Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2025-09-15, 06:40:

xelizor wrote on 2025-09-14, 22:26:

Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2025-09-14, 20:59:

What do we think of this one, apart from the fact it's dirt cheap? :) You can see all the specs in the photos. […]
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What do we think of this one, apart from the fact it's dirt cheap? 😀 You can see all the specs in the photos.

https://www.2dehands.be/v/computers-en-softwa … 2819-desktop-pc

-Runs Debian, but irrelevant as I'll install XP.
-AMD instead of intel, problem for compatibility? And fast enough, too slow, too fast?
-Radeon HD6850 seems XP compatible, good choice?
-onboard audio as far as I can see. I could always add the Audigy from the Dell.
-no idea about HDD and RAM, but given the age of the system, I'd assume plenty for an XP build?

Great opportunity, switch the cpu for a Phenom II (either X2 or X4), I would go with X2 honestly as they're more power efficient and plenty for XP gaming. Make sure it has 4GB at least (it should, it most likely has 8GB already)... Just put an SSD to install the OS, and then use the HDD to store the gamez! Cheers

What would be the motivation for swapping out the current processor, is it too slow/too fast/incompatible? I understand winxp can't use the six cores very well, but how bad would it be compared to a phenom x2?

And, as I'm new to AMD, can a Phenom 2 be dropped into an FX socket?

It seems that the AMD FX process scheduling do not work properly under XP, that's the main reason... Not sure the impact it might have on a real scenario but I would avoid any potential incompatibilities or incoherent performance. IPC wise it's also better on Phenom II... On the same region of the latest Core 2. You can try the AMD FX, coming from a P4 you probably won't notice any difference on most cases... But then you can later on "upgrade" to Phenom II and compare then, for 5$ or something.

Regarding the socket, yes... They're all within AM3 Standard.

Just don't forget to install your Audigy on there too!

Best regards

It looks like I'm going after that AMD desktop! When I have it I'll try it first to see if things work OK, then I'll hunt down a more suitable processor.

Some BIOSes have an option for 1 thread per core, that would tidy up the FX6100 nicely for XP, but it's not as common as just being able to reduce the cores

And if that doesn't work out, Phenom II are cheap.

Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2025-09-17, 06:42:

And if that doesn't work out, Phenom II are cheap.

Unless you want an X6, and for XP, that would be under utilized, unless really forcing it, XP's multithreading rarely gets much beyond one foreground and one background, so an X4 would have legroom to spare, even an X3 or possibly an X2 would be worth considering, but between X2 and X3, I'd take the extra one for luck, doesn't hurt to have spare threads unless it's at the cost of a lot of money or a significant drop in clock speed - and the X4 is cheap and has decent clocks.

It's not that you can't run XP on an AMD FX, but as it doesn't know cores/threads it would probably run 2 threads on core 1, unless you absolutely barrage everything with affinity settings

Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2025-09-16, 19:58:

It looks like I'm going after that AMD desktop! When I have it I'll try it first to see if things work OK, then I'll hunt down a more suitable processor.

Good choice, I'm confident that you won't regret it! Just tell us how it went in the future... Best regards!

Matth79 wrote on 2025-09-17, 14:17:

Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2025-09-17, 06:42:

And if that doesn't work out, Phenom II are cheap.

Unless you want an X6, and for XP, that would be under utilized, unless really forcing it, XP's multithreading rarely gets much beyond one foreground and one background, so an X4 would have legroom to spare, even an X3 or possibly an X2 would be worth considering, but between X2 and X3, I'd take the extra one for luck, doesn't hurt to have spare threads unless it's at the cost of a lot of money or a significant drop in clock speed - and the X4 is cheap and has decent clocks.

It's not that you can't run XP on an AMD FX, but as it doesn't know cores/threads it would probably run 2 threads on core 1, unless you absolutely barrage everything with affinity settings

I don't think your impression of Windows XP multitasking is exactly right. Windows XP, like all versions of NT, will send threads to multiple processors or cores as long as it's working with multithreaded workloads. You can see this in well coded benchmarks with multithreaded support (such as CPU-Z) where multithreaded scores for XP should roughly match newer operating systems as long as the number of cores and clock speeds remain consistent. I will grant that the thread scheduler in XP is pretty unoptimized. Newer operating systems attempt to identify the nature of each thread and attempt to route it to the best suited logical processor/core. XP, on the other hand, just assigns threads to processors/cores in numerical order (CPU 0, then CPU 1, then CPU 2, etc.). XP still assigns threads to multiple processors/cores as needed, though.

