Just to make my statement against the common ' Why would you run some dat new on dat ol crap '
: I am running a bunch of systems around the 7th generation, means Intel Pentium IV / 4 / D | AMD Athlon XP | etc. because these are the systems THAT ARE IN USE in the Kindergarten | School | AfterSchool | Youth-Centre | Hostel -Groups i help to survive digitally ;
Since BMWN512P | MicroSoft Windows XP ( NT 5.1 ) SP 2 Professional i have tested and proven extensively that running modern Windows-Systems on so-to-say-junkyard-hardware is the best one can do in all kinds of aspects from whatever perspective you look at it ;
EXAM
: Energy FootPrint
A P4-System runs with a power consumption of 35 to 45 Watt in standard desktop-use like browsing the internet , listening to music , watching a movie etc, if using graphics onboard ; Although the Pentium 4 was one of the sickest energy-hungriest and most inefficient CPU Intel ever made ( before inventing the Atom ) in comparison to actual systems it has a highly admirable energy-efficiency and solidity at least when using Windows as Operating-System ;
Why ? Well, it is simple : MicroSoft never obtained to make use of any Extension invented since the 686 ( namely Pentium ) so features like SSE 0 / 2 / 4 and all the fancy accelerators and microcode-libraries available today are fairly unused all the time ; Windows itself has no usage of these features. The only extension that might be in steady use on a well-setup-system for average usage is mostly the hardware-decoding acceleration for MPEG-2 / -4 / WMV delivered by the graphics hardware.
So in short:
Best thing you can do : Grab a Good Ol AMD Athlon X2 or Intel Pentium D and you have a slick Core-System, especially by running Windows 8.1 x86 ( which at the moment is the best optimized Windows available for general multimedia use.
By the way : A message to all those that might say i am bullshitting or who like to state that only a TinCan imprinted i5 from an AntHill Inside can juggle the bugs into cozy conditions : Name one ( and i mean only one ) Standard Windows Application / Routine / Process / Service / Function that is running as a part of your allday-everyday Windows WHICH IS USING A CPU EXTENSION LIKE E.G. SSE AT ALL . You won't find one. There ain't any. Windows itself actually is using nothing of your fancy hardware. Windows is just an Operating-System that can be a rapid rabbit, because it opens any available door to the sheer power normally well hidden inside of that shiny part of digital horsepower stronghold.
If you want to see what modern hardware is able to, you should began to run open-source-systems which you can recompile specifically to the feature sub- and super-sets your hardware can deliver. If you use Windows you get what you asked for: Windows. you can sty and stare out of them or open them or put some fancy stickers on it, that's it.
The other way around: YOU SHOULD DEFINATELY RUN WINDOWS 8.1 OR 10 ON OLD HARDWARE IF OLD MEANS FROM GENERATION PENTIUM III AMD-K6 III UPWARDS : Because that generation is the Control-Set Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 are compiled for.
So, yes please, do some more of that, you also do a good thing in economical and ecological aspects: The costs ( measured in ressources and how they have been gained ) to produce these ol' machines mostly were not calculated into their market-price and just dumping these machines is effectively a crime.
Windows 8.1 runs nearly as fast as Windows 98 on a Pentium 4 but is much more stable and delivers the full set of possibilities a PC can give-away.
If you are lucky enough to have a Presler - you can use even a Hyper-V Bare-Metal to support up to 4 clients with 4 GB RAM for effective maximum 85 Watts or 115Watts consumption when using a 1GB Nvidia 8600. Ubuntu, by the way is even more responsive as long as your onboard card supports Open-GL 2.0; so any PC from 2006 on definately is the most solid variant with perfect balance between energy-consumption, sheer computing power and responsiveness.
Almost no problems with drivers, because you can ( if you use Win 8.1 use the whole available set of WDM / WDDM 1.0 / WDDM 1.1 Drivers - in cleartext: any driver from Windows 2000 up to Windows 10 ) ;
The best power-juggling of any Windows-System available also delivered by Win 8.1; For example i am running it ( for native coding / compiling purposes of customized software ) on a DELL Pentium III 750/1150 MHz LapTop via native VHD-Boot from a nearly decade-old Compact-Flash-Card of about 8GB ) - in that configuration the battery which runs with the Windows 2000 about 60 Minutes with Windows XP about 85 minutes , Windows 7 around 90 to 100 minutes is triumphed on Windows 8 by usual 200 to 230 minutes !
Windows 8.1, when deactivating all effects and using latest drivers on an HP 6715b ( AMD Turion X2 ) runs on battery on 60% screen brightness with a resolution of 1680*1080 for around 6 to 7 hours, whereas the original vista and even a optimized XP is not able to reach 3hours battery-driven.
By the way Intel Pentium 4 Presler EE / AMD Turion|Athlon X2 / Intel Celeron Core 2 Duo are delivering the best performance and there is no throtteling at all; subjectively the i3 and i5 -Systems are running much more hicky and tricky and deliver a very unpleasant User Experience, besides a hunger/lust for energy that is far far away from good and evil.
I7 would be at least the only modern Intel Processor that can deliver a remarkable experience if used with say:Virtualization or video-editing, arrangement or plug-in heavy painting in combination with serial digitizers or capture decks.
For all other purposes like just running an os to surf the net take some notes, write a letter, play some casual online-games, emailing, chatting and so on ... PLEASE USE THAT SYSTEM THAT IS MINIMUM A DECADE AWAITING TO SHOW ITS USEFULNESS !
THANKS FOR YOUR INTEREST.
S466531257 BOSS
PAETH CLAUDIUSRAPHAEL
Edited by S466531257BOSS, 05 August 2015 - 01:03 AM.