# Late XP gaming rig



## candle_86 (Mar 3, 2020)

So I want to build a late XP/Vista retro rig I have plenty of parts to do it but what can just set it as over the top.
Hi
My fastest XP gamer is my phenom 9950 with SLI 7900gtx but I want something that could handle up till 2010/2011 and run Vista and XP dual boot, I don't need it but I want it.

Current spare parts laying around.

QX6700 on an ASUS P45 board
Phenom II x4 955be on an MSI 790fx board

I've got for cpu combos
4x2gb ocz SLI memory ddr2 800 
2x4gb ddr3 1066 ocz platinum
Misc ddr3 Samsung 4gb modules 

Video options
GTX 280
GTX 460
Radeon HD6770
GTX 550 Ti

Storage
Western digital raptor 300gb
Misc 500 and 1tb hard drives

Psu will be a 750w thermaltake unit

What would y'all combine and what could I add for over the top


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## PooPipeBoy (Mar 4, 2020)

First up, go straight for a reliable Gen 3 SATA SSD like a 250GB Samsung 860. It'll be plenty fast enough to max out data transfer on the old 300MB/s Gen 2 SATA connections and make XP much nicer to use.

I would stick with the P45 motherboard and do the LGA771-to-775 mod to install a Xeon E5450. They sell for about $10 on Ebay, along with the $1 sticker. Requires a bit of modding ability to do this, but the P45 motherboard is compatible with these E5xxx chips and the results are very worthwhile. The E5450 provides more L2 cache, higher clock speeds and significantly better TDP that means great overclocking. Make sure to read the delidded website for further details if you're interested.

Seems like you have plenty of remaining parts to finish it off nicely.


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## lexluthermiester (Mar 4, 2020)

candle_86 said:


> Phenom II x4 955be on an MSI 790fx board


These...


candle_86 said:


> 4x2gb ocz SLI memory ddr2 800


...with two of these, because XP is a 32bit OS which has the 4GB limit and...


candle_86 said:


> Western digital raptor 300gb


...this as a boot drive.

This would make an excellent combination of parts for a retro XP system. Just my 2 cents though..


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## candle_86 (Mar 4, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> These...
> 
> ...with two of these, because XP is a 32bit OS which has the 4GB limit and...
> 
> ...



Can't use the ddr2 with the phenom ii it's a ddr3 board.



PooPipeBoy said:


> First up, go straight for a reliable Gen 3 SATA SSD like a 250GB Samsung 860. It'll be plenty fast enough to max out data transfer on the old 300MB/s Gen 2 SATA connections and make XP much nicer to use.
> 
> I would stick with the P45 motherboard and do the LGA771-to-775 mod to install a Xeon E5450. They sell for about $10 on Ebay, along with the $1 sticker. Requires a bit of modding ability to do this, but the P45 motherboard is compatible with these E5xxx chips and the results are very worthwhile. The E5450 provides more L2 cache, higher clock speeds and significantly better TDP that means great overclocking. Make sure to read the delidded website for further details if you're interested.
> 
> Seems like you have plenty of remaining parts to finish it off nicely.



Hadn't thought of going 771 Xeon. SSD though I don't want to fool with, no trim, manual alignment of the sectors.


Now what gpu do y'all think fits in best.


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## lexluthermiester (Mar 4, 2020)

candle_86 said:


> Can't use the ddr2 with the phenom ii it's a ddr3 board.


Fair enough. 4GB(2x2GB) of DDR3 is cheap though.


candle_86 said:


> Now what gpu do y'all think fits in best.


The GTX460


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## PooPipeBoy (Mar 4, 2020)

candle_86 said:


> Can't use the ddr2 with the phenom ii it's a ddr3 board.
> 
> Hadn't thought of going 771 Xeon. SSD though I don't want to fool with, no trim, manual alignment of the sectors.
> 
> Now what gpu do y'all think fits in best.



