Best motherboards for XP gaming

[Shou Miko]

I used the following parts when I built my Windows XP Gaming System:

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130
Cooler: Noctua NH-L9i (If I remember correctly)
Mobo: Asus P9D-I
Memory: 2x2GB ECC Memory
GPU: MSI GeForce N750 TI TF 2GD5/OC
SSD: Kingspec 240GB SATA3 SSD
PSU: Seasonic SFX SFG 300W 80+ Gold
Case: Fractal Design Core 500
OS: Windows XP Pro SP3 32bit English

I build this rig a long time ago the only part that I brought new was the psu, I owned the case and ssd and brought the cpu, mobo and ram combi for 24bucks this was before covid ever happened.

 

[masterdeejay]

My build for core2 Vista build.
E6850 (no need for quad for that era games)
2x1GB OCZ Reaper (1066mhz)
Quadro FX5500 (like a GeForce 7900 GTX 1GB vram but lower clocks)
Abit IP35-Pro

The pentium4 XP build:
Abit IC7, P4 3ghz HT, Leadtek A280le (ti4200-8x), 4x256mb ram
And i have Abit IS7 and that is better overclocker.

And my P3 Win98 build

Abit St6 (but i have Asus Tusl2-c for backup)
P3 1.4S
1x256mb sd133
Inno Geforce3 Ti200
Sb live 5.1

These are collector items now, for just retro gaming i recommend the cheapest LGA771 motherboard that support core2 (G41, P35...) with an E5xxx or E8xxx cpu, for gpu any cheap Geforce 6-7 series are fine. Ram 1-2-3GB fine. The core2 platform is very good for XP-Vista-7, dont need a quad cpu.
Most of the high end ~20y old GPU-s are dead or very expensive now (6800ultra, GTX7900, 8800...) I recommend to get the quadro equivalent of the top geforce cards, they are much more better shape than the gamer overclocked variants.
Quadro FX1300 if you want a fast but not hot GeforceFX card (5950 gpu)
Quadro FX1400 for a low end Geforce 6800
Quadro FX5500 for the GTX7900
Quadro FX5600/4600 for the 8800 ultra/GTS (but these are very long cards!)

The beauty FX1300 (FX5950 GPU)

And i have a lot of other builds for win95/98/dos, P1 233 voodoo1, P2 450mhz for the voodoo3....etc

 

[Greenslade]

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

Thanks for the offer but £25 is to much postage for me. Its a shame you don,t live in the uk as the postage would be less than £10 at most.

I used the following parts when I built my Windows XP Gaming System:

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130
Cooler: Noctua NH-L9i (If I remember correctly)
Mobo: Asus P9D-I
Memory: 2x2GB ECC Memory
GPU: MSI GeForce N750 TI TF 2GD5/OC
SSD: Kingspec 240GB SATA3 SSD
PSU: Seasonic SFX SFG 300W 80+ Gold
Case: Fractal Design Core 500
OS: Windows XP Pro SP3 32bit English

I build this rig a long time ago the only part that I brought new was the psu, I owned the case and ssd and brought the cpu, mobo and ram combi for 24bucks this was before covid ever happened.

I do want a 775 motherboard as i have a Q9450 CPu.I do have quite a few other socket boards but not one that takes a Q9450.

 

[Ruru]

Thanks for the offer but £25 is to much postage for me. Its a shame you don,t live in the uk as the postage would be less than £10 at most.


I do want a 775 motherboard as i have a Q9450 CPu.I do have quite a few other socket boards but not one that takes a Q9450.

I've probably said this on the nostalgic hardware thread, but I have an Asus P5Q Pro for 775 tinkering and nothing bad to say about that board.

 

[Greenslade]

My build for core2 Vista build.
E6850 (no need for quad for that era games)
2x1GB OCZ Reaper (1066mhz)
Quadro FX5500 (like a GeForce 7900 GTX 1GB vram but lower clocks)
Abit IP35-Pro

View attachment 406187

The pentium4 XP build:
Abit IC7, P4 3ghz HT, Leadtek A280le (ti4200-8x), 4x256mb ram
And i have Abit IS7 and that is better overclocker.

