Hardware with drivers for Windows XP

Hi,

I've recently noticed besides microsoft, vmware, xbmc/kodi and other software developers also many big hardware manufacturers stopped supporting windows xp.
What destroyed my dream of building a highspeed gaming machine for singlethread-/oldschool-games using the fastest single thread processor so far - i7-4790k.

I've noticed it after buying an R9 390 and wasn't able to find drivers, what completely disabled me from using video acceleration or games on xp.

What do you think about setting up a list to determine whether a hardware you're gonna buy is compatible to XP or not?
Not with an endless list of supported or unsupperted devices - just with a clear cotpoint what was the last device with xp support and what's the first without.
Do you think it's a good idea?

I would make the beginning:

AMD Graphics Cards: Latest Driver: 14.4 from 25.04.2014
Latest supported: R(5/7/9) 200 series including R9 290X, R7 260X, etc.
First unsupported: R(5/7) 300 series and FURY/Nano including R9 390, R7 360, etc.

AMD Chipsets (motherboards): Latest Chipset/Raid Driver: 13.4 from 24.04./213
Latest supported: SB9xx/ A-/E-series(said amd driver); (SB950)
First unsupported: I haven't found a motherboard with amd chipset without xp drivers so far.
(still writing)

 

Okay, maybe this doesn't work as long as I don't have permissions to modify my posts.

AMD Chipsets (motherboards): Latest Chipset/Raid Driver: 13.4 from 24.04.2013
Latest supported: SB9xx/ A-/E-series(said amd driver); (SB950); for sure until and including CPUs with Trinity architecture, october 2012.
First unsupported: For FM2+ socket there are some restrictions for the cpu-choice for A78, A88X and A70M chipsets for SOME boards but not for all (see list below). Also 1 of 2 G34-socket mainboards I've found didn't offer xp drivers.; may not work for CPUs with Kaveri architecture, january 2014.

Nearly every mainboard manufacturer has an info page about each motherboard with a tab called "specifications" containing the chipset and sometimes the supported OSes and a tab called "downloads" or "support" where you can find drivers - at most also for xp.

found at msi: Only support FM2+ Kaveri CPU (XP can’t support A6-7400K Kaveri CPU) (chipset: AMD A78)
found at gigabyte: Only for FM2 Trinity APU (chipset: AMD A78)
found at gigabyte: * To support Windows XP 32-bit, you must install an AMD FM2 Trinity APU. (chipset: A88X)
found at biostar: FM2+ CPU Only (chipset: A70M)
no drivers found (socket: G34)

 

I was able to run old games inside a Windows 98 virtual machine on XP host OS. This was on a laptop downclocked to 1.0GHz. Imagine the effects on a faster CPU!

Anyways, a lot of old-school games have been ported by gog.com to run on modern hardware/os. There is not a good reason to run XP other than .NET apps, which IMHO suck on anything after XP no matter how fast the processor or the amount of cores.

XP is now more of a professional work OS for real power users that had their apps written for .NET framework than a gaming platform...

 

Personally, I would be more interested in where you obtained that XP ISO from, which YOU WENT AHEAD AND INSTALLED ONTO YOUR SYSTEM, and how many ppl reported a nasty virus or trojan, that COULD INDUCE HARDWARE BLACKOUTS, when they did a virus scan on it!

 

As to the graphic cards, we can only buy nvidia. Even the last GTX Titan Z (Geforce 700 Series) is supported!

I tried to make some custom driver for AMD, but it didn't work...

 

Some short updates about my recent investigations:

On the side of NVidia, the GTX 7xx series is the latest with XP Drivers for all GPUs. Afair in GTX 9xx the low budget gpus got drivers (similar to AMD in Rx 2xx series [don't confuse my polaceholder x in there witzh the RX series like in RX 480/580/Vega]).
Therefore, the GTX 780 Ti should be the fastest GPU with XP drivers on the market, as long as you don't take 1000€+ models into account. Some benchmarks showed that it can be even faster as the R9 390, that's bout 1 year younger.
At the moment I'm looking for a Gigabyte 780 Ti GHz Edition, which should be the fastest custom design of the 780 Ti, as long as you don't take some enthusiastic editions like the kinpin into account, which are designed for watercooling and need several external power supplies (1-2kW). But I can't find one for a price I am willing to pay for a 3 years old used card at ebay...

On the side of Intel, the latest Chipset Drivers delivered to MotherBoard Manufacturers are for i7 of 2nd generation. So the i7-2700K should be the fastest around, wit 3,5 GHz base clock, 3,9 GHz bost clock and overclockable to 4,78 GHz.

EDIT:
And some mistake I made in one of my well formated first posts: R9 280X doesn't have XP drivers. They deliver drivers for the some models only (rather the low-budget models than the high-performance ones).
Best way to be sure is to download the drivers befor you buy stuff... (I had to learn that lesson by myself...)

 

I noticed the HP printer I bought came with Windows XP drivers on CD, but if you select the load driver from HP via Internet option, it reports there are no drivers for the printer. There may be drivers around for older harder, but the drivers may no longer be at the company's web site. I also own an ATI video card with built in TV tuner. The manufacturers made drivers for the TV tuner that worked with Windows XP, but none of the later versions of Windows. Haven't been able to get it working with Linux either.

By the way, I do use a Windows XP machine for games and run several SDL based games that I've built from source on it.

 

if you have a compatible driver for xp, then guard it with your life

 

I keep all the installation disks that come with my hardware. Never know when you might need to reinstall everything from scratch.

 

Imemsm, me, too , and I like to make copies and keep them also.

 

If you have spare 5.25 inch drivebays, which is not uncommon on desktop tower chassis, you can get a small drawer to fit in the drive space. An excellent way to stop system disks and the like from getting parted from the machine to which they relate.

example:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01LY3YDLN/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

I got a computer one time, took the side cover off, low and behold! the (various) disks were laying on the bottom of the case. Prolly the coolest part of the whole computer.