Up to you, really. I'd happily go with the GTX 550 Ti or GTX 460. The Fermi and Kepler graphics cards seem to be a good match for Core 2 Quad/Extreme systems. I've found that newer GPUs don't really offer great performance when paired with such old CPUs or even straight up don't support Windows XP.


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## delshay (Mar 4, 2020)

I do believe the Phenom II does support DDR2/DDR3, but I think you need AM2+ or AM3 motherboard to pick which DDR you want to use.


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## lexluthermiester (Mar 4, 2020)

delshay said:


> I do believe the Phenom II does support DDR2/DDR3, but I think you need AM2+ or AM3 motherboard to pick which DDR you want to use.


Actually, he's got DDR3 but in 4GB sticks. Thing is you could use them but with XP only the first 4GB will be usable by the OS which really isn't a problem.


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## XL-R8R (Mar 4, 2020)

Why not use x64 XP instead of the lesser 32-bit version?


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## candle_86 (Mar 5, 2020)

XL-R8R said:


> Why not use x64 XP instead of the lesser 32-bit version?



Compatability with well everything lol


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## XL-R8R (Mar 5, 2020)

candle_86 said:


> Compatability with well everything lol


I never had any comparability issues with x64 XP and I doubt anyone else did when it came to gaming... so long as you didn't run DOS or Win 95 stuff, you were fine.  The only other issue is/was user error at the time and a misinformed set of people when it comes to software and how to deploy it; thankfully (almost) everyone is more educated today with this stuff. 



Myths from the internet about bygone eras should really have ended in that era rather than being transported to the future to replicate on message boards.  I'd definitely be using x64 for this project.


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## candle_86 (Mar 5, 2020)

XL-R8R said:


> I never had any comparability issues with x64 XP and I doubt anyone else did when it came to gaming... so long as you didn't run DOS or Win 95 stuff, you were fine.  The only other issue is/was user error at the time and a misinformed set of people when it comes to software and how to deploy it; thankfully (almost) everyone is more educated today with this stuff.
> 
> 
> 
> Myths from the internet about bygone eras should really have ended in that era rather than being transported to the future to replicate on message boards.  I'd definitely be using x64 for this project.



Oh I did, Need for Speed Most Wanted and Carbon both crashed like a drunk man driving a stock car at indy.

I was one of the people that traded Microsoft my XP PRo key for an x64 key early on because I had an Athlon 64 3200 and a 6800GT and watned to play FarCry 64bit


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## candle_86 (Mar 22, 2020)

So I found some more goodies and went a different way somewhat

Final specs

M4N98TD-Evo
2x2gb ddr3 1600 Samsung 
X4 840t @ 4ghz
SLI GTX 460 
300gb raptor boot drive
1tb storage

I think I can whoop any XP games now.


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## Regeneration (Mar 22, 2020)

Most old games for XP have 3rd party patches that you can play on current hardware and Windows 7/10.

Build a rig and sell it on eBay for some poor folk or give it to a family relative.


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## candle_86 (Mar 22, 2020)

Regeneration said:


> Most old games for XP have 3rd party patches that you can play on current hardware and Windows 7/10.
> 
> Build a rig and sell it on eBay for some poor folk or give it to a family relative.



It's not that I can't on newer it's fun for me


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## AsRock (Mar 22, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> These...
> 
> ...with two of these, because XP is a 32bit OS which has the 4GB limit and...
> 
> ...



Then go XP X64, i ran it for years without any problems with gaming.


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## damric (Mar 22, 2020)

You might mitigate the 32Bit 4GB limit by setting excess RAM to RAM disk then using that disk as Ready Boost (in XP use eBOOSTR). Might be worth a try.


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## lexluthermiester (Mar 23, 2020)

AsRock said:


> Then go XP X64, i ran it for years without any problems with gaming.


Yeah, that won't work. There are tons of hardware and software that don't work at all or don't work properly with XP64.



damric said:


> You might mitigate the 32Bit 4GB limit by setting excess RAM to RAM disk then using that disk as Ready Boost (in XP use eBOOSTR). Might be worth a try.


