nd22 wrote on Yesterday, 08:03:

It makes perfect sense for those 5 years: 2000 to 2004. Yes, you can build far more powerful XP machines with Sandy bridge that can play all those games and many more but for those addicted to socket A and remember that era such as myself a socket 462 system with XP is a dream come true! That why I have my ultimate socket A PC and play exclusively on it.
For me Windows 98 era ends in 2000 with Pentium 3 and classic Athon T*bird. I have yet to encounter a game from 2000 onward that refuses to run on my Athlon 3200. Of course everyone is free to build each system as he wishes - maybe someone wants an overkill LGA775 Windows 98 system, or maybe he wants a 3770K XP system.

Yep 😀

I've done the same for the same reasons and absolutely agree.

But for anyone who does not care about specific platform later hardware does make more sense for XP. If not 1155 then at least 775, which was period-correct for XP too...

I will try to split the components required for each of the options - best price to performance ratio and ultimate socket A system - in several tiers based on the performance and I will use eBay prices as of 2025 for each of them.

CPU:
Tier 1: Athlon XP 3200 – top dog for socket 462. I am not going to take into consideration unicorns such as Athlon XP 3200 FSB 333 MHz and other OEM only/ limited quantity manufactured processors. This processor is collectible, so if you have the money to buy a 3200, consider it as an investment; price will only go up.
With a FSB of 400 MHz you are going to need an nforce2/KT600/KT880 motherboard. Very expensive, with prices between 80 – 100 USD on eBay as of 2025, it is likely to be out of reach for many of you.

Tier 2: Athlon XP 3000 – this model comes in 2 flavors one with a 333 MHz FSB and another one with 400 MHz FSB. Both are currently selling for 40 – 60 USD on EBay, so again, too expensive to actually get a recommendation.

Tier 3: Athlon XP 2800 and 2700. The first one is a Barton chip with 333 MHz FSB; 512 kb of level 2 cache and 2083 MHz frequency and the second one is a Thoroughbred also with 333 MHz FSB but with 256 kb of level 2 cache and 2167 MHz frequency. Both perform identically; the lower frequency of the Barton is offset by the larger cache. Both cost around 5 – 20 USD on EBay in 2025 and both have a TDP of 68.3 W.
Because of the TDP they will require a PSU with a good 5V rail even if you use a motherboard with the auxiliary power connector! 25A on the 5V rail to be on the safe side! These PSU’s are becoming increasingly rare so if you want one buy it now!
If you have or plan to purchase such a PSU I fully recommend either of them. You will have 90% of the performance of the Athlon XP 3200 for 10% of the price. Best price to performance ratio in the entire K7 line-up.

nd22 wrote on Yesterday, 10:05:

Tier 1: Athlon XP 3200 – top dog for socket 462. I am not going to take into consideration unicorns such as Athlon XP 3200 FSB 333 MHz and other OEM only/ limited quantity manufactured processors. This processor is collectible, so if you have the money to buy a 3200, consider it as an investment; price will only go up.
With a FSB of 400 MHz you are going to need an nforce2/KT600/KT880 motherboard. Very expensive, with prices between 80 – 100 USD on eBay as of 2025, it is likely to be out of reach for many of you.

One comment here - for those who do not want to pay for a collectible - there is a 2500+ barton with multiplier of 11 and 333FSB, very common and cheap one, of which i have 2 and both just work at 400 FSB. One at default 1.65v, another one even at 1.6v. This may be a bit of a lottery and is overclocking (for those who oppose that on principle) but practically it is indistinguishable from real 3200+. Higher end boards are also likely to allow fooling around with voltage, raising that by 0.05-0.1v if needed is totally safe and is very likely to eliminate the "lottery" part (though obviously no guarantees with this kind of stuff).

nd22 wrote on Yesterday, 10:07:

Because of the TDP they will require a PSU with a good 5V rail even if you use a motherboard with the auxiliary power connector! 25A on the 5V rail to be on the safe side! These PSU’s are becoming increasingly rare so if you want one buy it now!
If you have or plan to purchase such a PSU I fully recommend either of them. You will have 90% of the performance of the Athlon XP 3200 for 10% of the price. Best price to performance ratio in the entire K7 line-up.

Another comment here. I must be a madman, but i am running both of my systems with modern PSUs.

Old one, from "1" category has motherboard with 5V VRM so i've used a DC-DC PSU with 20A/100W 5V rail. Definitely pushing it a bit, but you have to remember that TDP is not actual power consumption. It is useful as rough estimate, but practical numbers are lower. So far - no issues.

