Oldest system you can actually daily drive?

Cyber-Mav · 22 Oct 2020 at 14:39

so whats the oldest system you can actually use to do your daily web browsing on? has to be able to run a modern web browser and os so no security issues.
guess its got to be something that can run win10 or win7(with extended updates).
socket 775 comes to mind, but dont know if windows 10 works on p4 or athlon xp era machines?

cheesyboy · 22 Oct 2020 at 14:45

I still used an Athlon XP system until around 6 or 7 years ago, but it isn't something you can use as a daily, IMO. Even then, it couldn't cope with streaming playback on Youtube etc. Suspect it was missing a modern enough video codec. Certainly, Athlon XP doesn't have SSE2 support.

Flibster · 23 Oct 2020 at 09:27

My other half is working from home on a Dell Optiplex 755 (I think it's from 2008) with a core2quad Q9650, 16gb ram, Sapphire R7 250 1gb gddr5 and a 500gb Samsung 860 Evo SSD.

Still feels pretty good for general day to day stuff. Doesnt even really need the R7 250, but she wanted to use multiple monitors and that allows her to use the 3 on my desk happily. I've used it for a few games, its not great for anything from the past 5 years, but older titles work nicely.

Trick · 26 Jan 2021 at 23:52

Up until a couple of years ago i still occasionally used an AMD Opteron 146 at 2.2ghz on s939 with just 2gb ram and a 6800GT to run Windows 10 for occasional light photoshop use. it was ridiculously slow and i had the patience of a saint, but it kinda worked. that old rig now has an Athlon X2 4800+ with 4gb ram and is back on Windows XP where it belongs

It's snappy and happy now

jaybee · 27 Jan 2021 at 00:00

One of my PCs is still a socket 775 q9450 overclocked, 8gb ram and a 7850 graphics card. It honestly is still quicker than my bloated work laptop at times. It will run anything except some of the modern day games. I think I went to run warzone on it and it claimed the CPU was too old to even run.

Rroff · 27 Jan 2021 at 00:03

I suspect my old P4 3GHz w/ HT along with the 6800 GPU would have a good try. Can't say I'd want to though.

almoststew1990 · 28 Jan 2021 at 08:43

I've tried with various hardware and for me single cores on S478 /939 with 1 or 2GB of DDR1 just can't cut it on XP or Windows 7. 480p struggling isn't really "daily" anymore!

I have a Q6600 overclocked to 3GHz with 8GB DDR3 1333 (1066 FSB but overclocked) an SSD and with whatever GPU I'm feeling and it's quick enough for day to day working (1080p streaming, multiple tabs, GTA 5 just about). It's also M-ATX and it's such a useful little board/combo as it can do XP really well with an old GPU and a EAX soundcard or Windows 7 and be a second "modern PC". I'd be quite comfortable doing my boring officey job using that PC.

Trick · 29 Jan 2021 at 08:43

Problem with XP is finding at browser that will handle the more modern websites. The X2 I have is ok with stuff like the bbc website with K-Mellon but despite having html5 a load of stuff won’t load, or a site says the browser is no longer supported

Cyber-Mav · 14 Feb 2021 at 09:00

biggest problem i find now is youtube videos. unless you got a new enough gpu that can do the video decoding an old cpu just gets hammered silly.

Kurgen · 19 Feb 2021 at 18:31

Trick said:
Problem with XP is finding at browser that will handle the more modern websites. The X2 I have is ok with stuff like the bbc website with K-Mellon but despite having html5 a load of stuff won’t load, or a site says the browser is no longer supported

have you tried maxthon?

Trick · 21 Feb 2021 at 18:18

Yeah, I followed some guides and got TSL1.2 working on the machine, and now the last version of Chrome compatible with XP works fine for the vast majority of websites, including stuff like YouTube.

kar · 25 Feb 2021 at 13:13

I was using a sempron 64 (socket 754) at 2.2ghz, with two gig of ram, and a GeForce 7600 with Windows XP SP3, you can install Chrome 40 on it and it's pretty usable for the age. The processor supports cool and quiet and actually never goes > 22 degrees. It's a very very efficient retro machine that can do *some* daily driving. I am in the process of putting together a C2D E7600 machine, with 4G ram on the Asrock 4CoreDual Sata 2 board, pretty much the apex of AGP compatible combos you can have. In theory I should be able to run an earlier build of Windows 10 on this (later builds dropped AGP support). No AGP = no retro at all in my book.