Best motherboards for XP gaming

[ShrimpBrime]

I have never heard of that socket before 1366 Just looked it up on eBay the boards are a reasonable price .Asus RAMPAGE II EXTREME REV: 2.01G Socket 1366 DDR3 Motherboard with BP and i7 930 RAMPAGE II EXTREME REV: 2.01G £60 make an offer. Or there is this one half the price .both boards have been tested and sold by a Business.Do you see any bad caps?

View attachment 407405ASUS P6X58D-E i7-950 2.40 GHz LGA1366 DDR3 ATX Motherboard With I/O Shield i realise this is lower grade board but ti does have a better cpu
View attachment 407404

Have you found this problem
Users have noted some design flaws, such as limited space for components, which can affect the installation of full-size sound cards and the cooling efficiency of multiple graphics cards.
On the .Asus RAMPAGE II EXTREME REV: 2.0?

Reading this from my AI
It seems there is not a lot of difference between the two boards ,and that the fact that price is double .and t the ASUS P6X58D-E has a better cpu i7 950.

I have the Rampage II Extreme. In use, right now. Dual slot cards are very close, GPU1 about suffocates as a result. But its a really good board. Mine is sealed for dryice and ln2. And I have done so a few times, board still works like a champ! But, yes 2x 7950s in crossfire dont have much air flow.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I have never heard of that socket before 1366 Just looked it up on eBay the boards are a reasonable price .Asus RAMPAGE II EXTREME REV: 2.01G Socket 1366 DDR3 Motherboard with BP and i7 930 RAMPAGE II EXTREME REV: 2.01G £60 make an offer. Or there is this one half the price .both boards have been tested and sold by a Business.Do you see any bad caps?

View attachment 407405ASUS P6X58D-E i7-950 2.40 GHz LGA1366 DDR3 ATX Motherboard With I/O Shield i realise this is lower grade board but ti does have a better cpu
View attachment 407404

Have you found this problem
Users have noted some design flaws, such as limited space for components, which can affect the installation of full-size sound cards and the cooling efficiency of multiple graphics cards.
On the .Asus RAMPAGE II EXTREME REV: 2.0?

Reading this from my AI
It seems there is not a lot of difference between the two boards ,and that the fact that price is double .and t the ASUS P6X58D-E has a better cpu i7 950.

Don't by parts. Buy a whole system. A Dell or HP would be perfect and they are very affordable.
For example;

Windows 7 Pro Dell Precision T3500 Xeon X5660 2.8GHz 12GB RAM 250GB SSD Wi-Fi | eBay

232GB SanDisk SDSSDH3250G ATA Device (SSD) 26 °C. Dell Inc. 0XPDFK (CPU). Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1. 28GB Kingston DataTraveler 3.0 USB Device (USB). 1023MB NVIDIA Quadro K600 (NVIDIA) 39 °C. ASUS VA24E (1920x1080@60Hz).

www.ebay.com

HP Z400, Xeon Quad Core w3540 2.93GHz, 6GB RAM, Nvidia Quadro FX 3800, no HD | eBay

Xeon Quad Core w3540 2.93 GHZ. Nvidia Quadro FX 3800. No hard drive.

www.ebay.com

Then there are the X79 systems I mentioned previously;

HP Z420 Computer 3.00GHz 4-Core E5-1607 v2 8GB RAM No HDD No OS | eBay

HP Z420 Computer 3.00GHz 4-Core E5-1607 v2 8GB RAM No HDD No OS.

www.ebay.com

Dell Precision T3600 Desktop Xeon E5-1620 3.60GHz 32GB RAM NO HDD | eBay

No hard drive included comes with Quattro 4000 No power cord WHEN OFFER IS ACCEPTED OR ITEM PURCHASED, THERE WILL BE NO CANCELLATION!!!!!!

www.ebay.com

For less than $200 you get a whole system that you can add parts into and make it really shine. There's no overclocking but for something like this, who cares. You get a solid machine for XP and they'll last you a while.

 

[Ruru]

I have never heard of that socket before 1366 Just looked it up on eBay the boards are a reasonable price .Asus RAMPAGE II EXTREME REV: 2.01G Socket 1366 DDR3 Motherboard with BP and i7 930 RAMPAGE II EXTREME REV: 2.01G £60 make an offer. Or there is this one half the price .both boards have been tested and sold by a Business.Do you see any bad caps?

View attachment 407405ASUS P6X58D-E i7-950 2.40 GHz LGA1366 DDR3 ATX Motherboard With I/O Shield i realise this is lower grade board but ti does have a better cpu
View attachment 407404

Have you found this problem
Users have noted some design flaws, such as limited space for components, which can affect the installation of full-size sound cards and the cooling efficiency of multiple graphics cards.
On the .Asus RAMPAGE II EXTREME REV: 2.0?

