Given an old computer, retro XP gaming rig?

Well if you want to know by gfx agp standards:
Radeon 3850
Radeon 4670
Geforce 7950GT

 

In that case Geforce 6600gt gddr3 will do just fine.

 

Here's most likely your best performing cheap AGP card:
7600GS for $32.99 shipped. It's a good bit faster than a 6600GT.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Dell-N...xBNckkjB:sc:ShippingMethodExpress!78154!US!-1

 

Wow that's a great deal

 

What games are you wanting to play on this ancient rig?

I probably would have stuck with the Nvidia 7800 or 7900 series or the higher 6800 series. AMD's (ATI) drivers sucked monkey dick back in those days.

 

I have a Windows XP gamer computer, but what I did was use a Dell Optiplex 755 which although came out with Windows Vista, it DID support XP, and a Windows XP disc for Dell loaded just fine. Since it's got a PCIE slot, you can use just about any single slot PCIE card you want. I use a GT 730 1gb DDR3 variant. I think I spent $30 on that card still in the box.. Doom 3, Postal 2, Nascar Racing 2003, Farcry. All are games I play on it. 60 frames per second locked.

I still have an old FX5200. I bought it long ago to be able to play Doom3 and it has enough hp to play but not great

 

It's a good deal considering the price of any other half decent AGP video card. Its also quite a bit faster than a 6800GT, which is night and day compared to a an FX5200.

 

That's the same cpu specs as one of my systems that I use today.

Depending on what your budget is, 4gb the ram, add the fastest video card the hardware can handle (remember the power supply!), ssd and that's about as maxed out as it can get. Then play, play, play.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/64GB-KingS...889324&hash=item4d40afb038:g:i4AAAOSwU-pXtM2v

 

A hard drive still has a 5-20ms access time where an SSD would have something like a 0.1ms access time. That's where the majority of the experienced improvement comes from.

 

I'd get this ide-sata converter as it's good both way and will come in handy as a tool later if the system dies:
https://www.startech.com/HDD/Adapters/Bi-Directional-SATA-IDE-Adapter-Converter~PATA2SATA3

I've got 2 of them and they work great both ways.

Then you can use a modern hard drive or an ssd without dealing with speed limits or crap-quality ssds.

 

On systems this old ime, it's not really that much of a speed improvement. I can barely tell the load time differences in the 2 systems that I have with ssds and those with just regular hard drives.

 

I have, but you do have to make sure there is enough clearance as it plugs directly into the ide connector on the motherboard. Otherwise, you'll have to use a small ide extension cable like this one:
https://www.microsatacables.com/40pin-male-to-female-ide-extension-cable-ide-40p-m-f

 

I bought one of these Kingspec drives years ago with a Laptop that had a decent AMD Turion X2 but was massively helf back by the ancient potato of a hard drive. The difference was night and day even using the PATA interface on the older laptop.

 

It depends on what you're loading on the system. If it's swapping all night and day because windows 7/10, then it will make a huge difference.

 

Steam doesn't work on XP anymore, so you have to get a patched install that has updates disabled, otherwise Steam will crash as soon as you start it.



this is what I have in my retro XP machine,

 

That's plenty fast for xp. Especially if you have the memory maxed out.