Looking into doing a custom build for Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit

[Uitlander]

I think I'm going with an i7 (or AMD equivalent) CPU, probably a 5th or 6th gen, as I definitely do not want to fool with all the workarounds to get the current 'latest&greatest' parts to work with Win 7. I could use some suggestions as to which specific models to consider....i7-5775C, i7-6700K, or something else? For motherboards, out of the box native support & drivers for Win 7 is essential. Beyond that I need minimum 16GB RAM capacity, VGA port required, the more expansion slots and SATA connectors the better, at least four USB 2.0 ports, and eSATA if possible. This is about as far as I've gotten. I have bought a CMStorm Trooper SGC-5000-KWN1 case, and Asus Xonar D2/PM/A PCIe audio card. Cost is not a big consideration since parts will be acquired piecemeal, but I doubt I would pay more than $300 for any component. Recommendations for parts welcomed.

​

 

[Melvis]

Im running WINDOWS 7 on a Ryzen 7, X470 mobo with a 1080 Ti with very little stuffing around setting it up.

 

[delshay]

Im running WINDOWS 7 on a Ryzen 7, X470 mobo with a 1080 Ti with very little stuffing around setting it up.

Great. ..If you have Cyberpunk 2077 can you confirm DX12 works on win 7?

 

[Melvis]

Great. ..If you have Cyberpunk 2077 can you confirm DX12 works on win 7?

Sadly I do not have Cyberpunk 2077 (to expensive in Aus) and DX12 can run but you would have to look into it as Blizzard supported Windows 7 With DX 12 with WoW a few yrs back

Going by Steam it says the game does support 7

 

[BMfan80]

Great. ..If you have Cyberpunk 2077 can you confirm DX12 works on win 7?

Cyberpunk does work on W7,running like normal on an MSI B550 Tomahawk and 5800x and XFX6800xt.

The only thing that I needed to do to install W7 was download a updated version of W7,I think it is updated to September 2020.
When I used my stock original SP1 ISO it wouldn't install.

 

[ebivan]

But why are you stuck on using Win7?

 

[Toothless]

But why are you stuck on using Win7?

Matured, lightweight, simple OS. I'd use it if it was still being officially supported by Microsoft.

 

[Vanny]

I wouldn't use it even if it was still officially supported. Time to move on

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
I use win-7 daily since it came out in, what 2009
The world has not ended past 7's eol date it was actually a celebration seeing no more borking/ telemetry crap needed to be avoided/ striped out of updates anymore.

 

[Toothless]

I wouldn't use it even if it was still officially supported. Time to move on

Good for you. People have personal preferences and if they want to use it, so be it.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Only system I don't have win-7 on is z490
I use linux mint on it primarily 10 goes mostly unused.

 

[Uitlander]

Im running WINDOWS 7 on a Ryzen 7, X470 mobo with a 1080 Ti with very little stuffing around setting it up.

Too many scare stories floating around the web on long-winded workarounds, that either work...or fail. While I do have a tech guy do a housecall every four months, his skills can be better spent on other chores. I have never had a problem going legacy. My used OptiPlex 960 XP Pro rig has been good enough for the past 3+ years. Over 5000 hours, and still zero malware, but it's time to move on to Win 7 with slightly better hardware.

Since posting here I have decided on i7-4790k CPU, and I whittled down the motherboards to:

MSI Z97 Gaming 5
MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming
MSI Z97-GD65 Gaming
MSI Z97-G45
MSI Z97A Gaming 6

They all look about the same to me, so unless someone has a 'pick of the litter', I'll just buy the first one that crosses my path. The graphics cards are giving me a major pain. I require one with a VGA port, as I have no interest in fooling with the connectors, adapters, and gizmos that allow one to hook a VGA plug into some other sort of port. I've found only two so far:

ASUS GeForce GTX 750 Ti DirectX 11 GTX750TI-OC
Palit GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) DirectX 11 NE5X56T01142-1041F

If anyone can suggest other mid-to-high end cards with an actual VGA port, let me know. Another problem is that I have no clue if any of the above are significantly better than the onboard Intel HD Graphics 4600, nor any idea how to find out. Couple years ago I replaced the onboard graphics of my OptiPlex 960 with a graphics card that everyone swears is worse than the onboard, so I'd like to avoid that mistake. This is how far I've gotten with the build to date.

But why are you stuck on using Win7?

In my case, I detest Win 8/Win 10, and I simply do not use junk I hate. Never did. Never will. Frankly I'm not real happy about moving on to Win 7, but as I dislike it a whole lot less than I detest Win 8/Win 10, that is what's on the menu. Win 7 will be my last M$ rendition before moving on to MX Linux, and will serve until such time as I'm comfortable making the transition....while the fact I don't much like Win 7 will provide extra incentive not to slack off.

 

[freeagent]

7 works on B550? Coool...

I'm going to try it out tomorrow if I can..

Any usb problems?

 

[Uitlander]

Hi,
I use win-7 daily since it came out in, what 2009
The world has not ended past 7's eol date it was actually a celebration seeing no more borking/ telemetry crap needed to be avoided/ striped out of updates anymore.

