I'm just finishing up a build for XP. Asus Gyphon Z87 and a I7 4770k. I'm just waiting for the GTX 780ti to turn up I picked up off eBay (Hopefully tomorrow). I've installed XP SP3 32-bit on it. Never intended to build this machine but its turning out quite nice and should rip through XP stuff. Just need to pick up a PCI-E X-Fi card and it will be complete. Will also install Win 7 on it at some point.

Sigtryggr wrote on 2023-12-03, 19:58:

I keep seeing references here to X58 and x79, but, quite honestly, I don't know exactly what they mean. My research is telling me that they're references to Intel chipsets that are older than either Sandy or Ivy Bridge, so, being older, can either chipset accommodate SATA III SSDs?

These are Intel's "High End Desktop" chipsets, basically what AMD Threadripper motherboards are today. X79 chipset is the HEDT chipset for Sandy and Ivy Bridge cpus, while P67 / Z68 / Z77 were the "mainstream" high end chipsets. P67 / Z68 / Z77 motherboards have socket LGA 1155 that can take up to 4-core cpus like the i7-2600K and i7-3770K, and dual channel ram, while X79 uses the larger LGA 2011 socket that can take 6-core i7s and up to 12-core Xeon E5 CPUs, as well as quad-channel ram. X58 is the previous generation HEDT chipset for the Nehalem CPUs like the i7-980X. The Asus P9X79 WS motherboard Im currently using is exactly that, X79 chipset HEDT board, with Xeon E5-1680v2 cpu, which is 8core 16 thread Ivy Bridge cpu unlocked for overclocking, so its twice the cpu that i7-3770K is

p.s.

Sigtryggr wrote on 2023-12-03, 19:58:

As it was rather difficult to get the system I just described to work with a SATA III SSD, I was assuming that older Intel hardware doesn't work with SSDs... and please feel free to take a Win '98 era PC builder to Windows XP school. I'm here to learn.

I don't know why you had issues with your SSD, you said your sata ports were damaged so that might have something to do with it. SATA SSDs usually just work on any old motherboard, people have been using them for their windows 95/98 PCs for a while now. I personally dislike using SSDs for anything prior to Vista since older OSes do not support the TRIM feature on the SSDs so the lifespan is probably shortened, but with how cheap and ubiqutous they are getting I guess most people just don't care and use them anyways

GodsPetMonkey wrote on 2023-12-03, 05:18:

I've had no issues with Intel's AHCI controller on my X79 WinXP system, God of Gaming's experience shows your mileage may vary.

@GodsPetMonkey were you able to find winXP 32bit AHCI drivers for the intel x79 sata controller? I looked everywhere and only found winXP 64bit drivers, and 32bit drivers for Vista and up. So I am running my whole intel sata controller in IDE mode and have just slow 4tb hard drives for storage connected to those ports, while my high performing wd velociraptor and samsung 840 pro drives where I have winXP and win7 installed to boot from, I have on the sata ports going to the marvel controller, which does have winXP 32bit ahci drivers, however Im sure its not as performant as the intel controller

So, since this thread seems to be all Intel stuff, what about AMD? what are the newest officially supported AMD platforms? As it just so happens ive got my hands on a LOT of AMD AM2, AM3 and AM3+ boards. some with some decent specs for the time. and ive a few Athlon II's, Phenom, Phenom II and FX 4, 6 and 8 core CPU's.. and the associated ram, gpu's etc. was wondering which was the last chipset with XP drivers, and supported all the hardware on it.

Sigtryggr wrote on 2023-12-03, 07:33:

Cheers to you for the post, @GodsPetMonkey!

Bearing in mind that the PC I mentioned in the OP is the first PC I've built in over 20 years, would you mind elaborating on what an "X58" and an "X79" is? I'm assuming that they're Intel chipsets, but would you kindly give me an example of a good mobo for each of these chipset series?

God of Gaming covered it well - X58 and X79 boards tended to target either workstation buyers, cashed up high-end PC users and overclocking nuts. X79 for example is the chipset (and is the HEDT equivalent to Z77). The platforms came with a premium cost, and generally that meant good quality boards with good quality components. Given how old everything with proper XP support is, that's going to be a big plus. For a production system where the users don't want downtime, you're better bet would be going for workstation focus/marketed components and probably steering clear of overclocking enthusiast gear; nothing wrong with the overclocking boards (they are well made units), but you don't know how hard it's been driven. Workstation gear is far more likely to have been left stock and well within safe voltages/temperatures.

