1995-2005 is a... long time. A 1995 game would probably be DOS, 2005 puts you squarely towards the middle of the Windows XP era. You've got the entire Windows 9x era in between, the entire Voodoo era, etc. And the improvement in hardware was insane - you'd have gone from 8 megs of RAM on a P90 if you were very lucky in 1995 to 2 gigs of RAM on... almost a C2D (which came out in 2006) at 2x2.4GHz in 2005.

I suspect people will recommend two machines: something late 90s that's very DOS/Win9x/etc-friendly, and then something much newer that's XP-friendly. Note that the XP-friendly system will cost you a whole lot less - a C2D/C2Q or a sandy/ivy bridge XP system is much easier to get and much cheaper than something good from the late-90s. In fact, you may even have that system lying around already - the archetypical i7-3770k (or 2600k) that's finally become obsoleteish in the last two years would make a perfect XP system.

If you wanted to do this with a single machine, I would build an Intel Core 2 or Ivy Bridge based system running 32-bit Windows XP for Windows games and then use DOSBox for DOS games. You can have a look at my Ultimate Windows XP Build for some ideas.

Otherwise you'll need at least two separate builds to cover native DOS and Windows gaming from 1995 to 2005.

1995-2005 is exactly the period that hardware and software advanced at its fastest. These days you could easily run all 10-year old software on a current machine, and with some compromises in settings you could run the vast majority of current software on a 10-year old one (yes, for Windows 11 you need to hack the TPM2.0 requirement, but that's about security, not performance), at least assuming RAM had been upgraded at some time. Let's try that with 1995 and 2005...

A 2005 system will be based on a late Pentium 4 or early Athlon64, with AGP (or even very early PCI Express) and PCI - and no ISA. It will have at least 512MB RAM, probably two or four times that. It wil run Windows XP, although Windows 98SE might still run on it - if you can find drivers for the hardware.
Now a 1995 system. Most likely it will still be a 486DX4, although it might (if you were rich) be an early Pentium. It will have ISA slots and PCI and/or VLB. No AGP let alone PCIe. It will come with 8MB RAM or 16MB if splurging. It will run MS DOS which may have Windows 3.11 as a GUI on top of it. WIndows 95 wasn't released until the end of the year and at release it was slow and buggy.

Windows XP needs at least 64MB as absolute minimum, although without service packs you needed 192MB for it to be usable, and by SP2 (what you would/should have been running in 2005) 512MB would be recommended and 1GB or more needed for a smooth experience. It would run on any Pentium CPU but not a 486. So unless you had a Pentium in 1995 and you upgraded it insanely to 64MB XP wouldn't even boot, and if it did, you could make a cup of coffee before you had a user interface, let alone were able to start a program. Forget gaming.
The other way round is only marginally better. DOS supports max 64MB RAM, which is vastly less than the smallest DIMM you could put in a 2005 system. In fact >16MB expect to have memory detection issues giving you 'out of memory' errors despite vast amounts free. This can be solved by limiting memory in CONFIG.SYS. Other challenges are bigger. DOS isn't really a full operating system that abstracts access to hardware. Apart from a number of standard calls, DOS software talks directly to hardware and does so assuming it's talking to an ISA bus. When gaming, this means that sound is a big challenge. There are no such things as 'drivers'. Games talk directly to sound cards (which is why 1990s sound cards needed hardware compatibility with things like AdLib and Sound Blaster) and does so at a specific I/O address using specific IRQ and DMA. This works fine with ISA, but is essentially incompatible with PCI. If you don't have an ISA bus, you need to try to emulate one over PCI. That can be done, but always involves compromises and where early PCI systems had a lot of workarounds for this, by 2005 such workarounds were rare and you have few choices and even they come with limitations that mean some things just won't work. And then there's speed. A lot of DOS games, particularly early or very demanding ones, were coded to use all the processing power available. That meant that your game would run better if you upgraded a little bit. But if you try to run a non-limited game designed for a Pentium 100 on a 3GHz Pentium 4, it will be utterly unplayable. Again, there are workarounds, but they have limits and don't always work.

Now, with some very special hardware you can solve some of this, but it will involve excessive cost, effort and will hardly resemble what you had back then. I'm talking about industrial systems with new(er) CPUs combined with PCI to ISA bridges, designed to allow (very) old industrial systems with proprietary ISA controllers to keep working if the ancient hardware controlling it dies and cannot be replaced anymore. These things exist, but are expensive. Also, they usually only feature PCI and ISA expension (using PICMG 1.1) and have video onboard, which will rarely be sufficient to play 2005 games. Now there also exist ATX motherboards with ISA bridges that still do have AGP/PCIe slots, but they are even rarer and more expensive. And you still have the speed issues and memory issues...