Reading this from my AI
It seems there is not a lot of difference between the two boards ,and that the fact that price is double .and t the ASUS P6X58D-E has a better cpu i7 950.

I have a P6X58D-E and it's a great board, I don't have anything to complain about it. Goes easily way beyond 200BCLK, actually I ran my old X5650 at ~4.5GHz suicide-runs without any issues.

 

[Greenslade]

While that is a good choice for some games, there are many games in the XP era that started utilizing multicore CPU's and I personally have found the Xeon socket 1366 Hex core CPUs are surprisingly effective. In effect, the OS gets use of 2 cores and the games get 4 of them which works out really well. Quad core CPU's work much the same way but with fewer core divides. Where your choice hits it's stride is with single threaded games that run best on a high speed single core.

For my money though, I use either a 6 core socket 1366 W3680 or the 8 core socket 2011 E5-2667V2 for XP duties. With these two CPU's, I get high speed single core performance for games that need that and the high speed multi-core performance for the rest.

What is the modal number of your board?Apparently the too boards i mention here don,t support any Xeon cpu,s . I saw the one you use it was only £10 i saw that it is a very good cpu .the i7 ,s are way done from that.

Don't by parts. Buy a whole system. A Dell or HP would be perfect and they are very affordable.
For example;

Windows 7 Pro Dell Precision T3500 Xeon X5660 2.8GHz 12GB RAM 250GB SSD Wi-Fi | eBay

232GB SanDisk SDSSDH3250G ATA Device (SSD) 26 °C. Dell Inc. 0XPDFK (CPU). Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1. 28GB Kingston DataTraveler 3.0 USB Device (USB). 1023MB NVIDIA Quadro K600 (NVIDIA) 39 °C. ASUS VA24E (1920x1080@60Hz).

www.ebay.com

HP Z400, Xeon Quad Core w3540 2.93GHz, 6GB RAM, Nvidia Quadro FX 3800, no HD | eBay

Xeon Quad Core w3540 2.93 GHZ. Nvidia Quadro FX 3800. No hard drive.

www.ebay.com

Then there are the X79 systems I mentioned previously;

HP Z420 Computer 3.00GHz 4-Core E5-1607 v2 8GB RAM No HDD No OS | eBay

HP Z420 Computer 3.00GHz 4-Core E5-1607 v2 8GB RAM No HDD No OS.

www.ebay.com

Dell Precision T3600 Desktop Xeon E5-1620 3.60GHz 32GB RAM NO HDD | eBay

No hard drive included comes with Quattro 4000 No power cord WHEN OFFER IS ACCEPTED OR ITEM PURCHASED, THERE WILL BE NO CANCELLATION!!!!!!

www.ebay.com

For less than $200 you get a whole system that you can add parts into and make it really shine. There's no overclocking but for something like this, who cares. You get a solid machine for XP and they'll last you a while.

I have a number of cases , Ram and PSU,s.So don,t want another full PC.If i could put the motherboard in a normal case i would go down that route . Bur they don,t fit in a normal ATX case and did not have priority connections.The Dell Precistion T3600is only £44.If it was possibly to get the motherboards in to a normal case i would,Plus the fact the PSU is not the normal size.

 

[Ruru]

Apparently the too boards i mention here don,t support any Xeon cpu,s .

You mean those X58 boards? My P6X58D-E works fine with a Xeon X5675 with an official BIOS. Looks like that Xeons aren't listed on the CPU support list, but since they are based on the same chip as the i7 970/980/980X/990X chips, there's no problems.

 

[Greenslade]

I have a P6X58D-E and it's a great board, I don't have anything to complain about it. Goes easily way beyond 200BCLK, actually I ran my old X5650 at ~4.5GHz suicide-runs without any issues.

That is a very cheap CPU. I just looked on our main rival and they said this
*Your board works with xeons but not supported by Asus. The X5650 would be a small downgrade 2.8Mhz Vs 3.06Mhz. The 5650 is lower wattage so it would run cooler.*but you just don't get enough of a bump except on very highly threaded workloads to make it worth the bother.*
All those i7 are 130 w

 

[Ruru]

That is a very cheap CPU. I just looked on our main rival and they said this
*Your board works with xeons but not supported by Asus. The X5650 would be a small downgrade 2.8Mhz Vs 3.06Mhz. The 5650 is lower wattage so it would run cooler.*but you just don't get enough of a bump except on very highly threaded workloads to make it worth the bother.*
All those i7 are 130 w

Who cares about the base clock as Xeons are known for their overclockability X5650 hits 4GHz easily and it's not uncommon to run them even higher. I ran mine at 4.56GHz 1.6V with custom watercooling.

edit: found something from my imgur pics

 

[lexluthermiester]

What is the modal number of your board?