View attachment 406188

And my P3 Win98 build

Abit St6 (but i have Asus Tusl2-c for backup)
P3 1.4S
1x256mb sd133
Inno Geforce3 Ti200
Sb live 5.1

View attachment 406189


These are collector items now, for just retro gaming i recommend the cheapest LGA771 motherboard that support core2 (G41, P35...) with an E5xxx or E8xxx cpu, for gpu any cheap Geforce 6-7 series are fine. Ram 1-2-3GB fine. The core2 platform is very good for XP-Vista-7, dont need a quad cpu.
Most of the high end ~20y old GPU-s are dead or very expensive now (6800ultra, GTX7900, 8800...) I recommend to get the quadro equivalent of the top geforce cards, they are much more better shape than the gamer overclocked variants.
Quadro FX1300 if you want a fast but not hot GeforceFX card (5950 gpu)
Quadro FX1400 for a low end Geforce 6800
Quadro FX5500 for the GTX7900
Quadro FX5600/4600 for the 8800 ultra/GTS (but these are very long cards!)

View attachment 406196

The beauty FX1300 (FX5950 GPU)
View attachment 406194


And i have a lot of other builds for win95/98/dos, P1 233 voodoo1, P2 450mhz for the voodoo3....etc

I do have a have E7400 and a E8600 and a couple of lower ones.I have heard good things about abit boards i was sure that the one i bought would work.In fact i have a board that i put the E8600 in but the q9450 was not listed.

I've probably said this on the nostalgic hardware thread, but I have an Asus P5Q Pro for 775 tinkering and nothing bad to say about that board.

To Ruru
Yes i remember you saying that , at the time someone was selling one for £20 and there was a Deluxe version for £42 with a cooler and ram. unfournatly by the time i had made up my mind both had gone. I think i will hang on tell one or the other turns up .Thats why i did not go for the
Deluxe version no I/O shield .They can cost as much as £8 or more.I have just looked on the sold items on eBay and a Asus P5Q Pro boxed went for less than £10 including discs and everything else and ir was working.The ones that are on there now ,are a lot more expensive and not boxed.

 

[Ruru]

To Ruru
Yes i remember you saying that , at the time someone was selling one for £20 and there was a Deluxe version for £42 with a cooler and ram. unfournatly by the time i had made up my mind both had gone. I think i will hang on tell one or the other turns up .Thats why i did not go for the
Deluxe version no I/O shield .They can cost as much as £8 or more.I have just looked on the sold items on eBay and a Asus P5Q Pro boxed went for less than £10 including discs and everything else and ir was working.The ones that are on there now ,are a lot more expensive and not boxed.

Personally I just don't understand people who don't use or lose the I/O shields. Luckily modern boards have that integrated so there's no excuse to lose it.

 

[Greenslade]

Personally I just don't understand people who don't use or lose the I/O shields. Luckily modern boards have that integrated so there's no excuse to lose it.

Nore me

 

[Bones]

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.

1155 runs it too, No need to worry about finding drivers and the platform is capable.
Currently have an ASRock Z77 OCF and a 7700K and it all did well with XP, the board needs a repair ATM so it's not being used but I do know 1155 supports it, no prob.

I believe the OP wants a more "Vintage" setup and 775 with a good Gigabyte P45 chipped/ DDR3 board will certainly get it done, that combined with any decently rated quad core will do the trick for a good retro-build.

 

[Dr. Dro]

1155 runs it too, No need to worry about finding drivers and the platform is capable.
Currently have an ASRock Z77 OCF and a 7700K and it all did well with XP, the board needs a repair ATM so it's not being used but I do know 1155 supports it, no prob.

I believe the OP wants a more "Vintage" setup and 775 with a good Gigabyte P45 chipped/ DDR3 board will certainly get it done, that combined with any decently rated quad core will do the trick for a good retro-build.

You mean 3770K? The 7700K is for the Z270 iirc

 

[lexluthermiester]

You mean 3770K? The 7700K is for the Z270 iirc

7700K was Z170. Z270 was 8th & 9th gen.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

Socket 754 Winfast Foxxcon NF4K
Windows XP 32 bit (important to mention?)
512mb RAM (single channel only on this socket)
2-2-2-5-10 1T at 183mhz.

Is not the best motherboard for XP. But then, there's really no such thing. I think it depends on the nostalgia of whatever platforms you might be interested in, then my opinion doesnt apply.

So here's what I was playing with couple months ago.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Socket 754 Winfast Foxxcon NF4K
Windows XP 32 bit (important to mention?)
512mb RAM (single channel only on this socket)
2-2-2-5-10 1T at 183mhz.

Is not the best motherboard for XP. But then, there's really no such thing. I think it depends on the nostalgia of whatever platforms you might be interested in, then my opinion doesnt apply.

So here's what I was playing with couple months ago.