TLDR: keep it simple (and cheap), split this into a DOS system with ISA slots and CPU that is fast enough but not too fast and can be slowed down as needed (eg Via C3 for So370 or - more expensive - K6-2+ for Socket 7) and ISA sound cards (big, big rabbit hole to go down there if you want - remember, games talk directly to hardware, so different hardware can sound very different), and a WindowsXP system that can run 98SE if needed, with a 2005 CPU and nice beefy AGP card and 3D audio PCI sound card.

DOSbox is also great, although I'd just run that on whatever current system you have rather than on a legacy system. It might be a bit slow on a 2005 CPU.

If you really want 1 PC with no emulation I'd probably go with a LGA775 motherboard with AGP.
LGA 775 Motherboards with AGP Slots

This will mean a few compromises.
GPU: Officially in Win9x you can go upto a GF6, but this breaks backwards compatibility while at the same time may not be powerful enough for your 2005 games.
Table Fog & 8-bit Paletted Textures

Sound: Win 9x you want either something with A3D (Aureal Vortex 2) or EAX (Creative SB Live, Audigy, Audigy 2) All these cards do have basic dos support but it is basic.

I do have a similar PC to this (S478, GF6 Ultra, Audigy 2) and most games work but never use it as it does nothing well

Instead I find a P3 600 with an ISA slot can cover all my dos/Win9x era gaming. Once games start to struggle on that hardware typically it'll run on XP so will use my LGA 775 system with more powerful PCIe GPU then a GF6

First of all, I want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for their valuable advice and kindness! As I expected I have a lot to learn about RetroPCs.

The choice of the two systems actually seems the most sensible to me and I think I will start with a machine with Windows XP, given the lower cost to assemble it (and Shponglefan build look really cool).

Another thing I have doubts about is the type of screen: ideally I would prefer to use a CRT display, since that's what I grew up with, but I don't know if there are any disadvantages to choosing a CRT instead of an LCD screen or a more modern option. Can there be compatibility issues with CRT screens on an XP machine?

Oli-Ben wrote on 2023-12-03, 12:51:

I don't know if there are any disadvantages to choosing a CRT instead of an LCD screen or a more modern option. Can there be compatibility issues with CRT screens on an XP machine?

You won't have any problems with a CRT monitor per se, just with higher refresh rates. Some games that were made during the early to mid 2000s have issues if you run them above 60 Hz. Examples include Star Wars: KOTOR and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Of course, you can set your CRT monitor to use 60 Hz, but that looks too flickery to some people (subjective).

Anyway, the easiest monitor to set up for WinXP era gaming would be a 19" LCD screen (5:4 aspect ratio) with a native resolution of 1280x1024. Most games from the 2000s support that resolution out of the box, and those monitors usually cap out at 60 Hz. For best results, try to get one that has a DVI connection and offers a decent response time (5ms or lower).

Oli-Ben wrote on 2023-12-03, 12:51:

Another thing I have doubts about is the type of screen: ideally I would prefer to use a CRT display, since that's what I grew up with, but I don't know if there are any disadvantages to choosing a CRT instead of an LCD screen or a more modern option. Can there be compatibility issues with CRT screens on an XP machine?

A CRT monitor will work fine with Windows XP.

That said, if you're looking to play games up to around 2005, I'd recommend at least considering a 16:10 aspect ratio (widescreen) LCD. The reason is that games from the mid-2000s started being able to support widescreen resolutions.

On my own XP setup, I started with a 19" CRT, switched to a 21" 4:3 LCD, before finally settling on a 24" 16:10 LCD.

The monitor I'm using is a modern Asus ProArt PA248QV. Because it's a modern display, it offers really nice picture and doesn't have any of the wear 'n tear that can come with buying used monitors (especially CRT monitors). It also supports native switching between 4:3 and 16:10 modes, which is convenient for games that still run in 4:3.

CRTs aren't all created equal and when it comes to retro stuff, and DOS and Windows have pretty polar opposite requirements.

