[micrex22]

The point that I'm making here is that people tend to run after the latest and greatest, AT HUGE EXPENSE, but all that's really needed to keep a good system relevant and running for years to come, is the strategic replacement of key components when necessary!

Fitting a top tear graphics card or a PCIe SSD (although expensive), is allot cheaper than shelling out for a completely new system!

Interestingly enough though, it depends on a fair amount of variables. The majority of video cards for instance, are NOT backwards compatible with the PCI-e x16 1.0 specification, so if you want to run a PCI-e x16 GPU on a 1.0 slot, your options are very limited. And then we run into the issue of not all GPUs *cough* AMD/ATI *cough* not following UEFI specifications making them incompatible with certain UEFIs.

So there are huge compatibility hurdles.

[Irinikus]

I agree in that you can only take it so far. (The PCI-e x16 1.0 specification is unfortunately a bit long in the tooth.)

However, with strategic upgrades, you can extend a system's life considerably.

PCI-e solid state drives alleviate the problems of outdated SATA specifications and PCI-e USB expansion cards give you modern USB specifications.

PCI-e 4 GPU's won't be backwards compatible at all as far as I'm aware, so the Titan Volta's probably the last card that any of us running older systems can consider as a final upgrade for our systems.

If I had to fit such a card into this system of mine, I'm sure I could run it well into the 2020's! (That's rather amazing for a 2010 vintage! )

I agree that you'll have to do your homework to combat potential comparability issues though.

[micrex22]

I agree in that you can only take it so far. (The PCI-e x16 1.0 specification is unfortunately a bit long in the tooth.)

Not necessarily long in the tooth in the sense the only 'newest' card to work in PCI-e x16 1.0 is a GT520 (any AMD equivalents fail to allow the computer to POST). You'd THINK a 3.8 GHz Pentium 4 would be able to run something better with PCI-express technology. Although I've not tried any newer Nvidia cards, I should do that for shits later--and maybe install windows 10 on it to exemplify Microsoft's hypocrisy "you can't run your new hardware on windows 7--even though it actually is possible--but we would LOVE You to use our advertisement-laden-money-making OS on older hardware".
There are so many stupidities about both Nvidia and AMD (who retained a lot of the negative ATI particulars). I've had no issues with Matrox but of course their GPU capabilities are dramatically more limited and haven't been refreshed since like the G450 core--I suspect their other cards are still built on slightly souped up G450s.

[Trippynet]

The whole Win7 on new hardware is largely a lie anyway.

Just over a year ago I bought a NUC with a Kaby Lake CPU. I decided (purely for experimentation) to try and get Windows 7 working on it. It's tough as Intel don't make Windows 7 drivers available for Kaby Lake systems, however by using combinations of drivers for slightly older platforms (which worked fine), I was able to get most hardware working correctly. The biggest challenge was the Intel IRIS graphics. However if you edit the driver INI file to replicate the Windows 10 detection line for the IRIS graphics and pop it into the Windows 7 section of the INI file, the drivers will install correctly.

Result, Kaby Lake NUC running Windows 7 with all hardware fully functional with drivers.

I admittedly did this for a challenge before wiping the NUC and popping Linux onto it, but it proves that MS's block is purely artificial.

Incidentally, my main PC these days is an AMD Ryzen system and this does run Windows 7 as its main OS (despite MS not "allowing" it). Again, everything works fine and I've had zero issues with it.

[Irinikus]

I had windows 10 installed on my Gaming PC and a few weeks ago it developed a problem that couldn't be fixed, so I reverted back to windows 8.1 and as far as I'm concerned I seem to be preferring windows 8.1.

[johnnym]

Not necessarily long in the tooth in the sense the only 'newest' card to work in PCI-e x16 1.0 is a GT520 (any AMD equivalents fail to allow the computer to POST). You'd THINK a 3.8 GHz Pentium 4 would be able to run something better with PCI-express technology. Although I've not tried any newer Nvidia cards, I should do that for shits later [...]

I got a xw9400 with NVIDIA nForce Professional 3600 and NVIDIA nForce Pro 3050 chipsets (according to this datasheet) which according to Wikipedia's information about these chipsets are only offering PCIe 1.0a. I use a GeForce GTX 560 TI in it, so maybe such a card will also work for your "top-of-the-line" Pentium 4 (Dual-Core I assume?) machine. Together with the two 8393 Opterons (4 Cores @ 3.1 GHz each) it allows to play AC4 well. Fallout 4 is also playable with lower texture resolution. I'd love to visit Paris in AC Unity, but am unsure if the 1 GB of graphics memory of the 560 TI will allow for a nice experience - and I still have to finish Fallout 4 first.  

[mapesdhs]

I have an ASUS Striker II Extreme currently fitted with a P4 (single core), Win7 32bit, testing GTX 460 SLI (it's terrible), though of course the slots are 2.0. Was going to try sticking on a 1080 Ti for giggles.

There are a number of older mbds (especially ASUS) which can have a modified BIOS installed to support native booting from NVMe. There's a thread on the ROG forum about it. I've done it a few times. Even if one doesn't do this though, some SSDs have their own boot ROM anyway (Samsung 950 Pro, Intel 750, etc.) so one doesn't need native boot support. My gaming system is an old X79 setup with a 4930K @ 4.5 (still more than capable), the C-drive is a 950 Pro.

