I have an 'ultimate' 32-bit XP built. It's designed to be as fast as possible while also retaining as much compatibility as possible.

Main specs are:

CPU: i7-3770k CPU
MB: Asus P8Z68-V Pro/Gen 3 motherboard
GPU: eVGA GeForce GTX 980Ti
RAM: 2x2GB DDR3 (4GB total)
Sound card: Creative Labs X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion
Power Supply: Seasonic 750W Prime 80 Plus Gold

More details are available in this thread: Ultimate Windows XP Build (Intel i7-3770k / GTX 980Ti / 24" Asus ProArt display / X-Fi Titanium)

Admittedly this system is overkill for most 32-bit XP gaming (especially the GPU), but I wanted to see how fast a system it was possible to build for 32-bit XP.

I've tested it with over 50 games now and other than three games, everything else has worked fine. Mostly I use it with games I've bought from GOG, plus a handful of CD/DVD installed games.

The only games that haven't worked were the GOG versions of Rainbow Six and Bioshock 2, and the CD version of SimTower.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-03-17, 21:17:

I have an 'ultimate' 32-bit XP built. It's designed to be as fast as possible while also retaining as much compatibility as poss […]
Show full quote

I have an 'ultimate' 32-bit XP built. It's designed to be as fast as possible while also retaining as much compatibility as possible.

Main specs are:

CPU: i7-3770k CPU
MB: Asus P8Z68-V Pro/Gen 3 motherboard
GPU: eVGA GeForce GTX 980Ti
RAM: 2x2GB DDR3 (4GB total)
Sound card: Creative Labs X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion
Power Supply: Seasonic 750W Prime 80 Plus Gold

More details are available in this thread: Ultimate Windows XP Build (Intel i7-3770k / GTX 980Ti / 24" Asus ProArt display / X-Fi Titanium)

Admittedly this system is overkill for most 32-bit XP gaming (especially the GPU), but I wanted to see how fast a system it was possible to build for 32-bit XP.

I've tested it with over 50 games now and other than three games, everything else has worked fine. Mostly I use it with games I've bought from GOG, plus a handful of CD/DVD installed games.

The only games that haven't worked were the GOG versions of Rainbow Six and Bioshock 2, and the CD version of SimTower.

Hi again <3

Is the E8600 superior to your old i7-3770k? Is this, paired with a GTX 980Ti, as far as I can go in terms of performance on 32-bit Windows?

I really love your build. Its amazing!

Killermac wrote on 2023-03-17, 21:43:

Is the E8600 superior to your old i7-3770k?

I'm assuming the E8600 you're talking about is Intel Core 2 Duo E8600, released in 2008 under 45nm lithography with clock speed of 3.33 GHz.

i7-3770K, OTOH, was released in 2012 -- four years later -- with 22nm lithography and 3.90 GHz (max). Their CPU-Z 2017.1 scores are 553 and 1852, respectively.

Killermac wrote on 2023-03-17, 21:43:

Hi again <3

Is the E8600 superior to your old i7-3770k? Is this, paired with a GTX 980Ti, as far as I can go in terms of performance on 32-bit Windows?

I really love your build. Its amazing!

Thanks!

The i7-3770k is superior to the E8600 processor.

As I understand it, it is possible to use even faster processors (e.g. i7-4790k) with 32-bit XP, but I believe it increases the challenges with drivers and compatibility. But there's also not much point in pushing performance since you'll start running to other bottlenecks like RAM and other 32-bit architecture limitations. By the time you get to a i7-4790k / GeForce 980Ti system, you might as well be running Windows 7 (64-bit).

The system I have comfortability runs games from 2007/2008 at 75+ FPS (1920x1200 resolution). So for the XP era of gaming (early to mid 2000's), it's perfectly suited, if a bit overkill.

Killermac wrote on 2023-03-17, 20:34:

After some considerations in my previous topic, the idea of ​​having a Windows XP 32-bit computer for legacy gaming is easier to get. What is the most I can have in terms of hardware within these OS limitations?

And by the way, I've read about some tweaks regarding the RAM limitation of Windows 32-bit, where apparently you use CPU memory, but I don't understand if doing this can overcome the 4GB limitation of the operating system. Could someone explain this to me in more detail?

Thanks.

You can use a Haswell based system (search 9.4.0.1027 drivers) with XP and PAE to get more than 4GB RAM (although Im not aware of any XP-era programs actually needing that much). Unofficially you can mod nvidia's latest XP drivers to allow for a 980 Ti but the most powerful card that runs with it officially is a Titan Black (or 780 Ti).