For X58 (LGA 1366), I own a Asus P6T Deluxe V2. Very solid board. Most boards from the major manufacturers (ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI... I'd probably avoid Asrock as X58's time was when they were in the middle of their transition out of cheap-and-whacky). You can also look for anything in Asus's 'WS' line (WS will be in the board name) as these were their workstation focused motherboards.
For X79 (LGA 2011), I own an Asus Rampage IV, which is an overclocking focused board (and a very good one). Again, the majors are fine, though my personal experience is that Gigabyte was less reliable in the Sandy/Ivy Bridge and Haswell eras. On the other hand, Asrock became a solid choice. Again, Asus 'WS' boards make it easy to find their workstation line.

All take DDR3. If you are using a Xeon in X58 or X79 (and you should... way more options with more cores and much more cache than i7s) you can use ECC DDR3, which is both cheap and... well... ECC, which may be important to you.

SATA3 drives should be backwards compatible with SATA2 controllers (unless it's a really crappy controller/chipset... which isn't the case for any Intel chipset we are looking at here). If the increased speed of SATA3 is absolutely a requirement, I'd suggest you look for a SATA3 PCI-E add-in card that has known good Windows XP drivers. That frees you up as far as a motherboard is concerned, and gives you more flexibility.

If X79 is too expensive or hard to get. I also suggest HP Z420. Also is a HEDT ivy bridge socket 2011 and I can confirm works with registered ECC memory and have XP drivers as well. Also works very well with 7 and 10. Short list of processors for these 2011 CPUs can go 4GHz single thread.

Xeon E5-1660 v2 6 cores.
Xeon E5-2687W v2 8 cores.
Xeon E5-2667 v2 8 cores.
Xeon E5-2673 v2 8 cores.

There are few handful that can do 3.9GHz single threaded.

Cheers,

Maybe I'm using the wrong benchmarks, but certainly, say, Geekbench suggests a big huge improvement in single-core performance between a Nehalem Xeon and an Ivy Bridge. Geekbench has a X5670 at around 500 in single-core, while an i5-3570k tends to be in the high-600s.

Among my vintage machines is a 2010 Mac Pro with 2x6 core Xeons, that's an X58 I believe, and that machine just feels like... the computer equivalent of a diesel locomotive. Unless the OP's application is really heavily multithreaded, I think the OP would be better off with the better single-core performance on Ivy Bridge.

pentiumspeed wrote on 2023-12-04, 00:14:

If X79 is too expensive or hard to get. I also suggest HP Z420. Also is a HEDT ivy bridge socket 2011 and I can confirm wor […]
Show full quote

If X79 is too expensive or hard to get. I also suggest HP Z420. Also is a HEDT ivy bridge socket 2011 and I can confirm works with registered ECC memory and have XP drivers as well. Also works very well with 7 and 10. Short list of processors for these 2011 CPUs can go 4GHz single thread.

Xeon E5-1660 v2 6 cores.
Xeon E5-2687W v2 8 cores.
Xeon E5-2667 v2 8 cores.
Xeon E5-2673 v2 8 cores.

There are few handful that can do 3.9GHz single threaded.

Cheers,

My E5-1680 v2 runs 4.0 ghz on all 8 cores at less than 1.2v vcore 😉 The wonders of OC 😀 However even such a mild oc (Ive heard of people doing 4.4-4.5 on this cpu) the power draw still jumped from 130 to 180 watt under prime95, and temps near 80C during summer on a NH-U14S

p.s. my gtx980 is severely cpu bottlenecked in most if not all winXP era games, where I see one cpu thread at 100%, another at maybe 30-40%, the rest idling, and gpu at sub-40% utilization, common sight with winXP games. I feel like the gtx980 is wasted for winXP, probably a cheaper and more efficient gtx960 or maybe even 750ti will be more suitable, if I werent dualbooting win7, Im betting (retro) game framerates wont be too different with such performance metrics

CwF wrote on 2023-12-03, 18:24:

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-12-03, 17:58:

Personally I perfer a system with all the drivers and I dont consider systems unless it can do that, otherwise I would have it on the latest i7 system blah blah blah.

