware if you find the apprpriate ACPI sys file.

but then you miss the mobo chipset driver which is the key element of the equation

God Of Gaming wrote on 2023-08-08, 18:19:

Problem with Haswell is it never officially supported XP so none of the Haswell motherboards have XP drivers listed on their official websites.

official drivers executable file does exist despite not being available for download from mobo makers webpage (the ASUS B85M variant is probably an exception)

There are official (non-modded) Nvidia drivers which properly support GTX 970 and GTX 980 cards under WinXP.

More info can be found in this MSFN thread.

yes, on gtx980 launch day drivers for XP were released, probably a few driver updates after that too, but at some point for some reason they decided to delist them from their site and only leave the 750ti/gtx960 with XP drivers, I wonder why