Best motherboards for XP gaming

[Greenslade]

What are the best motherboards for XP gaming 775 or what? Only reasonable price ones under £50 for just the board.

 

[Frick]

Is this as hypothetical question or are you looking to buy something? The BEST can probably be debated, but for practical purposeses ... almost any will do.

 

[Greenslade]

Is this as hypothetical question or are you looking to buy something? The BEST can probably be debated, but for practical purposeses ... almost any will do.

I am looking for something ,but there are so many out there.it seems our friend Phil has said 775 so i will go got that.

i have a q9450.its intresting he has put this video out only 8 months ago.

 

[RogueSquadron80]

i have a gigabyte h61 (lga1155), i5 2400, gtx 780ti and 4gb ddr3 ram, runs everything you throw at it on win xp

 

[INSTG8R]

I have a 100% complete including box(maybe not the SATA cables if it came with any) Abit IP-35Pro

Universal abit > Motherboard, Digital Speakers, iDome, AirPace, Multimedia

Universal abit > Motherboard, Digital Speakers, iDome, AirPace, Multimedia

www.abit.com.tw

 

[Frick]

I am looking for something ,but there are so many out there.it seems our friend Phil has said 775 so i will go got that.

i have a q9450.its intresting he has put this video out only 8 months ago.

If you want to toy around with overclocking, look for a P35 based board. If not, literally anything.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

So...my last windows XP install was an x64 version. I ran it on a x79 motherboard...which could give you a 6 core 12ish thread processor. The optimization for multi-thread gaming wasn't exactly the best, but it was an absolute banger for being one of the first boards where 4 GB per channel meant 8*4= 32 GB or RAM...which allowed programs to be loaded into a ramdrive...which at the time was the fastest possible access times given that it only supported SATA III.

That might not be in your current price range...but it was definitely a banger when it didn't take forever to load crap from memory...and certain programs got that extensible memory flag that let them use memory beyond 4 GB.

 

[freeagent]

I still have my Rampage Formula X48. I won my class in Forum Warz 2007 with that board haha..

 

[Greenslade]

If you want to toy around with overclocking, look for a P35 based board. If not, literally anything.

i do want one with overclocking not that i have ever done any.

I still have my Rampage Formula X48. I won my class in Forum Warz 2007 with that board haha..

That looks a good board but that is way out of my price range.i see there is one from the Netherlands starting price £85.84?
i have seen a Foxconn p35ax s but there is no picture of the board listing all the Connections on the manuals or on any of there boards.I want to know where to put everything like the connections for the case.it comes with everything and it is my sort of price £24 including shipping.What does everyone think of Foxconn mothernoards ?I understand they are used in Dells and the like.

i do want one with overclocking not that i have ever done any.

That looks a good board but that is way out of my price range.i see there is one from the Netherlands starting price £85.84?
i have seen a Foxconn p35ax s but there is no picture of the board listing all the Connections on the manuals or on any of there boards.I want to know where to put everything like the connections for the case.it comes with everything and it is my sort of price £24 including shipping.What does everyone think of Foxconn mothernoards ?I understand they are used in Dells and the like.

This from AI
In terms of performance, some users have noted thatFoxconn
motherboards can be a good option for budget builds, but they may not offer the same level of features or support as more established brands like ASUS or Gigabyte.3

Overall, while Foxconn motherboards can be a viable option for some users, especially those looking for a budget-friendly solution, they may not be the best choice for those requiring the latest features or long-term support. It is advisable to consider other brands if you need more advanced features or reliable customer support.

 

[Apocalypsee]

IMO you better have Intel chipset, like the recommended P35 its easier to install Windows XP on it, but if you can slipstream driver to the ISO virtually any motherboard will do. Don't worry about Foxconn there were mostly on OEM system, at one time they produce motherboard for consumer too, and a bit serious like this one

https://www.techpowerup.com/75757/foxconn-quantum-force-avenger-motherboard-spotted?cp=2

But just buy the regular motherboard will do. I try to build one XP/VISTA retro system by using Crosshair II Formula and regret my decision, because the number of things I don't use, and heat it produces just not worth it (this board got NF200 bridge chip for 3-way SLI and it runs warm together with already warm 780a chipset).

 

[INSTG8R]

I’m in Norway so for your £50 budget I can send you this. It’s £25 for shipping so the board will be £25. if you’re interested shoot me a DM I’d love to see it go to a good home than be a “collector” in my closet.

 

[Ruru]

I'd say that it truly depends of what GPU you want to use. For AGP, something nForce 3 250Gb or Ultra based, for PCIe, I'd go for P45, X58 or even P67/Z68/Z77 based.

 

[Greenslade]

IMO you better have Intel chipset, like the recommended P35 its easier to install Windows XP on it, but if you can slipstream driver to the ISO virtually any motherboard will do. Don't worry about Foxconn there were mostly on OEM system, at one time they produce motherboard for consumer too, and a bit serious like this one

https://www.techpowerup.com/75757/foxconn-quantum-force-avenger-motherboard-spotted?cp=2

But just buy the regular motherboard will do. I try to build one XP/VISTA retro system by using Crosshair II Formula and regret my decision, because the number of things I don't use, and heat it produces just not worth it (this board got NF200 bridge chip for 3-way SLI and it runs warm together with already warm 780a chipset).

Thats what i thought about Foxconn i will give that a miss. Do i need to go with A 8 PIN CPU ?A lot of the other boards only have a 4 pin for cpu?i understand you need a 8 pin for over clocking?