New, high end one - the motherboard has 12v VRM, newer GPU uses 12V primarily... in terms of power supply requirements this is basically a modern system. So i've used regular inexpensive 400W PSU and it works great.

I do have a couple old power supplies for testing, but if used with a system which runs on 12V it actually starts having issues - too much 12v load, too little 5v. Just as it would in a modern system. So have to be careful with vintage PSUs here - choice of PSU very much depends on choice of other hardware.

If it's got a 12v VRM and P4 power connection then any modern psu is fine. No need for crazy amps on 5v rail.

Archer57 wrote on Yesterday, 10:21:

One comment here - for those who do not want to pay for a collectible - there is a 2500+ barton with multiplier of 11 and 333FSB […]
Show full quote

One comment here - for those who do not want to pay for a collectible - there is a 2500+ barton with multiplier of 11 and 333FSB, very common and cheap one, of which i have 2 and both just work at 400 FSB. One at default 1.65v, another one even at 1.6v. This may be a bit of a lottery and is overclocking (for those who oppose that on principle) but practically it is indistinguishable from real 3200+. Higher end boards are also likely to allow fooling around with voltage, raising that by 0.05-0.1v if needed is totally safe and is very likely to eliminate the "lottery" part (though obviously no guarantees with this kind of stuff).

Another comment here. I must be a madman, but i am running both of my systems with modern PSUs.

Old one, from "1" category has motherboard with 5V VRM so i've used a DC-DC PSU with 20A/100W 5V rail. Definitely pushing it a bit, but you have to remember that TDP is not actual power consumption. It is useful as rough estimate, but practical numbers are lower. So far - no issues.

New, high end one - the motherboard has 12v VRM, newer GPU uses 12V primarily... in terms of power supply requirements this is basically a modern system. So i've used regular inexpensive 400W PSU and it works great.

I do have a couple old power supplies for testing, but if used with a system which runs on 12V it actually starts having issues - too much 12v load, too little 5v. Just as it would in a modern system. So have to be careful with vintage PSUs here - choice of PSU very much depends on choice of other hardware.

You are absolutely right about Barton 2500, I got a few and probably they will run fine at 3200 speeds. My advice is going for stock clocked parts so you can enjoy your retro PC for many, many years.That includes stock voltages or under voltage if your CPU runs fine, in my experience PC parts tend to have a shorter life the higher the voltage over the default one you pump into them.
Well, my Abit AN7 with XP 3200 refused to start with a modern FSP that had 20A on the 5V rail. However on a Corsair RM1000 that I have been using since 2018 every single socket a system runs fine, including those without the auxiliary power connector! I strongly believe that going with a Barton you will need a PSU with 25A on the 5V rail, in fact high powered T-birds will also require such a PSU.
Maybe some other colleagues can share their experiences with the power supply they use for their socket A machine.

Tier 4: Sempron 3000. This processor gets a tier only for itself! Based on the Barton core it has a 333 MHz FSB and 512kb of level 2 cache. Equivalent to a hypothetical Athlon XP Barton 2700. There are several processors that have performance very close to this one but only the Sempron has a 62W TDP! It can run without any problems on a PSU with a 5V rail of only 20A – you should not have a problem finding a PSU with this amperage on the 5V rail today. I tested it on a Corsair power supply. Very cheap on eBay, 5 – 10 USD, it provides 80% of the performance of Athlon XP 3200 for 10% of the price. This processor is highly recommended if you have a PSU with only 20A on the 5V rail.

Tier 5: the rest of the K7 line up: classic Athlon, Athlon XP, Sempron, Duron. Unless you need one of them for a specific case, for example you have a board that supports only 266 MHz FSB processors or your board has limitations regarding the maximum multiplier of the CPU I do not recommend any of them. For a 2000 - 2004 era system you will need a stronger processor, Sempron 3000 is the absolute low limit, Barton 2800 represents the best price to performance ratio and 3200 represents the ultimate socket A CPU.

nd22 wrote on Yesterday, 12:41:

You are absolutely right about Barton 2500, I got a few and probably they will run fine at 3200 speeds. My advice is going for stock clocked parts so you can enjoy your retro PC for many, many years.That includes stock voltages or under voltage if your CPU runs fine, in my experience PC parts tend to have a shorter life the higher the voltage over the default one you pump into them.
Well, my Abit AN7 with XP 3200 refused to start with a modern FSP that had 20A on the 5V rail. However on a Corsair RM1000 that I have been using since 2018 every single socket a system runs fine, including those without the auxiliary power connector! I strongly believe that going with a Barton you will need a PSU with 25A on the 5V rail, in fact high powered T-birds will also require such a PSU.
Maybe some other colleagues can share their experiences with the power supply they use for their socket A machine.

