If you need native PCI, look at Q77 chipset. Otherwise, Z77 motherboards may have PCI slots as well, but not native.

I have an intel Q77 mobo and a Z77 Gigabyte one; both are great.

Here's one I use with 4x native PCI slots:

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-P75-D3-rev-10#ov

Unfortunately, it uses Intel's USB 3 ports. I'm not aware that Intel ever wrote a Windows XP driver for XHCI, though. You might need a motherboard with Asmedia USB 3 ports (or use a PCIE expansion card).

I am finding this chart to be handy in my search:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_c … ipsets#LGA_1155

fosterwj03 wrote on 2021-09-02, 16:05:

Unfortunately, it uses Intel's USB 3 ports. I'm not aware that Intel ever wrote a Windows XP driver for XHCI, though. You might need a motherboard with Asmedia USB 3 ports (or use a PCIE expansion card).

From the support page for this board:
"In Windows XP, the Intel USB 3.0 ports can support up to USB 2.0 transfer speed."

So, it looks like the ports will at least function under WinXP.

Gigabyte still has many of their 2nd and 3rd generation 1155 motherboards listed and supported on their website. This is proving to be very helpful along with your suggestions. Thank you all so much!

FWIW both the GA-P75-D3 and GA-B75-D3V are still cheap and plentiful. These both look like outstanding choices.

Just make X58 platform PC. Problem solved.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-09-02, 19:58:

Just make X58 platform PC. Problem solved.

No PCIe 3.0 support there.

just be advised that using i7 3770 with a modern OS, would require disabling spectre / meltdown mitigations, for reasonable performance.

Have you recently encountered many games that work in Windows XP but don't work in Wine these days? The compatibility of Wine has gotten quite good over the years. For older games, I dare say it typically works even better than Windows now. So why even dual-boot? Unless of course you're doing it specifically for Windows XP nostalgia.

KT7AGuy wrote on 2021-09-02, 15:06:

I haven't followed any of the Ryzen products at all, but if any of those fit the bill please recommend them as well.

Technically the Ryzen stuff doesn't even support Windows 7, much less XP. It probably won't help you much, but for a "bridge machine" I have ASRock 980DE3/U3S3 (the pre Ryzen AMD FX stuff) which might meet some of your requirements. It does look like the Etron USB3 controller is XP compatible.

mihai wrote on 2021-09-02, 20:26:

just be advised that using i7 3770 with a modern OS, would require disabling spectre / meltdown mitigations, for reasonable performance.

I'll be using an I5 without hyperthreading. I just wanted the ability to disable hyperthreading should the need arise.

digger wrote on 2021-09-02, 20:46:

Have you recently encountered many games that work in Windows XP but don't work in Wine these days? The compatibility of Wine has gotten quite good over the years. For older games, I dare say it typically works even better than Windows now. So why even dual-boot? Unless of course you're doing it specifically for Windows XP nostalgia.

EAX

I was not precise enough - all older cpus will suffer performance penalties when used in a modern spectre / meltdown aware OS.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=articl … ombieload&num=1

If budget allows, an I7 3770 is still a reasonable CPU; I would not go lower. I still have one; after disabling all mitigations and using an SSD, the performance is acceptable.

Spectre and Meltdown affect even the non-hyperthreading I5 models? I wasn't aware of that. I'll need to do more research before I start buying parts. Thanks for the advice. Much appreciated. This may be a bad idea after all.

I have a sandy bridge 2700k CPU (not ivy bridge) and a gigabyte board (z68xp-ud3) from around 2011 or so. I think the board can use Ivy Bridge CPU too.

Ran without issue for 7 years, and the board is still pretty solid, so I would suggest Gigabyte as a possibility. Only gripe is for some reason the SATA ports are at a right angle... makes it a real pita to plug in cables...

It has 2x PCI, can disable HT and cores, XP compatible, quality caps, usb3, no pci3.0 though... https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z68XP-UD3-rev-13#ov

KT7AGuy wrote on 2021-09-02, 21:13:

digger wrote on 2021-09-02, 20:46:

Have you recently encountered many games that work in Windows XP but don't work in Wine these days? The compatibility of Wine has gotten quite good over the years. For older games, I dare say it typically works even better than Windows now. So why even dual-boot? Unless of course you're doing it specifically for Windows XP nostalgia.

EAX

Look like the timing was about right that QEMU VMs would support EAX through DSOAL. 😉
Not sure which EAX games you have in mind, if they work with DSOAL, then I think someone had used DSOAL with Wine, too.

KT7AGuy wrote on 2021-09-02, 20:04:

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-09-02, 19:58:

Just make X58 platform PC. Problem solved.

No PCIe 3.0 support there.

I use a SuperMicro X8DTi, X58's xeon cousin. PCI 3.0 and all. Now only XP, has run Debian fine.

KT7AGuy wrote on 2021-09-02, 21:45:

Spectre and Meltdown affect even the non-hyperthreading I5 models? I wasn't aware of that. I'll need to do more research before I start buying parts. Thanks for the advice. Much appreciated. This may be a bad idea after all.

Here's a list of cpus affected.

https://www.techarp.com/guides/complete-meltd … tre-cpu-list/6/

A fairly good artical with licks to the original announcement.

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3247868/spe … ts-at-risk.html

Anyone got a definitive source wrt who has had these exploits out in the wild so to speak?

From the horses mouth.

https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2018/0 … -with-side.html

These exploits apparently require local access to the system.

CwF wrote:

I use a SuperMicro X8DTi, X58's xeon cousin. PCI 3.0 and all.

It doesn't - https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboa … /5500/X8DTi.cfm

KT7AGuy wrote:

No PCIe 3.0 support there.

Why would you need one though?

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-09-03, 00:34:

It doesn't - https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboa … /5500/X8DTi.cfm […]
Show full quote

CwF wrote:

I use a SuperMicro X8DTi, X58's xeon cousin. PCI 3.0 and all.

It doesn't - https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboa … /5500/X8DTi.cfm

No PCIe 3.0 support there.

Why would you need one though?

You're right! I'm thinking of the c602 based one, sorry. The gpu is a w7000, it might be...

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-09-03, 00:34:

Why would you need one though?

I'm glad you asked, because it prompted me to look up the specs of the video cards I'm using. My Radeon HD 7770s use PCIe 3.0. However, and much to my surprise, my GTX 560 Ti 448 uses PCIe 2.0.

Based on what I've read here, there's a substantial increase in performance going from PCIe 2.0 to 3.0. Are real world results very different?