easymode

Been wanting a machine to cover the late 00s era since this is right before I got seriously into PC gaming myself. I've been slowly gathering the parts for this for a while now, mainly because I was waiting for the GPU and motherboard to show up on ebay for a reasonable price. I still don't have the GPU I want, so the current one is a placeholder while I'm waiting to get something more interesting.

Spoiler

I am also aware that a late 00s PC is basically just a sluggish modern PC, but I want to run XP on bare metal and this is much better than the Pentium 4 machine I have currently.

Specs so far:

• CPU: AMD Phenom 9950
  These were a total dud at release because AMD's 65nm process couldn't compete with what Intel had at the time. Clock for clock it's still somewhat behind the Conroe Core 2 from 2006 and is an extremely poor overclocker, but it's a step up from the Athlon 64 and is still good enough for the kind of games I would run on here. My CPU is the slightly improved version that has a lower TDP (125w down from the original 140w)
• Motherboard: Asus M3A79-T Deluxe
  One of the few motherboards from 2008 that incorporated the SB750 southbridge which allows the Phenom to overclock a bit better, I don't plan to push the chip all that much, probably just going to undervolt and bump the multiplier up by 1-2, but it should help with undervolting stability too. Has solid capacitors but by this point that was pretty common.
• GPU: Radeon HD 5770
  Nothing to see here, it's there because I had one already and plan to swap it for something else. Gets the job done and runs pretty cool though.
• RAM: 4GB of DDR2 800
  Standard corsair stuff of the time, not super interesting but I may bump this up to 8GB just to max it out. I think this motherboard is compatible with higher density RAM but finding stuff that's non-ecc is pretty rare.
• Storage: Kingston A400 SSD
  No reason not to put one of these in, the 'cool' hard drives I'd want like WD raptors are way too much these days
• Sound: SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium Fatality
  Gotta have EAX if you're running Windows XP

The CPU: Quick test powering on with a single RAM stick, I'm using an AM4 cooler (Arctic Freezer 7X) because I have one already and they work just fine on AM2 brackets. I will at some point swap this out for a Zalman or similarly AM2 era appropriate cooler. For the case, I'm using a Fractal Focus, these are really good for any old school build where lots of front drives aren't necessary, I was using this to house the P4 PC in my bio but swapped everything out as that machine is made redundant by this one. TODOs:

• Get a better GPU
  I really want a dual GPU card like the 9800GX2, but those don't show up that often on ebay for auction, just lots of overpriced buy-it-now listings. Open to recommendations too, I don't really know much about the Radeon 4000s other than that they forced Nvidia to slash their prices.
• Get some stupid peripheral like an Ageia PhysX PPU
  I have a free PCI slot that I could use for that
• Nicer lighting
  I've only got the front white LED fans and the X-Fi lighting up at the moment, it looks a little boring
• Nicer cooler
  The current one performs like a quieter stock cooler, not great and doesn't look all that good either.

I'll post some benchmarks, the results of any overclocking and upgrades in follow up posts when I get around to them.

if you end up needing a little more cpu oompth, I'm 99% sure the Phenom 2 x4 and x6 were compatible with the AM2+ mobos, would just have to look up the compatible list with that particular board and update the bios if it is compatible. That old school copper and blue LED Zalman CNPS9500 (why is that model burned into the back of my mind! :P) would look cool with it. I ran it fine with a Phenom x6 1055t slightly oc'd to ~3.3ghz via fsb (iirc) "just cuz" build in like 2015ish

I LOVE this era of pcs, and even up to like intel sandy/ivy bridge and amd piledriver after the lackluster bulldozer, very very nostalgic for me since I built my own pc at the end of 2012 finally and it was extremely potent for back then, got the 2nd to the best AMD gpu back then, the HD 7950 boost instead of the 7970 since ppl said it wasn't worth it, i5 3570k, 8gb 1600mhz good timing 9-9-9-24 ddr3, 1tb 7200rpm seagate hdd that's actually still alive despite the downing and dogging seagate was getting there for a long time online...