Add a (real) Sound Blaster XFI for EAX 5.0 capability and you've got a hell of an XP rig (and even a pretty decent Win10 rig if you opt for 8/16gb RAM)

^Running multiple VMs simultaneously in Virtual PC 2007 on an XP host eats up memory very quickly.

my WinXP system is 8th generation Intel chipset with I7-4990 CPU - everything is working including onboard LAN and Intel HD4600 graphics card build-in the CPU. I think that is the latest officially supported.

I use an i7-4790k to dual boot XP and Windows 7 on a H97 motherboard, 16GB of DDR3 (4GB usable in XP), GTX 960 (I'm letting my son use my GTX 980 Ti), Blu-ray and DVD burners, SSDs, and an X-Fi Titanium.

I slipstreamed the drivers, Service Pack, and updates on a custom install CD. The only issue is the motherboard's on-board USB 3.0 and LAN don't have XP drivers. I don't care about USB 3.0, and I use a PCIe gigabit network adapter (RTL 8111) instead.

Newer systems are a bit hit-or-miss due to their ACPI implementations. The 90-series boards are the latest almost guaranteed to work for Intel platforms as far as I know. A Z97 board would allow you to overclock Haswell processors like the i7-4790k, but they don't have a lot of extra thermal headroom.

Get an HP z800 with Dual Xeons ( 12-cores, 24 threads ) and 64gb Memory.
HP Fully Supports WinXP on this computer and provides drivers.
Nvidia GTX 960.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2023-03-18, 00:55:

Get an HP z800 with Dual Xeons ( 12-cores, 24 threads ) and 64gb Memory.
HP Fully Supports WinXP on this computer and provides drivers.
Nvidia GTX 960.

Sorry, but no... don't do this. Why would you want a really power hungry system with 24 slower Westmere threads and 64GB of RAM for 32bit XP gaming? This seems like the exact opposite of what someone would want for this use case. A Core2 Duo or Quad running at 3Ghz would probably be comparable or faster without the excessive heat or power consumption. Being a ~2009 model HP, it is also far from the latest system that will run XP. Also, 4GB of RAM would be plenty. Anything that needs more than that should just run in a 64bit OS and likely works fine in Windows 10 on modern hardware. For what it's worth, my current system with a 3060 Ti and 5800X3D is quite happy with 16GB of RAM still. 😀

The simplest and cheapest bang-for-the-buck XP system will be a Quad core Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge based Lenovo or Dell workstation that uses standard power supplies and has room for large GPUs. This will basically eliminate any CPU bottleneck in older games while being very efficient and easy to set up. I think you'll find drivers for most of the required hardware too since these machines were made within XPs support lifetime.

Hi everyone! So, things started to happen and I have some updates.

I've already started shopping for parts for my Windows XP computer, following the directions you gave me in this and last post. My idea has changed a bit, and I'm going to dual boot this machine. I've found that while I enjoy playing World of Warcraft Classic and one or two fairly light online games (MU ONLINE and WYD), I'm content with just playing the retro games on Windows XP while using the same computer for studying, booting on Windows 10. (Not sure if a i7-3770k paired with a 980ti can run WoW Classic, but assuming the worse, it's okay)

The problem I ended up finding now is exactly about this 3770k: it's impossible to find it in reliable sources in the country where I live. Here, in Brazil, in the biggest hardware stores it is out of stock and the few smaller stores that have it have a terrible rating, so i can't trust them.

On the other hand, I found an i7-3770. Not the "K" version. I don't think it's at an acceptable price, because a 3770k in Brazil costs around R$600, which would be $120 at today's exchange rate (things in my country are extremely expensive, you wouldn't believe it), and this 3770 version is costing R$500 ($100). But still, I'm willing to buy it.

What I would like to ask you is: would it still run heavy Windows XP games, like Oblivion, even though it is not the "K" version? I know that the difference between a conventional version and the "K" is the overclocking, but to be honest, I'm so completely new to it that I don't even know how to overclock it. I've had a machine for eight years now, an i5 7600k, and I don't believe it's been overclocked ever unless it comes from the factory.

Killermac wrote on 2023-04-12, 04:37:

Hi everyone! So, things started to happen and I have some updates. […]
Show full quote

Hi everyone! So, things started to happen and I have some updates.