For Windows you want the highest pixel clock you can get and the lowest dot pitch, to let you have a high-resolution desktop (anything less than 1024x768 is painful) at a high vertical refresh (under 75Hz will give you headaches, ideally you want over 85Hz) and as sharp as possible. That generally means you want a high-end trinitron/diamondtron tube.

For DOS, most of the time you will be at 320x240 and even SVGA titles will top out at 800x600. So pixel clock isn't relevant. Sharpness actually works against you, as games basically assume a slight degree of fuzziness as a form of analog anti aliasing. A screen that's too sharp will look harsh and too much like a TFT. You would be far better off with a mid-range small-ish shadow mask tube for DOS games. Of course it will work on a high-end sharp tube, but the added value over TFT will be minimal.

I recently downgraded from a 17" Iiyama Diamondtron flatscreen CRT (yes, flat CRTs were a thing) to an older 15" Highscreen MS1570LE. Crap for Windows, but DOS games look like they're supposed to now.

So my advice: hook the 2005 system up to your regular TFT, save the CRT for the DOS machine.

An AthlonXP system with DDR RAM works well for Doom 3 (2004), and an 8x AGP card. 1080p on an LCD.

Doom 3 needs a GPU with 512MB RAM for max settings. If you have something like that, you'll max out the graphics/performance in every game prior...

Hello!

Sorry for disappearing, but I finally found a base (at least a case) for the XP PC!

This little dude was on his way to the recycling center but apart from being dirty and a little ding on the side it was fine, so I took it!

the motherboard is an ASUS A7V400-MX with an AMD Sempron CPU. From looking around it seems that the Sempron is a low budget CPU and it will get replaced, but what abou the Motherboard? Is it a good one?

In addition to this, the CD/DVD RW and the floppy drive are in good shape and should be working fine (the PSU looked funny and I prefer to find a newer one to test the PC).

if the motherboard turns out to be underperforming, which MOBO could I get that could still interface with the IDE drives? the Asus P8Z68-V Pro that Shponglefan has in the Ultimate PC build looks very good but I don't see IDE connections, only SATA.

Thanks again for the patience and happy holidays!

Oli-Ben wrote on 2023-12-30, 17:39:

Hello! […]
Show full quote

Hello!

Sorry for disappearing, but I finally found a base (at least a case) for the XP PC!

This little dude was on his way to the recycling center but apart from being dirty and a little ding on the side it was fine, so I took it!

the motherboard is an ASUS A7V400-MX with an AMD Sempron CPU. From looking around it seems that the Sempron is a low budget CPU and it will get replaced, but what abou the Motherboard? Is it a good one?

In addition to this, the CD/DVD RW and the floppy drive are in good shape and should be working fine (the PSU looked funny and I prefer to find a newer one to test the PC).

if the motherboard turns out to be underperforming, which MOBO could I get that could still interface with the IDE drives? the Asus P8Z68-V Pro that Shponglefan has in the Ultimate PC build looks very good but I don't see IDE connections, only SATA.

Thanks again for the patience and happy holidays!

This is a socket A, Athlon XP-era, DDR1 system from circa 2002-3. Ten years younger than the P8Z68 Sandy Bridge motherboard!

My immediate reaction is that this could be a great 98SE system... including potentially with the Sempron. I'm pretty sure that the higher-end Athlon XPs go for a pretty penny on eBay, so who knows if it makes sense to upgrade that Sempron or not. Not to mention - I think the higher-end Athlon XPs ran fairly hot (though not as bad as hotburst P4s of the same era) and who knows how easy it is to get a high-end socket A cooler in 2024.

I don't what video card you have, but my sense is that this is a system that is going to struggle running software from after, oh, 2006 or so. Maybe earlier. Upgrading the CPU to the best socket A processor will help a little bit, but... meh, even with the fastest Athlon XP ever made, this system will struggle compared to a random $50 C2Q/C2Q you can find anywhere.

Why do you want IDE for an XP system? IDE makes life easier for 98SE, but once you slipstream the AHCI driver (or use a floppy like in 2006), you can use SATA very nicely in XP. And SATA opens the door to buying random hard drives, SSDs, optical drives, etc at the computer store down the street that stopped selling PATA drives a decade ago.

Same issue with AGP/PCI-E - this is obviously an AGP board. AGP cards cost way more for way less performance (a high-end 98SE-friendly AGP card like a Ti4600 will cost you like 3X on eBay what a high-end ten-years-newer XP-friendly PCI-E card like a 7970, 780Ti, etc costs...).