I soooo badly wanted the Phenom x4 965 in its heyday, 4gb ram was badass back then, and a gtx 460, buuuuut times were very rough back then as of very early 2011 in my small town at the time, the great recession hit this area hard for awhile, was like pulling teeth just to get a min wage job back then

My backup pc is currently a franksteined x5675 6c/12t x58 xeon, 14gb mixed ecc and regular ddr3(lol) it happily accepted, oem gtx 660 1.5gb, and laptop (lol) wd black 320gb 7200rpm hdd I pieced together cheap back in like 2017 after getting an hp z400 workstation with the plastic front panel missing for all of $60 missing a drive, upgraded the cpu from the stock i7 920 equivalent xeon, added cheap $10 wd black hdd, and got some more ram and then the $50 at the time gpu. There's some cheap ebay psu adapters to convert the mobo to accept a regular psu and not their proprietary one, but I honestly don't trust that to not burn the house down LOL

seeing what was possible on the pc side only having an xbox 360 in the mid 2000s and ps2 absolutely blew my mind away seeing maxed out Stalker Complete mod on an hd 5870 on youtube in like 2009/2010

I always found it fun seeing how older but still competent hardware could perform in years later games... albeit at that point being a power gobbling hog, the x58 xeons could be OC'd enough to like 4.5ghz+ to match first gen ryzen in BF1 testing I saw back in the day for example, the core 2 quad 6600 (I think! or was it q9300...) paired with like 6gb ram and an hd 7790 did BF4 multiplayer smooth in testing I saw, whatever was budget at the time with a 5670 gpu did BF3 multiplayer back in the day fine too I'd see, budget stuff that was years old did better than you'd imagine in the first Dying Light as well

a sincere thanks for the trip down memory lane haha

Looks extremely clean. To echo @WhiteSnake9191 , those x4 and x6 CPUs will work fine. If you don't want to spend $100 on an 1100T, the 1045T is usually under $30. I'll be curious to see how if feels with that CPU.

What GPU are you thinking about?

WhiteSnake9191 wrote: Apr 19th, '26, 19:43 if you end up needing a little more cpu oompth, I'm 99% sure the Phenom 2 x4 and x6 were compatible with the AM2+ mobos

ward wrote: Apr 20th, '26, 00:16 Looks extremely clean. To echo @WhiteSnake9191 , those x4 and x6 CPUs will work fine. If you don't want to spend $100 on an 1100T, the 1045T is usually under $30. I'll be curious to see how if feels with that CPU.

What GPU are you thinking about?

Yeah I might grab an X6 Phenom II even if I don't plan to upgrade this right away. The Phenom 9950 has handled everything I've thrown at it so far, and was stable after undervolting so I have it running fairly cool too.

GPU-wise I'm looking for dual GPU cards, always wanted one back in the day. After writing that post I did a little more reading about the 9800 GX2 I mentioned and it looks like that one might still be affected by Nvidia's bumpgate issue? That's kept me away from their mid 00s cards and why I went with ATI for my previous XP build.

Alternatively, you also have the 3870X2, 4870X2 and the 5970 in case you are unsure about Nvidia's offerings.

Spooky wrote: Apr 20th, '26, 03:19 GPU-wise I'm looking for dual GPU cards, always wanted one back in the day. After writing that post I did a little more reading about the 9800 GX2 I mentioned and it looks like that one might still be affected by Nvidia's bumpgate issue? That's kept me away from their mid 00s cards and why I went with ATI for my previous XP build.

That's why my 9800GX2 was my coaster for years on Tek Syndicate. It didn't last long at all for me and I never tried another. I don't think I'd mess with another one. The GTX 580 is a LOT faster and still period accurate... and probably a lot cheaper. The 590 is dual. If you want an AMD dual, the HD 5970 and 6990. The HD 6990 is probably the fastest.