Yeah, i agree about overclocking and generally prefer to run old hardware at stock frequencies. My 3200+ actually runs stock and at 1.5v.

However - overclocking can also be a great fun, particularly with this old hardware because gains can be substantial and it is far less foolproof. Modern stuff overclocks itself and there are only very small gains to be had, as long as you pay extra for "overclockable" stuff that is.

And i'd consider CPU to be a very low risk part. Especially if raising voltage is not required - in this case risk is pretty much zero.

So IMO it is, at least, an option. Given price difference it is also possible to get a spare or two, which helps with the lottery too. Just have to be careful - it has to be specifically 11x333 (AXDA2500DKV4D), there are 2 more 2500+ bartons - 14x266 and 9x400 - those would not do, though 14x266 one could probably try to mimic those rare 14x333 3200+, but it can be harder...

As for power supply - what you are saying is the case if CPU VRM is powered by 5V. If it uses 12V then 5V load is minimal, as on any modern system, and is completely unrelated to CPU used as in this case CPU is completely powered by 12V. This can usually be determined by capacitor ratings on input side of the VRM - for 12V they are likely going to be 16V. And also by presence of 4pin connector, though this weirdly does not guarantee 12V VRM.

This is actually why i had quite a bit of trouble selecting the motherboard - i wanted 12V VRM since i wanted to not have issues with modern PSUs, which limited the choice considerably. Also nforce2 vs nforce2 400 vs nforce2 ultra 400 are annoying and misleading - definitely worth talking about too.

Archer57 wrote on Yesterday, 13:20:

As for power supply - what you are saying is the case if CPU VRM is powered by 5V. If it uses 12V then 5V load is minimal, as on any modern system, and is completely unrelated to CPU used as in this case CPU is completely powered by 12V. This can usually be determined by capacitor ratings on input side of the VRM - for 12V they are likely going to be 16V. And also by presence of 4pin connector, though this weirdly does not guarantee 12V VRM.

This is actually why i had quite a bit of trouble selecting the motherboard - i wanted 12V VRM since i wanted to not have issues with modern PSUs, which limited the choice considerably. Also nforce2 vs nforce2 400 vs nforce2 ultra 400 are annoying and misleading - definitely worth talking about too.

I will quote Phill on this one: "the jury is still out if every socket A board that has such a connector will draw most of the current from the 12V rail". Recommended video for all who wants to build a socket A system:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efK7mw8eYiE&list=WL&index=8
From my own experience you will still need a power supply with a beefy 5V rail even if your board has the auxiliary power connector! Of course I might be wrong but I prefer the safety of the 25A that the Corsair RM and TX series has!

COOLER
Tier 1: full copper or with a copper base. Required for any CPU with a TDP of 60W or greater if you do not want the sound of a 747 which you will get with the standard aluminium cooler provided by AMD. The top dog is the Zalman CNPS 7000 Cu, rare and expensive but you can get by with any model with copper. I use a no name one with a copper base.

Tier 2: Aluminium cooler is enough for the rest of the processors with a TDP of less than 60W.

nd22 wrote on Yesterday, 15:32:

I will quote Phill on this one: "the jury is still out if every socket A board that has such a connector will draw most of the current from the 12V rail". Recommended video for all who wants to build a socket A system:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efK7mw8eYiE&list=WL&index=8
From my own experience you will still need a power supply with a beefy 5V rail even if your board has the auxiliary power connector! Of course I might be wrong but I prefer the safety of the 25A that the Corsair RM and TX series has!

Well, on that there is actually no argument - for some bizarre reasons boards with 5V VRM and P4 connector do seem to exist.

The question here is not the presence of the connector, but what voltage CPU VRM, which is a DC-DC converter which generates those 1.65v this CPUs require, runs at. If it is 5V then CPU pulls all the power from 5V rail, if 12V - from 12V rail. And since CPU is the biggest consumer on the motherboard it'll define power supply requirements. There is absolutely no way it can be mixed in some way or something - it is either one or another. And if it is 12V then such board does not require a lot of power on 5V rail.

