First post, by marinescuiuri
- Rank
- Newbie
Gentlemen, windows Xp hold a sweet spot in the history of operating systems and is my favorite for it's simplicity. So, this desktop pc was dedicated to the operating system of my high school years (33 years old). The idea came after a visit to the r/retrobattlestations subbredit. Said, well I must give a try and see what comes out. From all the parts I wanted to put into this pc, I only managed to get two of them. A cpu and a ssd. Here are the specs:
PC- Fujitsu Esprimo E910 desktop (socket 1155 - year of release: 2012) - This is a refurbished desktop that focuses on energy efficiency, thus having a 250 watts psu capable of short bursts up to 280 watts (85+). It has USB 3.0 from intel that does not work on windows Xp, but I dual boot with windows 7 as well, so I can use the usb 3.0 speeds.
I had to choose between Dell, Hp, Lenovo and Fujitsu. My first take was Dell, then I said I'll go the japanese way since it's focused on energy efficiency and I'll see what can be improved from there. As a side note, Fujistu is the second company in the world that produced computers, the first being IBM. It is highly respected in Japan and has joined with Siemens back in 2000's to produce computers, then it bought Siemens's shares and became just Fujitsu. Interesting, this pc is made in Germany.
The mainboard is very simple and lacks many features even a budget modo should have, but that is for power savings sake, I hope. Anyway this office refurbished computers don't usually have overclocking abilities into the bios, but that was not the point when started this build.
I wanted to get the Small Factory Form, but the Desktop Form has more expansion slots, is a bit bigger and thus better cooled. A bit cheaper than the E910 is the E710 that has Intel's Q75 chipset and 5 SATA connections, while this has Intel's Q77 chipset and 6 SATA connection. From what i found, that's about the only difference between them. I think squeezing 5 SSDs in there is no problem.
Also, it has official drivers for windows Xp and all work.
CPU - Intel Core i5 3470T (2 cores 4 threads) 2.9 Ghz with Turbo to 3.6 Ghz- The heart of the computer. It was a great debate in my mind, which CPU should I put and I had to chose from 4 models, all were 3rd generatin Intel Ivy Bridge CPUs, the last generation to fully support windows XP. The model from which to chose were:
- Pentium Gold 2120T (2cores 2 threads, 35 watts TDP)
- i5 3470T (2 cores 4 threads, 35 watts TDP)
- i5 3570T (4cores 4 threads, 45 watts TDP)
- i7 3770T (4 cores 8 threads, 45 watts TDP)
The T model with lower TDP are not as easy to find as the regular models. The decision was made to go for a 35 watts CPU and the i5 3470T was the one. This CPU is the most powerful 35 watts CPU designed for windows Xp and the second most powerful dual core designed for windows Xp (there is an i3 3rd generation that has better passmark score).
With the stock cooler, and after one hour of pc stress test, it did not go beyond 54 degree (room temp 20 degree).
The integrated graphics HD 2500 is the equivalent of nVidia GT 210 or 220.
GPU - For now the integrated graphics. The pc being a desktop only supports low profile cards. In the future I hope to get a Radeon HD 5570, 6570, 6670, 7570, or a nVidia GTX 750Ti. GPU will be underpowered to not go beyond 45 watts. I don't use this pc for games except Red Alert 2 from 2001 and this game goes well with the integrated graphics. But I want to fill all the expansion slots that this desktop has so a GPU will be a must.
RAM - 4 GB DDR3 1600 CL11 Samsung (future will hopefully bring 2x2GB HyperX 1600 CL9). Maximum for Xp, and plenty for 7.
STORAGE - 320 GB SATA HDD Samsung (windows Xp) - 240 GB SSD Kingston (windows 7, this drive is placed where the floppy is)
AUDIO - Conexant HD that is integrated on the motherboard. Soon, hopefully, an asus xonar or a creative card, low profile.
DVD-ROM - unknown brand , will have to get a good one.
Idle temperatures with the case fan on is about 25 degree at the CPU. Case fan off, temp is 28 degree CPU and 30-32 degree HDD. Chipset sits at around 60 degree (has no heat sink).
I managed to install windows in AHCI SATA mod, using easy2boot an a youtube tutorial. After that I installed windows 7 and it asks at every boot which OS to boot from, windows 7 or earlier version of windows ( it doesn't say xp).
I'll have to fill all the pci slots, I have a list of things to put inside (GPU, Sound card, WIFI and Bluetooth card), they will come with time. Also I'm thinking to replace the only case fan, the PSU fan and the CPU fan, with Noctua ones since they have good reviews on the internet. So it will require quite some money to upgrade all this.
The monitor it has now it's an 18 years old LCD from Samsung, 17 inch. Hope to get an 19 inch LED, but all I find is 21 inches LEDs. Looks like I pick another hard to find, the 19 inch LED. I live in Romania, we have a couple of online stores that sell refurbished pc, components and monitors. It will be found.
It also has connected some speakers that have 20 years old, Bose Lifestyle 2.0 30 watts active speakers. Perfect for this.
Running all test with CPU Turbo off, on PassMark 8, gets a score of : PC - 891, CPU - 2969, 2D - 582, 3D - 130, Memory - 1308, HDD - 794
Same test with CPU Turbo on, and we get: PC - 970, CPU - 3341, 2D - 689, 3D - 142, Memory 1425, HDD - 781
To be continued.
windows Xp build - code name: the last samurai
Fujitsu E910 / i5 3470T / 4GB DDR3 1600 / Intel Q77 chipset / 250w (85+) PSU / 320GB HDD (Xp) - 240GB SSD (windows 7)