Building an XP PC

[DasDestroyer]

Greetings Escapists!
Because reasons, I need to build a PC for my mom which will run Windows XP. I've already built a PC before, but that was just my gaming PC so all I really needed to do was find good components which work together, which isn't too difficult. I know that there are some limitations on it, such as it can't detect more than 4GB of RAM, but I'm not sure if there are any others I need to watch out for, such as maximum cores, maximum processor frequency, whether or not it supports the drivers for newer GPUs, etc.
So if anyone has any experience with building a PC with Win XP in this day and age, your wisdom will be very much appreciated!

 

[SnowyGamester]

Well even the newest AMD and NVidia GPUs still receive drivers for XP so that won't be a problem. The RAM limitation is a thing but if you need an XP computer chances are it's for older software that isn't likely require much and having more than it uses won't give you any problems other than it simply not being utilized. That being said there is a 64-bit version of XP that negates that issue entirely however I've heard a lot of criticism of it in the past, though admittedly I don't recall why. All version of XP support multiple cores but not all support multiple processors, though again not likely an issue. The only real problem you're likely to run into (aside from the already mentioned installation thing...that one has gotten me in the past) is XP support for new hardware though that's something you may have to look into on a case-by-case basis and as already mentioned you won't have any problems with the GPU at least. Just make sure the motherboard (and hence the onboard sound, networking, etc) supports XP before you do the build. Also note that XP is not very SSD friendly, though I'm not really familiar with the details - it's simply never come up, but if you're considering one you should look into it.

If you're not too picky with the hardware specifics you could easily acquire a second-hand pre-built on the cheap off of eBay or the like...I'm running 8.1 on an old XP machine I picked up a few years ago and even now it's still working great, if a little sluggishly. Regardless if it's an issue with old software not running rather than simply not wanting to upgrade there is usually a way around such things that doesn't require a separate new machine...not always, at least without a virtual machine, but usually.

 

[DasDestroyer]

So as long as the drivers for the hardware, mainly the motherboard, are available for XP and I'm willing to sacrifice a little performance by switching to IDE, I should be fine? (I don't know what the difference between IDE and AHCI is, but I do how to do stuff in BIOS)
Thanks, guys!

 

[AWAR]

So as long as the drivers for the hardware, mainly the motherboard, are available for XP and I'm willing to sacrifice a little performance by switching to IDE, I should be fine? (I don't know what the difference between IDE and AHCI is, but I do how to do stuff in BIOS)
Thanks, guys!

Yeah if this is for casual computing you shouldn't have much trouble with it.

 

[DasDestroyer]

If you're not too picky with the hardware specifics you could easily acquire a second-hand pre-built on the cheap off of eBay or the like...I'm running 8.1 on an old XP machine I picked up a few years ago and even now it's still working great, if a little sluggishly. Regardless if it's an issue with old software not running rather than simply not wanting to upgrade there is usually a way around such things that doesn't require a separate new machine...not always, at least without a virtual machine, but usually.

Oh, and the issue is two-fold. There's some pretty old and specialized software that doesn't run on newer systems, and her old computer is on it's last legs so I need to get a new one anyway.