One other observation: if I found the right board, it doesn't have any ISA slots, so you are just on the wrong side of that divide for DOS-type stuff...

Be careful about a PSU replacement: I think Athlon systems from this era use a different blend of voltages from modern systems and so a modern PSU will have too much... 12V... and not enough 5V? Something like that, someone else can correct me...

VivienM wrote on 2023-12-30, 19:26:

Oli-Ben wrote on 2023-12-30, 17:39:

the motherboard is an ASUS A7V400-MX with an AMD Sempron CPU. From looking around it seems that the Sempron is a low budget CPU and it will get replaced, but what abou the Motherboard? Is it a good one?

In addition to this, the CD/DVD RW and the floppy drive are in good shape and should be working fine (the PSU looked funny and I prefer to find a newer one to test the PC).

if the motherboard turns out to be underperforming, which MOBO could I get that could still interface with the IDE drives? the Asus P8Z68-V Pro that Shponglefan has in the Ultimate PC build looks very good but I don't see IDE connections, only SATA.

This is a socket A, Athlon XP-era, DDR1 system from circa 2002-3. Ten years younger than the P8Z68 Sandy Bridge motherboard!

Not exactly: A7V400-MX was a 2004 board and could take the last batch of Socket A CPUs, while P8Z68-V Pro was only 7 years younger in 2011.

VivienM wrote on 2023-12-30, 19:26:

My immediate reaction is that this could be a great 98SE system... including potentially with the Sempron. I'm pretty sure that the higher-end Athlon XPs go for a pretty penny on eBay, so who knows if it makes sense to upgrade that Sempron or not. Not to mention - I think the higher-end Athlon XPs ran fairly hot (though not as bad as hotburst P4s of the same era) and who knows how easy it is to get a high-end socket A cooler in 2024.

Socket A Semprons had TDP of 62W; most Athlon XP had TDP of 60-68W, while the fastest one (3200+) had 79W. Good modern thermal paste and fan should be able to cope the differences while keeping the existing heatsink of that Sempron.

VivienM wrote on 2023-12-30, 19:26:

I don't what video card you have, but my sense is that this is a system that is going to struggle running software from after, oh, 2006 or so. Maybe earlier. Upgrading the CPU to the best socket A processor will help a little bit, but... meh, even with the fastest Athlon XP ever made, this system will struggle compared to a random $50 C2Q/C2Q you can find anywhere.

I played Call of Duty: United Offensive back in 2004 with Athlon XP 2200+ (Thoroughbred core) + 512MB RAM (2 x DDR333) + GF4200Ti 64MB, at 1024x768 resolution, with acceptable results: if you turned on every effect to maximum then lagging would appear at complex sceneries, but most maps were fine. If Oli-Ben could upgrade to Athlon XP 3200+ (Barton core) + GF6800 or X850 (last ones with official Win9x support) I'd say games up to 2005 could still be enjoyable at "standard" contemporary resolution, even with resource-hungry games like Doom 3. Cranking it up to modern 1080p resolution (if the game supports) would be another story.

VivienM wrote on 2023-12-30, 19:26:

Why do you want IDE for an XP system? IDE makes life easier for 98SE, but once you slipstream the AHCI driver (or use a floppy like in 2006), you can use SATA very nicely in XP. And SATA opens the door to buying random hard drives, SSDs, optical drives, etc at the computer store down the street that stopped selling PATA drives a decade ago.

Same issue with AGP/PCI-E - this is obviously an AGP board. AGP cards cost way more for way less performance (a high-end 98SE-friendly AGP card like a Ti4600 will cost you like 3X on eBay what a high-end ten-years-newer XP-friendly PCI-E card like a 7970, 780Ti, etc costs...).

I'd say both issues depends on whether Oli-Ben wants a dual-boot system or emulation. A7V400-MX could be used for the former but might need some upgrades and tweaking; if OP chose the emulation path then just ditch this and grab any dirt cheap Sandy / Ivy Bridge Core-i and a corresponding PCIe graphics card.

VivienM wrote on 2023-12-30, 19:26:

One other observation: if I found the right board, it doesn't have any ISA slots, so you are just on the wrong side of that divide for DOS-type stuff...

IMHO that would be only a minor issue, as OP specified games from 1995 and beyond. Back then HDD capacities were rapidly increasing so the importance of synthesizer music gave way to CD audio tracks and recorded music. Sure, PCI sound cards could not deliver to the same level of AWE64, but unless OP want the best experience in every possible game (if so he should build two or more systems) then late-DOS games were still enjoyable with PCI sound cards.