It also is not as simple as looking at current rating on 5V. What's more important is how PSU is designed. In group regulated power supply certain ratio between 5v and 12v load is assumed. It'll be able to handle decent amount of variation, but if you suddenly pull even something like 5A or 10A on 5V and nearly zero on 12V on a modern PSU, even rated for 25A 5V, it can cause voltages to drift to a point where (hopefully) it shuts down to prevent damage. Or it may just sit at like 4.5V and 13V and you'll not even notice it unless you measure it. So high 5V current rating on a modern power supply does not guarantee it will be able to run SocketA system with 5V VRM at all, not without digging a bit deeper. Ultimately to be safe it has to be either modern DC-DC power supply if you can find one with enough current on 5V (beefy enough DC-DC converter for 5V), or a vintage one. And that requirement to use a vintage PSU is, in my opinion, a good enough reason to hunt down a board with 12V VRM.

nd22 wrote on Yesterday, 15:34:

COOLER
Tier 1: full copper or with a copper base. Required for any CPU with a TDP of 60W or greater if you do not want the sound of a 747 which you will get with the standard aluminium cooler provided by AMD. The top dog is the Zalman CNPS 7000 Cu, rare and expensive but you can get by with any model with copper. I use a no name one with a copper base.

Tier 2: Aluminium cooler is enough for the rest of the processors with a TDP of less than 60W.

What about cooler weight? IIRC official limit is 300g, once you go above that you risk breaking the socket (and age of plastic does not help here) or CPU die. And it was common back when this CPUs were used, especially with huge pure copper coolers which weight up to 1KG. Some coolers may also be incompatible with some boards because of components (VRM caps mostly) being too close to the socket or incompatibility with alternative mounting solutions required to use larger cooler.

After digging through a bunch info personally my choice was - copper plate+aluminum heatsink designed for 80mm fan + a good modern fan. A lot of coolers, including stock ones, use 60mm fans which is not good (less airflow, more noise, less common). This is enough to keep temperatures and noise reasonable while not exceeding weight limitations too much and risking breaking stuff. Specific one i've managed to find is Igloo 2520pro.

I actually have Zalman CNPS 7000 Cu laying around which i am not using and going to sell. Too much risk, too little reward - cooling works good enough as is.

Most of my socket A boards have the extra four holes around the socket. These holes line up with stand-offs in certain P4 era cases with the "athlonXP" markings. This is how some coolers were mounted, BUT, you can ALSO use those holes like a modern board; back plate with a bracket:

I don't think the heatsinks intended for the holes were this massive, so a custom job will be in order. The bracket I'm using is for Zalman CNPS9500 and 9700. It's 3D printed with PLA+. I made a ABS variant, worried about possible warpage/heat on the PLA, but it is rock-solid. Definitely no heat in there.

Archer57 wrote on Yesterday, 16:20:

What about cooler weight? IIRC official limit is 300g, once you go above that you risk breaking the socket (and age of plastic does not help here) or CPU die. And it was common back when this CPUs were used, especially with huge pure copper coolers which weight up to 1KG. Some coolers may also be incompatible with some boards because of components (VRM caps mostly) being too close to the socket or incompatibility with alternative mounting solutions required to use larger cooler.

After digging through a bunch info personally my choice was - copper plate+aluminum heatsink designed for 80mm fan + a good modern fan. A lot of coolers, including stock ones, use 60mm fans which is not good (less airflow, more noise, less common). This is enough to keep temperatures and noise reasonable while not exceeding weight limitations too much and risking breaking stuff. Specific one i've managed to find is Igloo 2520pro.

I actually have Zalman CNPS 7000 Cu laying around which i am not using and going to sell. Too much risk, too little reward - cooling works good enough as is.

I do have a Zalman 7000b which weighs 750g and uses the holes on my Abit AN7. I never had any problems, it works just fine on all socket 462 boards I used for testing. Because socket 478 Prescott is so much hotter I use it on my IC7-max3 and for socket A I use a cooler with a copper base. One piece of advice though: use a case with horizontal mounting or put your case on the side with the board just to be on the safe side.

Major Jackyl wrote on Yesterday, 22:07:

I don't think the heatsinks intended for the holes were this massive, so a custom job will be in order. The bracket I'm using is for Zalman CNPS9500 and 9700. It's 3D printed with PLA+. I made a ABS variant, worried about possible warpage/heat on the PLA, but it is rock-solid. Definitely no heat in there.

I also have that cooler but i am missing the retention bracket 🙁 !

MOTHERBOARDS – as I tested only Abit boards and have everything that Abit manufactured for socket 462 my recommendations will be only Abit!