As I said, my X8 came up free of any missing device drivers first run. It has a single 5520 chipset with 2 banks of numa and fancy many-way QPI, all things I would think are beyond XP but are not. First I tested installs on a X8DTH with dual 5520 chipsets, a monster of a board. I dialed in full support after a few attempts, then intentionally downsized to the X8DTi. It's rock solid. The ECC memory beyond ~3.2GB is useful. It's all good.

The 5520 is basically a bigger X58

I would expect that from that board though, it is well within the XP time frame of use.

Sigtryggr wrote on 2023-12-03, 19:58:

Cheers to everyone who's posted to this informative thread!

I keep seeing references here to X58 and x79, but, quite honestly, I don't know exactly what they mean. My research is telling me that they're references to Intel chipsets that are older than either Sandy or Ivy Bridge, so, being older, can either chipset accommodate SATA III SSDs?

Bear in mind that the "wounded" mobo I managed to get Win XP Pro SP3 x86 to function on is an ASRock Z68 Pro3-M (Sandy Bridge chipset) with a Core i3-2105 CPU installed (Sandy Bridge CPU). As it was rather difficult to get the system I just described to work with a SATA III SSD, I was assuming that older Intel hardware doesn't work with SSDs... and please feel free to take a Win '98 era PC builder to Windows XP school. I'm here to learn.

This article on wikipedia just about sums it all up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_X79

Can I ask if this audio software have any gubbins to go with it? I mean does it need a specific sound card?
Does this XP system need to have a 32bit PCI slot to mount the sound card to, or is it USB or PCIe? Or is it purely software based? In which case just are just looking for the latest hardware that can run XP?

Cerberus73 wrote on 2023-12-03, 23:15:

So, since this thread seems to be all Intel stuff, what about AMD? what are the newest officially supported AMD platforms? As it just so happens ive got my hands on a LOT of AMD AM2, AM3 and AM3+ boards. some with some decent specs for the time. and ive a few Athlon II's, Phenom, Phenom II and FX 4, 6 and 8 core CPU's.. and the associated ram, gpu's etc. was wondering which was the last chipset with XP drivers, and supported all the hardware on it.

I believe it's the AM3+ 970 that's the last officially supported platform. Most talk will be for Intel as this was the pre-Ryzen dark days for AMD. AMD was pushing high core counts, but even then they couldn't keep up with Intel's quad cores. It wasn't until Ryzen that AMD put pressure on Intel, and Zen 2 is what really push Intel to move beyond quad cores which was the max on the mainstream processors for over a decade from them.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-12-04, 00:33:

This article on wikipedia just about sums it all up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_X79 […]
Show full quote

Sigtryggr wrote on 2023-12-03, 19:58:

Cheers to everyone who's posted to this informative thread!

I keep seeing references here to X58 and x79, but, quite honestly, I don't know exactly what they mean. My research is telling me that they're references to Intel chipsets that are older than either Sandy or Ivy Bridge, so, being older, can either chipset accommodate SATA III SSDs?

Bear in mind that the "wounded" mobo I managed to get Win XP Pro SP3 x86 to function on is an ASRock Z68 Pro3-M (Sandy Bridge chipset) with a Core i3-2105 CPU installed (Sandy Bridge CPU). As it was rather difficult to get the system I just described to work with a SATA III SSD, I was assuming that older Intel hardware doesn't work with SSDs... and please feel free to take a Win '98 era PC builder to Windows XP school. I'm here to learn.

This article on wikipedia just about sums it all up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_X79

Can I ask if this audio software have any gubbins to go with it? I mean does it need a specific sound card?
Does this XP system need to have a 32bit PCI slot to mount the sound card to, or is it USB or PCIe? Or is it purely software based? In which case just are just looking for the latest hardware that can run XP?

Good points ! We need to focus on the needs: fully XP x86 compatible, functional SATA3, and a specific XP x86 audio app plus most likely a sound card to work.
With this statement "ASRock Z68 Pro3-M.....the problem is that this mobo came to me with one of the SATA III sockets ripped off of the board." which could be part why you had some issues (why was it knocked off? board damage?)
So what brand, size, etc SSD are you considering ? I would stick with WD or Samsung just because those I have used with no issues.

mattw wrote on 2023-12-03, 21:16:

I am using H87-based motherboard with i7-4990 CPU - everything is supported in XP and there are drivers, but 8-series chipset removed the PCI support. So, if you want good PCI support then Intel 7-series chipset based motherboard makes more sense.