If an ISA slot is a must, the problem goes back to the old dilemma: few motherboards with ISA run WinXP games smoothly (even paired with Tualatin-S or Thunderbird 1.4GHz), while even fewer motherboards that run WinXP games smoothly (DDR RAM, AGP 8x) have ISA slots.

VivienM wrote on 2023-12-30, 19:26:

Be careful about a PSU replacement: I think Athlon systems from this era use a different blend of voltages from modern systems and so a modern PSU will have too much... 12V... and not enough 5V? Something like that, someone else can correct me...

Minimum current for +5V rail should have 20A; the more the better.

There's one more possible problem for late-DOS games: the VESA compatibility. According to this list, nVIDIA had a much better record than ATI, but those were early days of 3D accelerating GPU, not the last batch of AGP 8x cards. Should the OP choose to build two systems then I'd suggest S3 or 3Dfx for late-DOS/early-Win9x, leaving the rest to any PCIe card on WinXP.

Why do you want IDE for an XP system?

I want to keep IDE just because the CD/DVD RW and the floppy disk drive are IDE. I could upgrade to Sata but then I would have to find new drives, but to be honest I don't know if IDE to SATA adapters that could meke this simpler exist.

I don't what video card you have

For now none, the PC I found only had the on-board graphics, and I was waiting to understand which GPU as the best for this build.

depends on whether Oli-Ben wants a dual-boot system or emulation

When I started this post I think I was a little too optimistic thinking to run games from such a time arc on a single PC without emulation. After thinking about it, I realized that most of the games I'm interested in playing are 80% within the Windows XP era, so I'd rather focus my efforts on making this PC a good Windows XP machine, without the need to reach modern resolutions like 1080p, as dormcat said.

Oli-Ben wrote on 2023-12-31, 14:04:

Why do you want IDE for an XP system?

I want to keep IDE just because the CD/DVD RW and the floppy disk drive are IDE. I could upgrade to Sata but then I would have to find new drives, but to be honest I don't know if IDE to SATA adapters that could meke this simpler exist.

Floppies are floppies, not IDE. So that's just the DVD drive that's IDE. A brand new SATA DVD-RW is $25CAD which is... probably about the same price as an IDE to SATA adapter.

Oli-Ben wrote on 2023-12-31, 14:04:

When I started this post I think I was a little too optimistic thinking to run games from such a time arc on a single PC without emulation. After thinking about it, I realized that most of the games I'm interested in playing are 80% within the Windows XP era, so I'd rather focus my efforts on making this PC a good Windows XP machine, without the need to reach modern resolutions like 1080p, as dormcat said.

I still don't think 'this PC' is going to make a good Windows XP machine, or at least... not good value for money... compared to what you could get out of a DDR2/DDR3 later system with PCI Express, SATA, etc which could capture the entire XP era.

If you want to dual boot with 98SE, sure, why not? And in that case, pick your video card based on 98SE compatibility which means you can exclude the latter AGP cards which also means your video card options are pricy...

Oli-Ben wrote on 2023-12-31, 14:04:

When I started this post I think I was a little too optimistic thinking to run games from such a time arc on a single PC without emulation. After thinking about it, I realized that most of the games I'm interested in playing are 80% within the Windows XP era, so I'd rather focus my efforts on making this PC a good Windows XP machine, without the need to reach modern resolutions like 1080p, as dormcat said.

Like VivienM said: this build could be an excellent Win9x system but just an acceptable WinXP system (and under certain resolution ONLY). I didn't know how much you got it from recycling center, but I had literally picked up three Core 2-era computers off the street (any of them would be way faster than your current build), and bought one of the fastest XP-ready CPU to accompany a motherboard for less than US$50 total.

As for video cards: I bought a Gigabyte GV-N960WF2OC-4GD (GTX 960 with 4GB RAM on PCIe x16; released in 2015 and one of the last GPU with native WinXP support) and a GV-R96P256D (Radeon 9600 Pro with 256MB RAM on AGP 8x; released in 2003) for the same NT$1000 (US$32.59 at the exchange rate today) each. If you want high-end AGP 8x cards with Win9x support like aforementioned GF6800 or X850 then expect to pay much more.

Sorry for missing but I've had a busy time.