I've already started shopping for parts for my Windows XP computer, following the directions you gave me in this and last post. My idea has changed a bit, and I'm going to dual boot this machine. I've found that while I enjoy playing World of Warcraft Classic and one or two fairly light online games (MU ONLINE and WYD), I'm content with just playing the retro games on Windows XP while using the same computer for studying, booting on Windows 10. (Not sure if a i7-3770k paired with a 980ti can run WoW Classic, but assuming the worse, it's okay)

The problem I ended up finding now is exactly about this 3770k: it's impossible to find it in reliable sources in the country where I live. Here, in Brazil, in the biggest hardware stores it is out of stock and the few smaller stores that have it have a terrible rating, so i can't trust them.

On the other hand, I found an i7-3770. Not the "K" version. I don't think it's at an acceptable price, because a 3770k in Brazil costs around R$600, which would be $120 at today's exchange rate (things in my country are extremely expensive, you wouldn't believe it), and this 3770 version is costing R$500 ($100). But still, I'm willing to buy it.

What I would like to ask you is: would it still run heavy Windows XP games, like Oblivion, even though it is not the "K" version? I know that the difference between a conventional version and the "K" is the overclocking, but to be honest, I'm so completely new to it that I don't even know how to overclock it. I've had a machine for eight years now, an i5 7600k, and I don't believe it's been overclocked ever unless it comes from the factory.

Absolutely, a 3770 non-K is still an extremely fast CPU for XP games. Matched with a GTX 970\980\980Ti it would get you very near the fastest XP performance possible while providing plenty of performance for more modern stuff too (within reason of course).

Killermac wrote on 2023-04-12, 04:37:

What I would like to ask you is: would it still run heavy Windows XP games, like Oblivion, even though it is not the "K" version? I know that the difference between a conventional version and the "K" is the overclocking, but to be honest, I'm so completely new to it that I don't even know how to overclock it. I've had a machine for eight years now, an i5 7600k, and I don't believe it's been overclocked ever unless it comes from the factory.

The only difference between K and non-K i7-3770 is the overclocking and the K variant has 100MHz faster base clock while having the exactly same boost clocks as the non-K. That is to say you will not notice the difference ever, they are identical in practice.

And you have zero need to overclock it as they both utterly crush late XP games, hell you could play anything with i7-3770 / GTX 980 Ti at max settings up to 2015 or so. Also I'm 99.9% certain WoW Classic will run just fine, I played it with Intel Xeon E3-1230 v3 which is basically a i7-4770 and had zero issues. Though i didn't take part in any raids during that time.

I don't know how feasable it is to use eBay in Brazil but there's plenty of i7-3770 for sale there around $40 if you look past the usual ludicrously overpriced eBay specials. $40 is still not super cheap, for some reason the i7's are really pricy. I've been trying to find a reasonable priced i7-3770T a good while now, no luck. They seem to sell really fast even around $65 which is just madness to me.

And I just bought it! I'm so excited! Thanks a lot for answering me! =]

@Sombrero I found an i7-3770S for 16 dollars less than the conventional version. Are things that expensive in your country too? (Sorry, I didn't learned how to quote here yet)

Now there are four questions left, three of which are hardware related, and one is about the monitor but this last I'll leave for later as I found a new LG Flatron EZ T710SH and ended up buying it very cheaply. The person who sold it to me was a very kind gentleman who ended up being the owner of the largest network of Internet cafes here in Brazil (he hosted Blizzard's Warcraft 3 championships and everything else). Along with the monitor, I bought a brand new Intellimouse too, never opened!

Going back to the three hardware-related questions:

1) PSU-wise, How much W is enough for a i7-3770 paired with a GTX 980 Ti?

2) I have no idea which motherboard to buy. There are only two requirements: the first is that it needs to have 4 slots for RAM, because the idea here will be to place four sticks of 2gb, totaling 8gb (Windows XP will be 32-bit, so it will only use 4gb, but Windows 10 will have these 8 which are more than enough to play the other games and do other everyday things). The other requirement is that the case I chose (and it was a struggle until I found one I liked) was this one:

The power button is on top, so I imagine the motherboard needs to be one that is suitable for that(?)

If I'm not going to abuse your goodwill, please give me more than one motherboard option, because the hardware where I live is quite limited and hard to find.

and 3) Is four of these adequate for what I want to do? https://www.magazineluiza.com.br/memoria-ddr3 … wE&gclsrc=aw.ds

If you can't open the link, it's a Crucial 2gb 1600mhz DDR3.

The other option I have are these, but in this case they are used and although they appear to be in great condition, the owner only has two. https://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-16152 … rsair-xms-3-_JM

They are two Corsair XMS 3 1600mhz DDR3.

I cannot express how grateful I am for your help. I can't wait to post pictures of this computer assembled here.
Thank you.