Hi MattW ~

It's certainly not a bad thing, but you've introduced some more Intelian into the discussion that I do not capire (understand). Let me explain ... To this point, I've managed to learn that the damaged ASRock Z68 Pro3-M mobo - w/ Core i3-2105 CPU - that I managed to load Win XP Pro SP3 onto a SP A55 SATA III SSD with is a Sandy Bridge mobo running via a Sandy Bridge CPU. It might just be functional for the Win XP audio authoring software, that I mentioned early on in the thread, but I would really like to have more that one SSD in the system, so I have a strong desire to find another board that will play nicely with Win XP Pro SP3 and more than one SATA III SSD - before I take up any of the audio engineer's [valuable] time...but I digress.

In the quote above, you mentioned an 8-series chipset and a 7-series chipset. Please pardon the lack of Intel-ligence that comes from not building a PC in more than two decades, but how does one determine which intel "series" is which? Some of the mobos discussed herein are Z68, B75 and X77. Is it the "6" or the "7" in these chipset names that identifies the Intel series?

NOTE: The ASRock Z68 mobo and the Core i3-2105 CPU (mentioned above) were both given to me by a good friend to facilitate getting back into PCs again, so, in my mind, it would be pretty rude to ask for details about the damaged SATA III socket on the PCB. Whatever happened, there are pins missing, so that socket is history for all intents and purposes.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-12-04, 00:33:

This article on wikipedia just about sums it all up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_X79 […]
Show full quote

This article on wikipedia just about sums it all up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_X79

Can I ask if this audio software have any gubbins to go with it? I mean does it need a specific sound card?
Does this XP system need to have a 32bit PCI slot to mount the sound card to, or is it USB or PCIe? Or is it purely software based? In which case just are just looking for the latest hardware that can run XP?

Hi ElectroSoldier !

In the Intel X79 article you linked the thread to, there is a section that looks like this:

==================================================================================================

Partial support for Windows XP

The X79 chipset does not support installing Windows XP in AHCI mode for Intel's Serial ATA controllers as Intel won't release AHCI drivers for 32-bit Windows XP.[7] Windows XP can be installed in IDE mode but without SATA features enabled. For users that dual boot Windows XP with another operating system installed in AHCI mode, this means changing to IDE mode every time to boot into Windows XP and changing back to SATA to boot the other OS, or installing the other OS which supports AHCI also in IDE mode to prevent switching the setting in the BIOS each time. This restriction applies only to 32-bit Windows XP; 64-bit Windows XP is supported by Intel drivers.

For motherboards with X79 chipset but with third party SATA disk controllers, 32-bit Windows XP AHCI drivers may still be supported by the disk controller vendor (non-Intel)...end of Wiki excerpt.

===================================================================================================

Has this changed? Has Intel since decided to issue AHCI drivers for 32-bit Win XP (x86)?

Please don't let the word "audio" in audio authoring software throw you off. The ideal is to use the software to "author" multichannel audio to storage media - I.E. DVD or BD media. Sure, in the end, the audio [and a bit of video in certain cases] is the reason this is being done, but utilizing the legacy machine for anything more that crude two-channel (2.0) playback is not necessary. In other words, if we can find a player that can playback digital audio (i.e., FLAC) - even if it's through a simple pair of computer speakers - that would be desirable. I was thinking that most of the mobos being discussed have an audio processing chip of some sort onboard. Is that not so?

Horun wrote on 2023-12-04, 03:24:

Good points ! We need to focus on the needs: fully XP x86 compatible, functional SATA3, and a specific XP x86 audio app plus most likely a sound card to work.
With this statement "ASRock Z68 Pro3-M.....the problem is that this mobo came to me with one of the SATA III sockets ripped off of the board." which could be part why you had some issues (why was it knocked off? board damage?)
So what brand, size, etc SSD are you considering ? I would stick with WD or Samsung just because those I have used with no issues.

Hi again Horun ~

I tried to cover this in my last post, but, assuming that the mobos being discussed in this thread have some sort of simple stereo (2.0) audio chip installed, we can get by with a simple pair of computer speakers for crude/simple playback - not for audio quality testing. If not, we can still get by. In short, it's the physical audio media that the project revolves around.

Also, having USB 3.0 for the large multichannel (MC) audio files involved would be highly-desirable as well. NOTE: some of the individual MC audio tracks can exceed 700MB in size. Now think about the size of an entire album.

As for the damaged SATA III socket, the board was gifted to me by a good friend, so I'm asking no questions about the damage. The important thing here is that there are missing pins that used to pass through the plastic socket/connector, so that second SATA III connector is history. The rest of the mobo is physically intact.