 

[Frick]

Thats what i thought about Foxconn i will give that a miss. Do i need to go with A 8 PIN CPU ?A lot of the other boards only have a 4 pin for cpu?i understand you need a 8 pin for over clocking?

That depends on what you're overclocking and how much. For practical purposes (meaning retro gaming) you don't.

 

[Apocalypsee]

Thats what i thought about Foxconn i will give that a miss. Do i need to go with A 8 PIN CPU ?A lot of the other boards only have a 4 pin for cpu?i understand you need a 8 pin for over clocking?

You don't need to, you have Q9450 that is plenty for Windows XP gaming PC to be honest, heck dual core is good enough for most XP games. Think you better leave it stock, any overclocking is just to test its capability or for fun once in a while because you might never know how long each component remaining life left.

 

[freeagent]

Fun fact, an E8600 at 4800MHz is a little stronger than a stock Q6600

 

[Dr. Dro]

For native XP support, you want Intel X58 (Rampage II or III Extreme, Gigabyte G1.Assassin or X58A-OC) plus a Core i7-990X processor. It's literally the fastest thing that XP is gonna run natively on. You can get it running on X79 and AMD 990FX platforms with some extra work, but if you're after something with native support, X58 is your last stop.

 

[DudeBeFishing]

If you only need 4 cores, or you need AVX support, I'd go with Z77 if you can find one cheap enough. For example, Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z77X-UD3H-rev-12/support#support-dl-driver

X58 is good for cheap 6-core CPUs and cheap server RAM, but it can be picky with RAM settings. It's also a bit more power hungry when overclocking. There's also bios mods and custom boot loaders if you need to boot from an NVMe drive, although idk if there's support for them in XP.

 

[freeagent]

It's also a bit more power hungry when overclocking.

My old X58 setup went through 850w units every 3 years lol.. I ran mine pretty hard though. Just to run Linpack was more than 400w.. like this one I am on now lol..

 

[lexluthermiester]

What are the best motherboards for XP gaming 775 or what? Only reasonable price ones under £50 for just the board.

Honestly? Forget 775. These days I default to X79's Socket 2011 which is a fully XP supported platform. A Xeon E5-2643V2 or E5-1660V2 are the best bang for buck CPUs XP can handle. They're generally very inexpensive ATM. The X58 Socket 1366 platform is also very good and those CPU's will be very solid too. Either platform will be an absolute beast for anything XP. Memory for either one is DDR3 and is very inexpensive right now.

I’m in Norway so for your £50 budget I can send you this. It’s £25 for shipping so the board will be £25. if you’re interested shoot me a DM I’d love to see it go to a good home than be a “collector” in my closet.
View attachment 406067View attachment 406068

I will slightly retract, this would be an excellent board of you pair it up with a Q9450, Q9550 or Q9650 and 4GB of DDR2-800. 50GBP is a solid deal!
Keep in mind, this chipset is only PCIe 1.1. If you go with X58 or X79, they're both PCIe 2.0 with some X79 boards supporting PCIe 3.0.

 

[Paganstomp]

Ahh. somebody seen Phil's video, too. But those that need to know I'm running 775 Pentium D 945 @ 4.6 with Windows 10 Pro. Oh, that's a Dual core / Dual thread.

Intel Pentium D 945 @ 4594.35 MHz - CPU-Z VALIDATOR

[s1vzul] Validated Dump by xPAGANSTOMPx (2025-07-01 16:04:56) - MB: Asus P5K-E - RAM: 4096 MB

valid.x86.fr

 

[Outback Bronze]

For native XP support, you want Intel X58

I have an X79 Rampage IV Extreme out back purely for XP (comes with native drivers) with an i7 4960x attached for one of the ultimate XP machines

Just select XP from the drop-down menu.

RAMPAGE IV EXTREME - Support

www.asus.com

 

[Greenslade]

I'd say that it truly depends of what GPU you want to use. For AGP, something nForce 3 250Gb or Ultra based, for PCIe, I'd go for P45, X58 or even P67/Z68/Z77 based.

I have not thought of that, i have quite a few of GPU,s

I’m in Norway so for your £50 budget I can send you this. It’s £25 for shipping so the board will be £25. if you’re interested shoot me a DM I’d love to see it go to a good home than be a “collector” in my closet.
View attachment 406067View attachment 406068

abit ip35 off Limits. Motherboard Funny enough i did have this from eBay for £17 pounds it was sold as seen ,but unfortunately it did not work and was boxed like yours .The seller had mo idea about computers,​

 

[Dr. Dro]

I have an X79 Rampage IV Extreme out back purely for XP (comes with native drivers) with an i7 4960x attached for one of the ultimate XP machines

Just select XP from the drop-down menu.

RAMPAGE IV EXTREME - Support

www.asus.com

Yup, they should work. Drivers were still available for the X79, though if memory serves me well those already have UEFI BIOSes, or at least should. CSM is a thing anyway. The R4E is an amazing board to this day IMO. X99's got no XP support left anymore, though.

I used to have an R2E, that board is legendary, it bridges the gap between generations... it still had floppy headers and parallel ATA connector, but at the same time it can handle 48GB of RAM and a 6-core CPU that's still just about barely passable even today. Win2K-11 drivers available, that's the workhorse to end all workhorses

 

[INSTG8R]

I have not thought of that, i have quite a few of GPU,s

abit ip35 off Limits. Motherboard Funny enough i did have this from eBay for £17 pounds it was sold as seen ,but unfortunately it did not work and was boxed like yours .The seller had mo idea about computers,​

This is in my “museum” definitely works I might even be able to find the RAM for it but I think I had OCZ Reapers I sold along with the Q5500 I ran in it was another member here years ago