So yes, there's a lot one can do to bolster older systems, especially when formerly expensive XEON CPUs are now available so cheaply, good for production work. For several recent X79 builds, where the end user focus was more on threaded tasks, I pulled the overclocked 3930Ks I'd originally fitted and replaced them with 10-core XEON E5 2680 V2s which only cost 150 UKP each (more than 2K when new in 2013. The Cinebench R15 score of 1389 shot to the top of my benchmark results table:

http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/tests-jj.txt

I put one in the PC I sent to the Learn Engineering YT channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2WiJNEZLNY

and also in my brother's PC (he says it works very well for gaming).

Older systems are also a lot better at coping with newer hw than people assume, though it's hardly surprising that most would expect older tech to be terrible given the way the tech media slams the idea so much, and forum posters deride those who try (or even ask about). There can certainly be bottlenecks, eg. newer GPUs on older platforms such as S775, X58, P55, etc., but they're often not as bad as one might imagine.

I tested 7970 CF on a P55 board (also two GTX 980, equivalent to a single 1080 Ti) with an oc'd i5 760 @ 4.4GHz, vs. using the same GPUs on a P67 ASUS M4E with an i7 2700K @ 5.0; the P55 was only about 10% slower, which is very impressive (tested using some older games and 3DMark synthetics). Actually quite funny, on the Techpowerup Unigine Heaven leaderboard table (which is of course dominated by the latest & greatest CPU/platform tech), I managed to get a 4.3GHz i7 870 P55 system into the top-10 by using three GTX 980s SLI; it stood out in the list like a sore thumb, beating other systems with far more powerful CPUs. I think it was in 6th or 7th place initially. Mbd was an ASUS P7P55 WS Supercomputer, which supports 3-way SLI but also compute at x8/x8/x8/x8 via PLX chips. Infact I hold most of the 3DMark records for the P55 platform using this rig.

There are limits of course, eventually one may run into I/O peripheral issues such as wanting TB, USB3.x, etc, or just better performance, but it's remarkable how well older hw can hold up. My 5GHz 2700K only has the threaded performance of a stock 6700K, but its IPC is identical to a stock Ryzen 2700X, so it's no slouch, runs very well.

I know someone who has a Gigabyte X79 with a 4930K and a 2080 Ti running games at 4K; he said atm for the latest games there's no CPU bottleneck with the CPU at 4.4.

johnnym, could your system cope with the power requirements of a 3GB GTX 580? Very cheap these days. Or a 780 Ti 3GB would be much faster again, though a tad more costly (but a better buy would probably be a used RX 580 8GB which these days is slipping under 100 UKP, excellent for 1080p gaming; I won a Powercolor Red Devil a while back for benching).

Ian.

[jan-jaap]

So yes, there's a lot one can do to bolster older systems, especially when formerly expensive XEON CPUs are now available so cheaply, good for production work.

I've been using an HP Z600 workstation for the last 5 years or so, maybe longer. Got it for cheap from one of those financial (trading) companies where they can afford the latest and greatest, and put in a couple of X5675 hexacores and 48GB DDR3 when people started to scrap servers of that generation. It's especially good at things that will scale to all 12 cores / 24 threads, like transcoding movies.

I replaced the spinning rust with an 1TB SSD and installed a 10GbE card but that's about it. There's a power limit of ~ 150W for PCIe cards so you can't drop a GF1080 in it, but I'm not a gamer so I don't spend that kind of money of graphics cards anyway.

I may eventually replace it with a Z640 or whatever is semi-current by the time I feel like something new, but for now it simply works fine for me. Rock solid.

[Irinikus]

I've managed to uncover some pictures of my PC at certain stages of it's evolution.

This is what it looked like when I first put it together, back in 2010, with the Intel 980x, 6GB of Corsair Dominator GT RAM and two HD 5970's (Quad Crossfire!)



It looked rather messy, as there was very little option in the Cooler Master Cosmos one case, as to where you could route your cabling!

This is what it looked like when I fitted the ASUS ARES:



The system received this badge as a result of having the ARES fitted:



This picture shows the comparison between the HD 5970, ASUS ARES and GTX 590, just before I fitted it:



Next up was the GTX 690, and this is a comparison between it and the GTX 590:



Here's a picture of the system running the GTX 690:



And of course, this is a picture of the current setup, with the GTX TITAN X:

[Jacques]

I'm currently building a little home linux workstation. It will be based on older parts, some I already have lying about and some I'll obtain via trades / auctions. It will be a Debian 10 or Centos 8 workstation for BricsCAD BIM, Krita, Darktable and Scribus. I'll be building my own custom case from 18mm plywood and aluminium.

Build so far is as follows

Asus P9D-I (to acquire) I'd prefer not to get a gaming board, I'd rather have a C222 / C224 or C226 chipset based board. However, some Z97 boards have m.2 on the rear and wifi...hmm. I may not be able to use my ECC ram with a z97 board.
Xeon E3-1220v3 quad core 3.1Ghz (have)
CPU cooler - something low profile, maybe Noctua NH-U12A
16gb Unbuffered ECC ram (have from my 2010 Mac Pro, it has 48GB)
GFX card - Don't know yet. I'd love a FirePro W3100, but they are £160 each. I have a spare GTX 650 and Quadro 2000, but they are a bit toooo old and very slow / limited with 1GB. Besides, I hate nVIDIA drivers in linux.
PSU - 450Watt (have)
Storage - Standard Samsung 256MB SSD with a 500GB spinner for /home. (have)

I mostly look forward to working out the case and building it.