Core2 era stuff is actually gaining retro status? Whodda thunk! I scrap these things by the gaylord full! Coffee cans full of processors of that period; when you fill one of those Folger's tall cans, they're heavier than you'd think!

I believe I have already answered that question back in 2020. Here is the document (please note that I tested only with Abit boards):

Twisted Six wrote on 2026-03-13, 21:40:

Core2 era stuff is actually gaining retro status? Whodda thunk! I scrap these things by the gaylord full! Coffee cans full of processors of that period; when you fill one of those Folger's tall cans, they're heavier than you'd think!

They are, especially with the existence of AGP boards like Conroe865PE and 775i65G. Pair any of those two with a X1950 AGP or a HD series GPU (HD3850 preferred but HD4650 also exists for a more "budget" oriented alternative) and you got yourself a capable system. (that can also do 10/11, OMORES covered the Conroe865PE running those two with a HD4650.)

PcBytes wrote on 2026-07-22, 14:56:

Twisted Six wrote on 2026-03-13, 21:40:

Core2 era stuff is actually gaining retro status? Whodda thunk! I scrap these things by the gaylord full! Coffee cans full of processors of that period; when you fill one of those Folger's tall cans, they're heavier than you'd think!

They are, especially with the existence of AGP boards like Conroe865PE and 775i65G. Pair any of those two with a X1950 AGP or a HD series GPU (HD3850 preferred but HD4650 also exists for a more "budget" oriented alternative) and you got yourself a capable system. (that can also do 10/11, OMORES covered the Conroe865PE running those two with a HD4650.)

I was always partial to yorkfield & harpertown CPU's, I still have one in operation as a matter of fact; Supermicro X7DWA w/ 2x X5492's. No plans to retire it, it's dual booting Ubuntu & Win7. Has a lot of utilities on it.

Twisted Six wrote on 2026-03-13, 21:40:

Core2 era stuff is actually gaining retro status?

Sure. Why not? There's no cheaper alternative to build a decent windows xp retro machine. Early core 2 is cheap and is quite fast for games of the classic 2000 to 2005 era. You can even build tiny ITX machines, which is (almost) impossible with older platforms, as ITX was mostly non-existent back then.

Comparison of PC architecture approx ages now, to arch ages when VOGONs started up. (The earlier CPU, implementation in desktop PC lagged actual CPU release by years)
XT - Core 2
AT 286 - Nehalem first i5
386 - Sandy Bridge.
486 - Skylake.

Tzk wrote on 2026-08-08, 04:43:

You can even build tiny ITX machines, which is (almost) impossible with older platforms, as ITX was mostly non-existent back then.

There was a niche blip at the end of socket A in ITX form factors, but they must be really hard to find now. Core 2 is probably the "volume" platform in ITX

I don't think I ever mentioned I had a schematic available for the zd8000. This should probably help
https://archive.org/details/hp-pavilion-zd-80 … ta-nt-2-rev-2-b