Killermac wrote on 2023-03-17, 20:34:

After some considerations in my previous topic, the idea of ​​having a Windows XP 32-bit computer for legacy gaming is easier to get. What is the most I can have in terms of hardware within these OS limitations?

There were a lot of discussions about running XP on very modern hardware across some forums like MSFN and Win-Raid. You may find some very useful unofficial drivers and patches that could help with running XP.

Killermac wrote on 2023-03-17, 20:34:

And by the way, I've read about some tweaks regarding the RAM limitation of Windows 32-bit, where apparently you use CPU memory, but I don't understand if doing this can overcome the 4GB limitation of the operating system. Could someone explain this to me in more detail?

Thanks.

M$ broke PAE with XP SP2/SP3, and used this as an excuse to artificially cap all 32-bit Windows clients to 4GB from this point on. Some poorly-writen vendor drivers are also broken with PAE enabled, with some of the issues leaking into Server 2003 (which can use more than 4GB RAM with a cap varying by SKU) and even XP x64.

Daniel K made a patch that removes this limit, but from what I tested on a dual Opteron server, the maximum possible RAM for XP SP3 is 64GB, and any more RAM would result in a reboot with no BSOD. You can actually limit the amount of RAM Windows could see when using his patch.

Note that some drivers behave differently when you remove that limit.
- Creative sound cards lose EAX acceleration, even on XP x64.
- Avoid using C-Media cards (ASUS Xonar Essence ST/STX for example). The drivers BSOD outright (tested myself). Same goes to 32-bit Windows Server 2003.

I'm currently using M-Audio Audiophile 2496 (VIA ICE1712) on that particular system, whose drivers work fine under such circumstances (XP with PAE patch), and it works fine on Win7 and Linux as well.

PS (partially off-topic): Windows Server 2003 SP2 Datacenter supports up to 128GB of RAM out-of-box (confirmed on my Opteron server). However, some drivers do not cooperate at that much RAM. nVidia video card driver cannot work on 32-bit with more than 64GB of RAM (same phenomenon as XP with PAE patch), requiring a /MAXMEM parameter.

Killermac wrote on 2023-04-12, 05:49:

@Sombrero I found an i7-3770S for 16 dollars less than the conventional version. Are things that expensive in your country too? (Sorry, I didn't learned how to quote here yet)

Not really, locally I can find stuff at good prices as long I wait patiently, there isn't a huge market for retro stuff around here. That S variant is fine too, it does have slightly lower base and boost clocks but it's not something you'd notice during gameplay. For quotation use the " button on top right of the post next to the flag button.

Killermac wrote on 2023-04-12, 05:49:

1) PSU-wise, How much W is enough for a i7-3770 paired with a GTX 980 Ti?

A quality 450W PSU is enough but if you can get a 550W for around the same price go for it, it would leave a bit more breathing room.

Killermac wrote on 2023-04-12, 05:49:

The power button is on top, so I imagine the motherboard needs to be one that is suitable for that(?)

It doesn't matter at all where the button is 😀

It's just a button that has a wire attached to it, which you just plug in to the motherboard.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-03-18, 04:34:

Why would you want a really power hungry system with 24 slower Westmere threads and 64GB of RAM for 32bit XP gaming?

Well, obviously that's useless. But overclocked Westmere Xeon, paired with regular X58 motherboard can be on par or faster than 3770, due to larger L3 cache and better memory bandwidth.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2023-04-12, 08:10:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-03-18, 04:34:

Why would you want a really power hungry system with 24 slower Westmere threads and 64GB of RAM for 32bit XP gaming?

Well, obviously that's useless. But overclocked Westmere Xeon, paired with regular X58 motherboard can be on par or faster than 3770, due to larger L3 cache and better memory bandwidth.

It doesn't really surprise me that with a totally different motherboard and system configuration a Westmere chip can be overclocked to be sometimes faster than a newer stock non-K CPU with a 77w TDP.

Killermac wrote on 2023-03-17, 20:34:

After some considerations in my previous topic, the idea of ​​having a Windows XP 32-bit computer for legacy gaming is easier to get. What is the most I can have in terms of hardware within these OS limitations?

If this topic is about old legacy gaming on XP, then in my opinion, a 3770k-level CPU from 2012-13, 980ti from 2015 and more than 4GB brings nothing but problems, without giving anything in return. Not a single game of those times can use this hardware by more than, say, 30-50%, relatively speaking.

Although of course this is a very interesting challenge. What is the maximum hardware that can still run XP 32bit with driver tweaks and a hacked OS. But for gaming it doesn't make sense.