Windows XP/Server 2003 Setup Guide for Overclocking and Benchmarking

After receiving multiple requests about making a video about preparing a Windows XP Operating system for overclocking and benchmarking purposes, mainly Super PI with Copy Waza, I finally got the time to do it. So this is kinda a sequel to my Windows XP/Server 2003 with Z490 platform installation guide video, as this was also done with Intel 10900K and EVGA Z490 DARK KP. As many of the guides have disappeared from the forums it wasn't a bad idea to make a video of my own representing hardware of this day as well.

So, a large part about the actual operating system preparation goes to actually shrinking or building the installation media you wish to use for benchmarking purposes. When it comes to benching in general, especially 2D, the lighter the operating system is the better, and this applies to modern operating systems as well. In this video I do not cover that part to actually use NLite or NTLite to shrink some generic Windows XP SP3 iso, this is about the actual installation and steps you have to do in the OS before running the tests, mainly 2D tests like Superpi PI, wPrime and Pifast and so on.

For best performance for these old CPU and Memory based tests you have to use an old NVidia graphics card, because it is lighter and performs better than offerings from AMD/ATI. The way I do this is that I split an SSD into two partitions. I keep all of the programs, tests, screenshots and so on on the D partitions and I never erase it. The C partition is only for the actual OS and running the tests so it can always be wiped quickly. You can either just split a drive into C and D partitions or use two separate drives. Some people still highlight that old mechanical hard drives are better for this purpose than modern SSDs.

At the actual Desktop we minimize things to make the XP as small as possible, and we can follow the "size" by looking at the system memory that is being used. A fully retail XP can passively take a few hundred MB of memory, whereas the smallest XP/Server 2003 installation that I've used only took 28MB at lowest. In System properties I recommend you disable pagefile completely, and make sure that memory use is designated to system cache instead of programs, and double check in "regedit" that every "largesystemcache" line has been set to 1 instead of 0.

One important note performance wise is that most of the actual tests run faster if they are run from a RAM drive. For this purpose we still use a very old ERAM220 program that was created ages ago, and it supports Windows 2000/XP and NT4 + NT3.5 operating systems. We install it by adding it as a new hardware device in Control Panel, just follow the steps I show on the video, and we set its capacity high enough to run all the tests, and that we can see it as a device in My Computer. We have to format it, and limit the maximum memory so that it can function properly, generally down to 600-640MB.

Software and other links down below:

Windows XP/2003 install guide on LGA1200/Z490: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtTmmGx18tg&t

Good baseline Windows XP 32 and 64 Bit versions for overclocking purposes: https://barbonenet.wordpress.com/2017/04/19/xp-32bit-for-spi32m-on-z270/

ERAM220 ram drive: http://downloads.hwbot.org/downloads/tools/ERAM220.rar

The famous Wahaha!.exe: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7i8cizibbrozf5j/Wahaha%21.exe?dl=0

Other tweaking software: https://community.hwbot.org/topic/137720-benchmark-tweak-software/

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Видео Windows XP/Server 2003 Setup Guide for Overclocking and Benchmarking канала Luumi