I'm using a Dell T3500 with a Xeon W3680 with 24GB of DDR3 1333 with a GTX980 for the Socket 1366, and a HP Z420 with a Xeon E5-2667 V2 and 32GB of DDR3 1866 with a GTX 1070ti for Socket 2011. Currently, the T3500 pulls XP(it's dual booting with Windows 11) duties and the Z420 pulls exclusively Win7 duties, but it had XP in it running very well.. This is why I recommended these, I have experience with them, they are fully XP compatible and they are a delight to work with.

 

[Greenslade]

I'm using a Dell T3500 with a Xeon W3680 with 24GB of DDR3 1333 with a GTX980 for the Socket 1366, and a HP Z420 with a Xeon E5-2667 V2 and 32GB of DDR3 1866 with a GTX 1070ti for Socket 2011. Currently, the T3500 pulls XP duties and the Z420 pulls Win7 duties. This is why I recommended them, I have experience with them and they are a delight to work with.

I see ,thank you for that info .Like i said earlier if i could put the board in a ATX case i would buy one.But they want fit in the case and with the priority stuff they have in them to.I don,t need another case.I did have a later modal the PSU packed up i got another one and that one packed up to plus the fact something was up with the board.I see they are very good value but at the end of the day i don.t need another case.

Who cares about the base clock as Xeons are known for their overclockability X5650 hits 4GHz easily and it's not uncommon to run them even higher. I ran mine at 4.56GHz 1.6V with custom watercooling.

edit: found something from my imgur pics

The ASUS P6X58D-E motherboard is known to support various Xeon processors, particularly those from the X5600 series. For instance, the Xeon X5675 is a popular choice and can be easily overclocked to 4.0 GHz or higher.2 Additionally, the Xeon X5650 and X5660 are also supported on this board, with users reporting successful installations and overclocking.7 The Xeon X5680 is another option that has been reported to work well with the P6X58D-E motherboard

 

[lexluthermiester]

The ASUS P6X58D-E motherboard is known to support various Xeon processors, particularly those from the X5600 series. For instance, the Xeon X5675 is a popular choice and can be easily overclocked to 4.0 GHz or higher.2 Additionally, the Xeon X5650 and X5660 are also supported on this board, with users reporting successful installations and overclocking.7 The Xeon X5680 is another option that has been reported to work well with the P6X58D-E motherboard

That board also supports the W3680, which has an unlocked multiplier and makes for easy OCing without having to mess with the BCLK.

 

[freeagent]

Are you a bot?



That sounded like it was drip fed directly from AI

 

[lexluthermiester]

Are you a bot?



That sounded like it was drip fed directly from AI

Me?

 

[Greenslade]

Are you a bot?



That sounded like it was drip fed directly from AI

It was from my Brave AI No i am not a bot .

Me?

That was directed to me Lex. AI is a amazing thing i can ask them any questionsI am not sure of the other things AI can do though.

 

[lexluthermiester]

That was directed to me Lex. AI is a amazing thing i can ask them any questionsI am not sure of the other things AI can do though.

Fair enough, no worries.

 

[Greenslade]

Who cares about the base clock as Xeons are known for their overclockability X5650 hits 4GHz easily and it's not uncommon to run them even higher. I ran mine at 4.56GHz 1.6V with custom watercooling.

edit: found something from my imgur pics

The X5675 is £7.82 both the X5650 and the X5660 are only £2.80 each so i think i will go for the X5675 all of them from china.You must have a flat full of PCs It would be interesting to do a survey on here to see who has the most motherboards and PC,s.This is my fave Auss youtuber Brain. and intresting that he istrsting this board.Testing itwith the one i intend to buy.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

That board also supports the W3680, which has an unlocked multiplier and makes for easy OCing without having to mess with the BCLK.

Gotta be at 200 bus clocks on 1366 for that better performance. Depends on the Ram though. Gotta have a fast kit that's capable.