Tier 1: nforce2 ultra – BEST chipset for anyone wanting to assemble the ultimate socket 462 system! There are several versions available and the one you want is with the MCP – T Southbridge! There are nforce2 boards with MCP – RAID/GIGABIT Southbridge that lack the sound storm audio chip.
I do have the Abit NF7 – S2G board with MCP – GIGABIT with the integrated SATA controller. Because it lacks sound storm it looses the edge it has over the competing chipsets from VIA such as KT600/KT880 and performance will be about equal! Either you go big and get an nforce2 ultra + sound storm motherboard or go with tier 2. Another advantage is the fact that the auxiliary power connector is present so you can use a modern power supply with it.
The motherboard you want for the ultimate Athlon XP system is Abit AN7! The best socket 462 motherboard ever manufactured, very rare and extremely expensive – about 100 USD on EBay – it has a very poor price to performance ratio. It is collectible so its price will go up over time.
I fully recommend Abit AN7 if you got the money! Exceptional board, not a single weakness, post reporter included, everything you might possible want to build the best Athlon XP system.
Be warned that you will need some good RAM modules such as Corsair if you want to use a nforce2 board.

Tier 2: KT880/KT600 chipsets – the best from VIA for socket 462. Abit manufactured 2 boards with each chipset: KV7 with KT600 and KW7 with KT880. Performance between either of them is very close however KW7 is very rare and is collectible as it is the last board with a VIA chipset for socket A so prices will be high. Meanwhile KV7 is a very common board, easy to find and relatively cheap – 40 to 50 USD. Another advantage for KV7 is the VIA VT1616 audio codec which is on the same level as the much vaunted sound storm! Auxiliary power connector present so you can use a modern power supply with it.
Beware that there is a cheap model called KV7 – V sold at the same price as the regular KV7 that does not have the VT1616 codec and uses instead a Realtek ALC650 codec instead which is complete garbage – the codec not the board!
Abit KV7 is my recommendation for anyone wanting to build a socket 462 system with an excellent price to performance ratio. The testes that I have done and presented in this topic show that it will provide 95.97% of the performance of AN7 for half the price!
Another thing to note is that VIA boards are very easy with the RAM: pick any 2 modules and most likely they will work. In my KV7/KW7 I usually put the first 2 modules I grab and they always work.

Tier 3: KT400A/KT400: all boards with this chipsets have the auxiliary power connector and all support processors with 333 MHz FSB. Abit manufactured the following boards: KD7A with KT400A chipset; KD7/KT400 series with several variants: G – fully featured version with silicon image 3112 SATA controller and gigabit LAN; S – lacks the gigabit LAN and uses instead 10/100 Ethernet controller but still has the silicon image 3112; RAID – uses a highpoint IDE controller instead of SATA and 10/100 Ethernet controller; KD7 without any suffixes – standard board that uses only what is available in the KT400 chipset; B – stripped down version that lacks many features; AT7 – MAX 2 with KT400 chipset, another collectible board.
Prices will be very close to that of KV7 so no recommendation here.

Tier 4: everything else with DDR: VIA KT333 with its 3 variants: CD, CE – used by Abit and the “true” KT333, CF – Abit models AT7 – MAX 1, again a collectible board and KX7 – 333, a “regular” Abit board with this chipset which is easy to find;
VIA KT266A – Abit KR7A series: 133raid – fully featured version with 8233A Southbridge that supports PATA 133 and additional highpoint raid controller; 133 – without the raid controller; RAID – with the 8233 Southbridge that supports PATA 100 and the same raid chip; standard KR7A with the 8233 Southbridge that supports PATA 100 and no extra features;
AMD760 chipset found in the KG7 series with 3 variants: RAID version with the additional highpoint 370A controller, both the chipset and highpoint support PATA 100 drives; “standard” KG7 – without the raid; LITE version with only 2 DIMMS and no raid; besides the cool factor – it has an AMD chipset – KG7 lags behind boards with VIA chipsets.
Nforce1/415D: the only Abit board is the NV7 – 133R with disappointing performance and not worthy of NVidia’s name.
Unless you want one of these boards for a Voodoo 5550 – so the system you are building is actually not for the 2000 – 2004 era but for ” before 2000” era – I do not recommend any of them. However for Voodoo owners AT7 – MAX 1 is the best VIA KT333 manufactured therefore it has the best performance possible out of all socket 462 boards for a 5V AGP card.
Prices will be around that of Abit KV7 which is the one you want as it has the best price to performance ratio out of all socket 462 boards.