I listened to your advice and, once I had put aside the components that were originally inside the PC for a future Win98 machine, I started looking for components that could create a WinXP machine.
After several trips to the recycling center and some shops the computer is as follows:

-INTEL PENTIUM 4 670 CPU @ 3.80 GHz
-MOBO ASUS P5K PRO REV. 1.02G
-RAM CORSAIR XMS2-6400 DDR2-800MHZ-6400C4DHX (1GB x4)
-GPU GeForce 7900GTX 512MB 256-bit GDDR3

These components should all be compatible with each other from the research I've done (but I'm not an expert at all so I'll leave it to your judgement), but a problem arose:
When I tested the components outside the case the computer went into post without problems (without going into Windows as it still had to be installed) but showed small colored dots around the screen (like in the photo). Once everything is inserted into the case, after the single beep of the post only the black screen in the photo remains. What could it be? I suspect the GPU but what do you think?

Thanks in advance!
​

Oli-Ben wrote on 2024-02-07, 11:15:

-INTEL PENTIUM 4 670 CPU @ 3.80 GHz
-MOBO ASUS P5K PRO REV. 1.02G

Modest suggestion from me: go and find a nice 45nm C2Q/C2Q to put on that nice P35 board.

The 670 P4 will be an absolute monster to try and keep cool; a 45nm C2Q will probably give you double the single-thread performance and 8x the performance on multicore. And cut your idle power consumption by 100W.

I picked up a Q9650 (fastest non-Extreme CPU you can put on one of those) for about 50USD incl. shipping on eBay last year, but you don't need to go for the greatest, and I suspect the Q8xxx chips would be absolutely dirt cheap. (If you were local, I'd give you a Q8300...) I'm finding some Q8400s on eBay for under $10USD from North American sellers... note that I think you want to try and go for the later steppings as I believe they improved power consumption some more.

Oli-Ben wrote on 2024-02-07, 11:15:

-INTEL PENTIUM 4 670 CPU @ 3.80 GHz -MOBO ASUS P5K PRO REV. 1.02G -RAM CORSAIR XMS2-6400 DDR2-800MHZ-6400C4DHX (1GB x4) -GPU GeF […]
Show full quote

-INTEL PENTIUM 4 670 CPU @ 3.80 GHz
-MOBO ASUS P5K PRO REV. 1.02G
-RAM CORSAIR XMS2-6400 DDR2-800MHZ-6400C4DHX (1GB x4)
-GPU GeForce 7900GTX 512MB 256-bit GDDR3

IMHO the motherboard is far more superior than the CPU and GPU you've got. Grab a compatible C2Q (preferably Q9650 but any would do) and a newer video card (up to GTX 960) and you'll have a system capable to run not only every WinXP game but also not-too-demanding modern games under Win10.

Oli-Ben wrote on 2024-02-07, 11:15:

When I tested the components outside the case the computer went into post without problems (without going into Windows as it still had to be installed) but showed small colored dots around the screen (like in the photo). Once everything is inserted into the case, after the single beep of the post only the black screen in the photo remains. What could it be? I suspect the GPU but what do you think?

Try to clean your video card and the PCIe slot with contact cleaner. If the problem stays then it's probably caused by faulty solder points and/or video memory chips.

While 7900 GTX had been a flagship card, it only supported DX9, limiting it to an "XP-only" card; newer mid-range cards like GTS 450 could outperform it plus with better support of later games (400 series started DX12 support). IMHO the 7000 PCIe series had the worst practicality: it ditched Win9x support, was DX9 only (8000 series had features of DX10 and supported up to DX11), and newer, cheaper, cooler PCIe cards were abundant. So if you can't fix its "snowflake" problem then just buy a better video card instead.

dormcat wrote on 2024-02-08, 01:43:

IMHO the motherboard is far more superior than the CPU and GPU you've got. Grab a compatible C2Q (preferably Q9650 but any would do) and a newer video card (up to GTX 960) and you'll have a system capable to run not only every WinXP game but also not-too-demanding modern games under Win10.

I wonder what the 'sweet spot' value-wise is in the C2Qs. The Q9650, at least on eBay, is... relatively expensive (like $40-50USD) while, say, a Q8400 is ~$10USD or less. I haven't looked at the pricing of all models, but it may be that something like a Q9450 or Q9500 delivers most of the performance of the Q9650 for much less...

(I will note that I got the impression the OP was on a budget, so if they can get 90% of the performance for 30% of the cost...)