I'd still probably go with the GTX 580 because it's plenty fast and won't have any weirdness with SLI/Crossfire nonsense. So, the 580 will be faster in games if SLI/Crossfire is being weird.

The gtx 580 would def be a beast of that period, and gosh I looked and didn't know the Phenom x6's had gotten so cheap... trying to fight the urge to build a win 7 era pc now myself even though I don't need it with the x5675 xeon 6c/12t backup I have, that thing was only like $40 on ebay back in 2017, I think the msrp was like $1500 when it released at the very start of 2011 if I'm remembering correctly when I looked it up back in the day out of curiosity....I was like, don't mind if I do LOL. Def a frankenstein build I have with that thing going on though, I tried to transplant the mobo into another case back in ~2018 and stuff didn't line up right iirc, being a prebuilt workstation I should have known better lol.

Spent some time today trying out overclocking the CPU. 3.2Ghz seems to be as fast as it'll go without going crazy with vcore. 3.3Ghz doesn't seem to make it to windows at any voltage and I don't really want to kill the chip.

It's right at the edge of stability so 3dmark thought I was cheating when I submitted a result:
https://www.3dmark.com/3dm06/18316125
(funny that this still works honestly, I clicked submit thinking it'd just error)

ward wrote: Apr 20th, '26, 09:25 I'd still probably go with the GTX 580 because it's plenty fast and won't have any weirdness with SLI/Crossfire nonsense. So, the 580 will be faster in games if SLI/Crossfire is being weird.

WhiteSnake9191 wrote: Apr 20th, '26, 12:05 The gtx 580 would def be a beast of that period

I think (based mainly on prices where I am) I'll take the recommendation and look for a 580. As much as I like the idea of getting a dual GPU card the older ones have too many issues and for the 590 there just don't seem to be any for sale aside from a few overpriced ones from sellers overseas. The 580 would demolish everything I would want to throw at it at 1920x1200 anyway so it seems like the best pick just to have a GPU that works consistently. Something I totally forgot about when writing the OP too was being able to use a second card for physx and that rules out ATI/AMD anyway without tracking down janky modded drivers from 2011-12.

Also if I run into what feels like a big CPU bottleneck I'll probably put a Phenom II in here like everyone recommended but I'm quite liking the performance of the original Phenom so far. I was aiming for a build with ~2008 parts originally but that's kind of a weird mid-point in performance for AMD CPUs and all the Nvidia GPUs like to die on you. So it does seem more practical to move forward a little since you still get perfect XP compatibility, like I said I'll stick with this CPU for now though since it's quite fun to try and wring performance out of. Judging by old forum posts I got extremely lucky with the silicon lottery.

I remember the idea of a TRIPLE CORE(zomg!!1 lol) intrigued me so bad back then lol... some site put out a BF3 budget build right before it came out back in the day and I think it used a HD 5670 and Phenom triple core. Maybe a 550 ti or so as well for a gpu choice, been awhile. Some of those Phenom 2 x4 could "unlock" into 6 cores potentially but it was silicon lottery and depended on the board too, stuff around that era was personally so much more fun and intriguing than the basically plateau stuff has reached for awhile. I think some of the triple core budget cpu could unlock into a quad core too lol.

WhiteSnake9191 wrote: Apr 21st, '26, 18:55 I remember the idea of a TRIPLE CORE(zomg!!1 lol) intrigued me so bad back then lol... some site put out a BF3 budget build right before it came out back in the day and I think it used a HD 5670 and Phenom triple core. Maybe a 550 ti or so as well for a gpu choice, been awhile. Some of those Phenom 2 x4 could "unlock" into 6 cores potentially but it was silicon lottery and depended on the board too, stuff around that era was personally so much more fun and intriguing than the basically plateau stuff has reached for awhile. I think some of the triple core budget cpu could unlock into a quad core too lol.

I actually had one of those triple core processors. Built a little HTPC out of it and an OG Xbox case. I'll see if I can dig up some pictures of it.

It was a surprisingly OK CPU for that task, I got a lot of use out of it for emulation on the CRT during college.