View attachment 407001

Oh dear goodness you need more RAM! Though if you go with Windows ME for that system, 512MB would be good.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

Oh dear goodness you need more RAM! Though if you go with Windows ME for that system, 512MB would be good.

More ram wont do those timings though. That there is BH5 memory!

What was the limit on 32 bit, 3gb or 3.5gb. Something like that right?

 

[lexluthermiester]

More ram wont do those timings though. That there is BH5 memory!

For DDR1 at 366mhz speeds? Those timings are decent. No worries.

What was the limit on 32 bit, 3gb or 3.5gb. Something like that right?

4GB, but .25 or .5 will be reserved for hardware table data and bios shadowing. IF you can swing it, get 4GB, but at least get 2 or 3 otherwise XP will get memory starved real fast on 512MB.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

For DDR1 at 366mhz speeds? Those timings are decent. No worries.

4GB, but .25 or .5 will be reserved for hardware table data and bios shadowing. IF you can swing it, get 4GB, but at least get 2 or 3 otherwise XP will get memory starved real fast on 512MB.

Well the cpu walled at that speed, but usually that memory will to 400 at the same timings or better.

I have more ram somewhere. But probably not 4gb laying around anymore.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Well the cpu walled at that speed, but usually that memory will to 400 at the same timings or better.

I have more ram somewhere. But probably not 4gb laying around anymore.

Don't remember where you are in the world, but stateside, DDR1 is dead cheap;
https://www.ebay.com/itm/156798083815
https://www.ebay.com/itm/157058028016
2 sticks should be good.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

Don't remember where you are in the world, but stateside, DDR1 is dead cheap;
https://www.ebay.com/itm/156798083815
https://www.ebay.com/itm/157058028016
2 sticks should be good.

Chicago!
Dead cheap and probably dead ram. KVR was junk when it was new. That would prevent any type of tweaking performance gains.

(I should mention its for benchmarking, not actual XP use ...)

 

[Ruru]

More ram wont do those timings though. That there is BH5 memory!

What was the limit on 32 bit, 3gb or 3.5gb. Something like that right?

Aaahhh... bh-5... mine ran at DDR540 2-2-2-5-1T @ 3.3V (volt-modded MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum, wire straight from 3.3V line to memory capacitor)

 

[freeagent]

Aaahhh... bh-5... mine ran at DDR540 2-2-2-5-1T @ 3.3V (volt-modded MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum, wire straight from 3.3V line to memory capacitor)

Attaboy

 

[ShrimpBrime]

Aaahhh... bh-5... mine ran at DDR540 2-2-2-5-1T @ 3.3V (volt-modded MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum, wire straight from 3.3V line to memory capacitor)

Oh nice! Socket 939 is one of my all time favorites. Well pretty much most of all the vintage/legacy/postmodern stuff. I stopped at Second Gen Ryzen and went to Intel after many years of AMD support. With small dashes of Intel here and there.

Here's socket A with some XMS Expert, I gave to a young clocker on our team that I wanted him to have for the experience. It's the best kit I've ever touched personally. Those came with an LED board you attached to the top. Well, here check out the review. https://www.overclockers.com/corsair-xms-xpert-twinxp1024-3200xl/

 

[freeagent]

Did you ever get better results running tRAS at 11? I remember reading about a tRAS bug in the chipset when I was playing with different tic tac bios on my NF7..

 

[ShrimpBrime]

Did you ever get better results running tRAS at 11? I remember reading about a tRAS bug in the chipset when I was playing with different tic tac bios on my NF7..

Can't say that I did, no. Always tight as possible, all platforms, no acceptions

 

[freeagent]

Always tight as possible,

Supposedly 11 is tighter than 5 or 6.. I honestly do not remember my results. I am pretty sure I always ran 2-3-3-11 instead of 2-3-3-6. I know I ran 2-3-3-6 on 939 for certain..

 

[lexluthermiester]

Supposedly 11 is tighter than 5 or 6..

How would that work? 5 or 6 is faster than 11, so that seems off to me..

 

[ShrimpBrime]

Supposedly 11 is tighter than 5 or 6.. I honestly do not remember my results. I am pretty sure I always ran 2-3-3-11 instead of 2-3-3-6. I know I ran 2-3-3-6 on 939 for certain..

Yeah, some dudes where doing 2-5-2-11, but probably 250mhz(ish).

Im sure there's mention of that bug in some old OC forum that doesnt exist anymore lol. But I can't say I recall it though.

How much to remember over many platforms??

I haven't much vintage stuff. I dont have space to keep it anymore after we moved.