As I've gotten a lot of great input via this thread, I really don't mean to muddy the water ... but, as I research a new mobo, I've kind of gravitated toward either a dual-boot Win XP/Win 7 system or a dual storage drive system with Win XP on one SSD and Win 7 on the other ... and, yes, most of our drives are either WD or Samsung. Considering the size of the MC audio files involved, I'm thinking that 1TB would be a desirable minimum size.

The latest hardware for XP is whatever you can install it on, as long as you have expansion cards that can make up for unsupported motherboard devices.

The advantage you have with XP as opposed to Windows 9x is that it survived well into the PCIe era, so it knows about PCIe based system architectures, whereas 9x will choke and die on any expansion cards that aren't ISA or PCI and made prior to 2003-ish, due to lack of driver support.

Of course, there are quirks and limitations, such as having to slipstream SATA drivers, using a compatible video card and sound card, and questions such as... can it use an NVMe drive? (probably not). But it will be a functional 32-bit multi-core OS as long as you install it on an x86 compatible system.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2023-12-04, 05:44:

whereas 9x will choke and die on any expansion cards that aren't ISA or PCI and made prior to 2003-ish, due to lack of driver support.

Not strictly true. If the drivers can recognize PCIe graphics cards, they will work properly under Win9x.

I currently have a PCIe Radeon X800 running on 98SE using ATi Catalyst 6.2 drivers. Previously, I tried a PCIe GeForce 6600 GT with Nvidia's 77.72 drivers, and it worked fine too. BTW, you get full performance out of those cards, same as you would under WinXP.

If you're curious, Phil has a video where he shows how to install a PCIe Radeon X850 under Win98.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2023-12-04, 05:44:

The advantage you have with XP as opposed to Windows 9x is that it survived well into the PCIe era, so it knows about PCIe based system architectures, whereas 9x will choke and die on any expansion cards that aren't ISA or PCI and made prior to 2003-ish, due to lack of driver support.

Not true, A Radeon X800 or NVIDIA 6000 series pci-e graphics card will work just fine in Windows 98. Driver support for 98 was dropped after catalyst 6.2 and forceware 81.98 respectively.

@Sigtryggr

Here are the most recent community supported drivers for XP. Includes ACPI, AHCI, NVMe and USB 3.0

https://uploadnow.io/files/Znf4xh2

Few thoughts :
1) Not sure why nobody mentioned Windows XP REMOVED?
This is modified windows XP with most drivers and updates pre-attached and should be hassle free up to Haswell/LGA 1150 on Mainstream and X79/LGA 2011 on HEDT.
Link to REMOVED
2) Using WinXP with AHCI capable motherboards/add-in cards requires a seperate driver to be provided during installation (F6 key) via floppy disk, or preparing your own installation package with them "baked-in" (via nLite utility for example).
Floppy requirement can be somewhat bypassed with Floppy to USB adapter (example : LINK and with possible GOTEK as alternative to actual Floppy drive.
To install non-modified WinXP on systems without floppy support - IDE mode is required.
3) I'd use LGA1366 or X58 platform, unless your software requires more single thread performance (or smaller footprint). Also, you can add USB3 5Gbps support via PCI-e add-in card later on (needs Windows XP support).
4) Link to list of Windows XP drivers :
SATA/AHCI - LINK

There are always some quirks to figure out (especially on newer platforms), but try to install REMOVED on your damaged board and see how it goes.
You can pick what additional stuff you require using included patch integration utility.

Sigtryggr wrote on 2023-12-04, 05:13:

Hi ElectroSoldier ! […]
Show full quote

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-12-04, 00:33:

This article on wikipedia just about sums it all up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_X79 […]
Show full quote

This article on wikipedia just about sums it all up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_X79

Can I ask if this audio software have any gubbins to go with it? I mean does it need a specific sound card?
Does this XP system need to have a 32bit PCI slot to mount the sound card to, or is it USB or PCIe? Or is it purely software based? In which case just are just looking for the latest hardware that can run XP?

Hi ElectroSoldier !