Lil Billie Gates and his MS minions were actively trying to import the worst parts of Win 8/Win 10 to Win 7 as of some years ago, along with forced upgrades. Supposedly these KB stealth installs have stopped, but I wouldn't trust that myself. Given my experience with XP Pro, if M$ tells me it's raining, I'd stick my head out the window to make sure!

 

[R-T-B]

Lil Billie Gates and his MS minions were actively trying to import the worst parts of Win 8/Win 10 to Win 7 as of some years ago, along with forced upgrades. Supposedly these KB stealth installs have stopped, but I wouldn't trust that myself. Given my experience with XP Pro, if M$ tells me it's raining, I'd stick my head out the window to make sure!

Bill Gates isn't part of Microsoft anymore, just FYI.

 

[Melvis]

Too many scare stories floating around the web on long-winded workarounds, that either work...or fail. While I do have a tech guy do a housecall every four months, his skills can be better spent on other chores. I have never had a problem going legacy. My used OptiPlex 960 XP Pro rig has been good enough for the past 3+ years. Over 5000 hours, and still zero malware, but it's time to move on to Win 7 with slightly better hardware.

Since posting here I have decided on i7-4790k CPU, and I whittled down the motherboards to:

MSI Z97 Gaming 5
MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming
MSI Z97-GD65 Gaming
MSI Z97-G45
MSI Z97A Gaming 6

They all look about the same to me, so unless someone has a 'pick of the litter', I'll just buy the first one that crosses my path. The graphics cards are giving me a major pain. I require one with a VGA port, as I have no interest in fooling with the connectors, adapters, and gizmos that allow one to hook a VGA plug into some other sort of port. I've found only two so far:

ASUS GeForce GTX 750 Ti DirectX 11 GTX750TI-OC
Palit GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) DirectX 11 NE5X56T01142-1041F

If anyone can suggest other mid-to-high end cards with an actual VGA port, let me know. Another problem is that I have no clue if any of the above are significantly better than the onboard Intel HD Graphics 4600, nor any idea how to find out. Couple years ago I replaced the onboard graphics of my OptiPlex 960 with a graphics card that everyone swears is worse than the onboard, so I'd like to avoid that mistake. This is how far I've gotten with the build to date.


In my case, I detest Win 8/Win 10, and I simply do not use junk I hate. Never did. Never will. Frankly I'm not real happy about moving on to Win 7, but as I dislike it a whole lot less than I detest Win 8/Win 10, that is what's on the menu. Win 7 will be my last M$ rendition before moving on to MX Linux, and will serve until such time as I'm comfortable making the transition....while the fact I don't much like Win 7 will provide extra incentive not to slack off.

All you need is a Windows 7 Disc with USB slip-streamed into the ISO or use a PS2 Keyboard (which I use) to install Windows 7 on my Ryzen Systems (2 of them running 7) Once you got the USB 3 driver installed the rest is as normal.

 

[Selaya]

All you need is a Windows 7 Disc with USB slip-streamed into the ISO or use a PS2 Keyboard (which I use) to install Windows 7 on my Ryzen Systems (2 of them running 7) Once you got the USB 3 driver installed the rest is as normal.

^ this.
I'm running 7 on X570-3900x, and can confirm that both methods work.

 

[Uitlander]

Bill Gates isn't part of Microsoft anymore, just FYI.

Officially? No, but when you own a big chunk of the stock, it ain't hard to play puppetmaster from the shadows.

Bill Gates sells 4.6M shares of Microsoft | SGS Technologie

www.sgstechnologies.net

 

[Outback Bronze]

Got Win 7x64 working here on Z370 TUF + 9700K which isn't officially supported. Can't remember which chipset drivers I used to get it working but pretty sure I didn't use the ones that came with the mobo. Wouldn't install. I think I ended up using Z270 drivers which worked. Device manager has everything working/installed : )

 

[Uitlander]

Not sure if I should do a separate post in graphics cards, but can anyone knowledgeable in this figure our if either:

ASUS GeForce GTX 750 Ti DirectX 11 GTX750TI-OC
Palit GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) DirectX 11 NE5X56T01142-1041F

...are good enough to do what I need done? Mostly this build will just be used to surf the internet and stream movies/TV shows off putlockers, 123movies, Youtube, etc. (hopefully without freezing, buffering or pixelation). That said, I may need to do video encoding & editing on the off chance I find anything worth burning to DVD....unlikely given the trajectory of Hollyweird over the last ten years, but possible. I do expect to get into GIMP, and maybe Photoshop (if I ever find one not outrageously priced). Possibly Virtualbox and Sandboxie. I do a lot of Word 2003 work. I also explore the Darknet regularly using Kodachi Linux and TAILS in LiveCD mode, but I think that has more to do with RAM than graphics card. So opinions on whether or not either of these cards can handle this? Also, are either much better than the onboard graphics (Intel HD Graphics 4600)?

​

 

[Toothless]

Anything is better than a HD 4600. As long as you can find W7 drivers I'd go with the 750Ti. Takes less power if I remember correctly.

 

[Selaya]

Personally I am running a 1660S on 7 without any issues, with a driver from half a year ago. As far as I can see Nvidia's still providing fresh drivers for 7 up until now, so you should be able to run everything of the Ampere series too. I haven't tested any of the newer ones tho, I see no reason to upgrade when this one I have is perfectly fine and stable.