Acer Veriton Core i3 Windows XP Build

Overview

This is a high-end Windows XP build using components that technically aren’t meant to run XP, but with the right workaround, everything works perfectly. The Acer Veriton features a Core i3-4150 running at 3.5GHz (quad core), but the onboard Intel HD 4400 GPU doesn’t have XP drivers. The solution: install a low-profile AMD Radeon R5 240 with 1GB DDR3, and suddenly all the drivers work - audio, network, everything. The result is a very fast, very quiet retro XP gaming machine in a compact case.

Key Moments

• Core i3-4150 at 3.5GHz with 4GB DDR3 RAM in compact low-profile case
• Workaround for Intel HD 4400: using AMD Radeon R5 240 external GPU
• All drivers working once discrete GPU installed (audio, network, etc.)
• 3DMark03 benchmarks showing excellent performance for XP-era games
• Multiple expansion options: PS/2 ports, serial port, room for floppy controller
• Full-size CD-ROM bay and support for parallel port with header cable
• Very quiet operation with 80 Plus Bronze power supply

Full Transcript (Edited)

Hey there YouTube, I’m back and this time I’m doing another XP build. This is a build with an Acer Veriton machine here. It’s got a full-size CD-ROM here as you can see, and it’s a nice little compact low-profile case.

Now this is kind of a high-end XP build using components that are technically not meant to run Windows XP, but as you can see, everything does work. The way I got this working was basically using an external video card. Unfortunately, this has a Core i3-4150 and the onboard GPU on the chip is Intel 4000 series, I believe, and that doesn’t have working drivers for Windows XP.

But I get around that by using a low-profile video card. In this case I’m using an HD 8490, I believe, with one gig of video RAM. So that works well. And once I install this, then all the drivers work. The onboard audio works, the NIC works, everything works.

So let me show you here what’s inside. As you can see here, if I go to Properties and I go to Device Manager, everything here is installed. The only thing that doesn’t work is, like I said, the HD 4400 video card. But the network card works, sound works. It’s got a quad core i3-4150 running at 3.5 gigahertz. Yeah, it actually makes a very, very nice retro Windows XP gaming machine that is also very quiet.

[Demonstrates installation and benchmarking]

You can see here I’m going to run FutureMark 3DMark 03. For games around that era, like 2003, 2004, decently fast games like something like Need for Speed, not the original one, the better looking ones that came later on, this is actually a pretty good system.

So if I run 3DMark, you can see here that for these early ones, I’m getting 400… a thousand frames per second. It’s kind of crazy. Yeah, so you can see here getting 145 frames per second for that. And this is a very compact little PC.

[Reviews ports and expansion options]

You can see back here that you have support for PS/2 mouse and keyboard right here. You have a serial port, the onboard video which is not going to be used, you have four USB 2.0 in the back, a gigabit Ethernet, the typical line out (or sorry, line in), microphone, and speaker out, plus another PCI Express x16 for the GPU, and then a PCI Express x1 for something else. You can probably install there like a video capture card perhaps, something like that.

Right now I have four gigs of DDR3 RAM installed, but it also supports up to eight gigs, I believe. You have three SATA ports, so one is for the CD-ROM and the other one is for the SSD that is down here in this tray.

The power supply is an 80 Plus Bronze. I think… I’m not sure how many watts this has, I could multiply it out. You can take a look there if you want to multiply it out, but don’t expect much. Probably not more than 300 watts.

And like I said, you have a full-size drive bay here. So if you wanted to go even more retro and add like a floppy controller in there with a USB to floppy adapter, you could actually do that with this one.

In the front here you have two USB 3.0 ports which actually work at 3.0 speeds in Windows XP, plus another set of headphone and microphone inputs. And another two USB ports down in front right there. So yeah, a bunch of USB ports, support for fast video cards, four gigs of DDR3 memory which is all you need (the max you can support in Windows XP 32-bit).

And if you need a parallel port, check it out: you have the punch outs here on the case. If you go to eBay and you get a parallel port header with a cable, with a ribbon cable, you can install it back there. So you have another serial port right there and the parallel port right there. So you can actually pull this out towards the back using one of those parallel ports with the ribbon cable attached to it.

Yeah, so you can go full retro with this: parallel port, serial, everything you need, PS/2 ports, full retro. The only thing that’s missing is obviously an ISA bus, but for Windows XP you actually don’t need any of that stuff. PCI… you have everything you need: sound, network, everything.

I hope you enjoyed this. If you want to check these out, I sell them on eBay, but you can get a good deal with one that is not set up like the ones I sell online. Subscribe and like this video or leave a comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this kind of stuff. If you know of other systems that are good options for me to test out, I have some other machines that I’m doing the same thing with - Dell Precision machines. Those are going to be coming up in the channel pretty soon.

Again, thank you for watching. Leave a comment below, like the video, and subscribe so you can see what else I have to offer here. Thank you, bye!