In the Intel X79 article you linked the thread to, there is a section that looks like this:

==================================================================================================

Partial support for Windows XP

The X79 chipset does not support installing Windows XP in AHCI mode for Intel's Serial ATA controllers as Intel won't release AHCI drivers for 32-bit Windows XP.[7] Windows XP can be installed in IDE mode but without SATA features enabled. For users that dual boot Windows XP with another operating system installed in AHCI mode, this means changing to IDE mode every time to boot into Windows XP and changing back to SATA to boot the other OS, or installing the other OS which supports AHCI also in IDE mode to prevent switching the setting in the BIOS each time. This restriction applies only to 32-bit Windows XP; 64-bit Windows XP is supported by Intel drivers.

For motherboards with X79 chipset but with third party SATA disk controllers, 32-bit Windows XP AHCI drivers may still be supported by the disk controller vendor (non-Intel)...end of Wiki excerpt.

===================================================================================================

Has this changed? Has Intel since decided to issue AHCI drivers for 32-bit Win XP (x86)?

Please don't let the word "audio" in audio authoring software throw you off. The ideal is to use the software to "author" multichannel audio to storage media - I.E. DVD or BD media. Sure, in the end, the audio [and a bit of video in certain cases] is the reason this is being done, but utilizing the legacy machine for anything more that crude two-channel (2.0) playback is not necessary. In other words, if we can find a player that can playback digital audio (i.e., FLAC) - even if it's through a simple pair of computer speakers - that would be desirable. I was thinking that most of the mobos being discussed have an audio processing chip of some sort onboard. Is that not so?

Ive never actually tried it.
The guys on here have never been able to say that they have actually tried it either so I dont know.
I do know that the Q85 chipset has AHCI drivers for Windows XP, but that is 4th gen Haswell not 3rd gen Ivy Bridge, which is what these guys are directing you towards.

If all you really want to do is edit music files on a powerful Windows XP machine then I think you need to look at one of the little 1 litre PCs from HP, Dell or Lenovo.
I prefer the HP ProDesk and EliteDesk machines myself and I can tell you that Windows XP SP3 does work with complete drivers on an HP ProDesk 600 G1 DM. That has a i5-4590T wih 8Gb RAM (uses just under 4Gb of it) and a 256Gb SATA III SSD.
As soon as I get some new thermal paste as I left the cap off the syringe I did have, I will get the cooler off and see if I can get XP to install onto an M.2 SSD.

Sigtryggr wrote on 2023-12-04, 04:44:

Hi MattW ~ .... I take up any of the audio engineer's [valuable] time...but I digress. .... Is it the "6" or the "7" in these […]
Show full quote

Hi MattW ~
....
I take up any of the audio engineer's [valuable] time...but I digress.
....
Is it the "6" or the "7" in these chipset names that identifies the Intel series?
....

I read only the title of the discussion and said my experience, i.e. I don't really know your specific requirements.

So, yes, chipsets like X68 are 6th series, chipsets like H87 are 8th series. So, 7th series was the latest officially supported in WinXP by Intel, 8th series was initially supported, when I bought my 1st 8th series motherboard - I still remember the day, not the exact date, but how angry I was at Intel, here is the story: I bought my 1st 8th series motherboard "ASRock H87 Pro4", did some test installations, all the WinXP drivers were available on the Intel website, then only few days later, when after all the experiment I wanted to do my final and clean installation, Intel pulled down all WinXP drivers for the 8th series from their website - I was lucky at the time I had copies of the files downloaded only few days before that and Intel did it under pressure from Microsoft, i.e. purely artificially made their 8th series without WinXP support, when they already were developed such support.

Anyway, currently, I am using WinXP on 8th series Q87-based motherboard, because it has 4x PCI slots - I have a lot of old high-end audio cards that are all PCI and 4x PCI boards in that i7-4990 system and WinXP SP3 is working perfect for me (I really enjoy how fast is WinXP on i7-4990 and using SSD drive). however, for retro PCI video cards using 8th series is not the best (it's using additional PCI-to-PCIe bridge), because native PCI support was removed and then 7th series or older is needed, which have native PCI support.

BTW, in my 8th series system running WinXP, I have even 256GB of AHCI M2 fast solid-state installed in the PCIe slot, 8th series supports even that, not just regular SATA. it doesn't support PCIe NVMe thought (only PCIe AHCI M2). PCIe NVMe is supported by the 9th series or newer. I even think people with some hacks are able to install WinXP on newer systems, i.e. 9th series and above, but it's much harder, because with 8th series, you can still find the drivers that Intel deleted, i.e. it is still, you can say, unofficially -officially-supported and thus it's very easy to install and use WinXP on it.