It's easier to deal with the limits...


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## AsRock (Mar 23, 2020)

It won't work ?,  won't work with what games ?.



candle_86 said:


> Compatability with well everything lol



Personal experience ?, if i had any real issue it was with printers and a like stuff not gaming.


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## Kissamies (Mar 23, 2020)

Sounds like my XP machine. Phenom II X2 555BE, Asus M4A77T, 4GB DDR3-1600, HD 6850 & Audigy2 ZS. Perfect for pre-2010 games and it has HW audio.


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## lexluthermiester (Mar 23, 2020)

AsRock said:


> It won't work ?, won't work with what games ?.


Please review the section labeled "Known limitations".





						Windows XP Professional x64 Edition - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				



That list of limitations is not a complete list, but even just those cause problems for a great many games and other software.

Anyone using Windows XP for some retro gaming is wise to choose XP 32bit SP3.


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## candle_86 (Mar 23, 2020)

Deamon Tools 3.47 - ISO mounting of games (ripped most of my games to iso so I don't damage the disc and have to hunt down more copies) v4 supports 64bit but does not supress or block safedisk or other copy protection from that era.

Need for Speed Most Wanted - random crashes and poor performance on xp 64bit, was never patched and was a known issue

Need for Speed Carbon - same as above

SimCity 4 - runs even worse under 64bit than 32bit, already CPU heavy

For any 64bit titles the machine dual boots to Vista x64 and I can enjoy things like FarCry64


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## freeagent (Mar 23, 2020)

Weird, I don’t remember having problems with xp64. I vaguely remember loving it lol. But then again, I liked vista too once it was done loading.


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## Kissamies (Mar 23, 2020)

Personally I don't know anyone who used XP x64, probably because all those problems and even 2GB was only an enthusiast gaming rig thing back then.

I moved to 64-bit OS when Win7 was released, I could have continued using 32-bit, but I also upgraded to 8GB RAM so it was neccessary.


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## candle_86 (Mar 23, 2020)

I had xp64 at the time, ended up rebuying xp home since I trade my XP pro license for 64bit with Microsoft's offer at the time. I moved to 64 bit full time in 2010 when I got a copy of Vista ultimate used but it only included the 64bit disk. It worked out ok because my phenom x4 9600 BE was paired with a 9800gx2 and 4gb of ram.


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## lexluthermiester (Mar 23, 2020)

freeagent said:


> Weird, I don’t remember having problems with xp64. I vaguely remember loving it lol. But then again, I liked vista too once it was done loading.


I gave it a fair try several times but just had too many issues to make it appealing.


Chloe Price said:


> I moved to 64-bit OS when Win7 was released, I could have continued using 32-bit, but I also upgraded to 8GB RAM so it was necessary.


I went to 64bit gradually. Stayed with 32bit on some of my systems because there was no need for 64bit on hardware that didn't support more than 4GB of ram.


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## freeagent (Mar 23, 2020)

Come to think of it maybe that’s why I embraced vista.. sick of the house of cards that was xp.


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## AsRock (Mar 23, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> Please review the section labeled "Known limitations".
> 
> 
> 
> ...



HAHA the wiki, i was buying games like crazy back then too. only reason i changed was due to MS giving away Vista and even then ii was going back to XP x64 (w\sp1\sp2) and didn't need to use a 32bit OS back then for my gaming needs.

However i will say that it did need the Service packs.  And now i think about it XP 32bit with sp3 was more problematic for me.


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## lexluthermiester (Mar 23, 2020)

AsRock said:


> HAHA the wiki, i was buying games like crazy back then too. only reason i changed was due to MS giving away Vista and even then ii was going back to XP x64 (w\sp1\sp2) and didn't need to use a 32bit OS back then for my gaming needs.
> 
> However i will say that it did need the Service packs.  And now i think about it XP 32bit with sp3 was more problematic for me.


The OP has already chimed in with their perspective so you are arguing a mute point. Let's let it go.


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