Windows XP SP3 is also "Hyperthreading Aware". In ACPI mode, XP can detect Hyperthreading support and attempt to route threads to physical processors/cores first before assignment to logical processors. That prevents two threads going to the same physical processor/core before loading an unused processor/core. MPS mode does not support Hyperthreading for any operating system that I'm aware of.

Windows 2000 is "Hyperthreading Compatible". In ACPI mode, Windows 2000 cannot detect Hyperthreading and instead assigns threads to logical processors in numeric order. If the ACPI tables list the physical processors/cores numerically first in the table (followed by the virtual processors), then two threads should not go to the same physical processor/core before loading an unused processor/core. If the table lists the virtual processor right after the corresponding physical processor/core, then two threads will go to the same physical processor/core before loading an unused processor/core. It's up to the board manufacture to implement the ACPI CPU list in the BIOS (most list the physical processors/cores first, fortunately).

An interesting aspect of modern, high-speed CPUs is that they tend to finish threads very quickly. The CPU actually sits ideal a lot of the time and has to wait to receive the next thread instead of the OS waiting to send the next thread. Older video games have similar behavior. Only until very recently have games actually driven multiple threads. Older games are almost entirely single threaded, so you really only need a single fast core for gaming (other cores can handle the background tasks). That's why Intel for years touted their single threaded performance for game enthusiasts.

If you're interested a well put video just came out about FX vs Phenom II (no affiliation with the channel whatsoever), you can watch it at https://youtu.be/Lb4FDtAwnqU.

I had the FX 6300 back in the day and it served me well, but I was running Windows 10. I remember that there were some new games that would actually run smoother on FX than on Intel i3/i5 due to higher thread count.

Cheers

If one happens to stumble over a cheap X6, would that be a good thing or a bad thing for XP compared to an X4 or an X2? I find conflicting info. It appears that XP is not the best in class in utilizing the 6 cores, but it *can* if the program you're running is made well. And my guess is, it doesn't hurt either compared to the lesser X'es. Ignore power consumption, my PC's don't run often.

And, generally speaking as I don't know specifics yet, would the average cooler of an FX processor be enough for an X6? Both are 125W and the same size, so according to this simplistic approach I'd say yes.

I'll get the PC next week, I'll keep you informed!

No problem with a Phenom 2 X6, just that they tend to command a significant premium as the best CPU for boards that can't take FX, and the cheaper ones will be lower clocked than an X4

Then you'll be glad to hear that I likely scored a 1090T with an XP compatible, overclock friendly Asus mobo and 8 gb of very nice ram. So I might go to 16gb if the 8gb ram in the fx pc turns out to be compatible. I know that's overkill.

So yeah the fx pc will only be used for its case, cpu cooler, psu, cabling, gpu and possibly ram. But hey, for 15 eur even that is nice, and the extra bits might turn into something at one point or another.

So it looks like the xp build is turning into a rocket...

I run Windows XP on a Core i7-9700k (8 cores, 8 threads, 4.6GHz all-core turbo) so I can assure you that the extra cores don’t hurt performance. The extra headroom would also come in handy if you ever decide to multi-boot. I run Windows 10, Windows 7 (64 and 32-bit versions), Windows Vista (64 and 32-bit Versions), Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows 98 (SE and FE) on the same i7-9700k platform. I just need to switch out the graphics card to run Windows 98 and Windows 2000 (although I also need to swap out the sound card for Windows 2000 due to a PCIE-to-PCI bridge issue).

I can say from experience that the upgrade from a single processor system to a dual processor system makes a huge improvement in overall XP performance. I also think that the upgrade from dual processors/cores to a quad-core also gives a perceptible improvement in performance. But, after that point, I personally haven’t noticed that much of an improvement beyond 4 cores unless I’m running a highly threaded application (usually a benchmark). I suspect the point of diminishing returns for XP era software falls around the quad-core area. The reality is that most XP era software applications (published all the way up to 2014) are single threaded since single CPU/core systems were dominant for most of its life. Really, how often does a typical user run 4 or more high-intensity single threaded applications at the same time?

I say go with what you like or can afford.