 

[Ruru]

The ASUS P6X58D-E motherboard is known to support various Xeon processors, particularly those from the X5600 series. For instance, the Xeon X5675 is a popular choice and can be easily overclocked to 4.0 GHz or higher.2 Additionally, the Xeon X5650 and X5660 are also supported on this board, with users reporting successful installations and overclocking.7 The Xeon X5680 is another option that has been reported to work well with the P6X58D-E motherboard

Most consumer X58 boards support Xeons even if they aren't listed on the CPU support page. They're just workstation/server versions of similar i7 chips so there's no reason why they wouldn't work. Some boards may need a BIOS update though (for example having support for the 32nm 6-core ones).

 

[lexluthermiester]

Gotta be at 200 bus clocks on 1366 for that better performance.

Not always true. My W3680 performs like a champ at 4Ghz without ever touching the BCLK because on a Dell, you can't. ThrottleStop is a thing.

Depends on the Ram though. Gotta have a fast kit that's capable.

There is some truth to that. Also as always, with RAM, the tighter the default timings the better. However, it's not as dramatic as some might believe.

Some boards may need a BIOS update though (for example having support for the 32nm 6-core ones).

This. It's always a good idea to make sure the BIOS is current, or at least close to the latest version.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

Not always true. My W3680 performs like a champ at 4Ghz without ever touching the BCLK because on a Dell, you can't. ThrottleStop is a thing.

There is some truth to that. As also always, with RAM, the tighter the default timings the better. However, it's not as dramatic as some might believe.


This. It's always a good idea to make sure the BIOS is current, or at least close to the latest version.

With ddr3 is really does matter. A bit actually. The best put there, Hypers. That would be tweaked about 2000 CL6.

On a few chips Ive done with Intel, the memory controller needs to be binned. A lot of cpu binning from those times too actually! Seems no 2 processors on that platform OC the same, but Im not that well versed here because I was running AMD back then.

TS is only good for so much. But DELL motherboard could be considered good for XP, just turn it on and use it!

 

[Voodoo Rufus]

I'm running XP on a Z97 Asrock Anniversary, but also on other Z97 boards like the Asus Impact ITX, Maximus and eVGA Classified. OC a G3258 or 4790K to 5GHz and you won't be needing any more speed. I went all out with a 980Ti with modded drivers, too.

 

[Ruru]

With ddr3 is really does matter. A bit actually. The best put there, Hypers. That would be tweaked about 2000 CL6.

On a few chips Ive done with Intel, the memory controller needs to be binned. A lot of cpu binning from those times too actually! Seems no 2 processors on that platform OC the same, but Im not that well versed here because I was running AMD back then.

TS is only good for so much. But DELL motherboard could be considered good for XP, just turn it on and use it!

Funny that I've never had any faster RAM than 1600MHz, or at least not any faster spec'd ones. I had 2x4GB Kingston ValueRAM 1333MHz kit which ran perfectly fine at ~1950MHz with Z87 platform.

 

[Greenslade]

With ddr3 is really does matter. A bit actually. The best put there, Hypers. That would be tweaked about 2000 CL6.

On a few chips Ive done with Intel, the memory controller needs to be binned. A lot of cpu binning from those times too actually! Seems no 2 processors on that platform OC the same, but Im not that well versed here because I was running AMD back then.

TS is only good for so much. But DELL motherboard could be considered good for XP, just turn it on and use it!

It is just a shame you can,t transfer a Dell oem motherboard to a ATX case.Another video from Auss Bryan

 

[lexluthermiester]

TS is only good for so much.

For setting unlocked CPU's in software, it works wonders.

With ddr3 is really does matter. A bit actually. The best put there, Hypers. That would be tweaked about 2000 CL6.

No one is buying that kind of expensive DDR3 for a retroXP build. DDR3 1600 or 1866 is the best one can reasonably go for these days.

 

[DudeBeFishing]

I wouldn't buy pre-binned high Mhz kits. They're too expensive. The OEM Samsung modules with 2GBit Rev. D memory ICs are the best bang for your buck. They're usually on Samsung 4GB DIMMs with part numbers ending in "DH0-" There's tons on the used market. All of mine do 2133Mhz, and I've benched some at 2500Mhz. You're more likely to hit memory controller limits with these.

The Registered 2Rx8 server DIMMs work on most x58 motherboards with a Xeon CPU. These often are even cheaper. I say most because I haven't personally tested every x58 motheboard.

I've tried Hynix 2GBit CFR (4GB for dual rank). The required voltage and timings are too damn high.

 

[Greenslade]

Funny that I've never had any faster RAM than 1600MHz, or at least not any faster spec'd ones. I had 2x4GB Kingston ValueRAM 1333MHz kit which ran perfectly fine at ~1950MHz with Z87 platform.

Is it worth paying £2.25 extra for the board with the i7 950on it ?
As i want be using that cpu but i see i could get up to £10 for it on eBay?