Windows 7 on old 478 P4?

K

Kaylik

New Member
Ok so heres the deal I decided to rebuild my old PC and add some newer pieces to it, and well XP is fine its a lil outdated and i would like to install windows 7.

Here is my build at the moment

CPU: Pentium 4 2.8GHz 533FSB
Ram: 1.5GB DDR266 (1 of my sticks is two clocks lower :( )
VGA: ATI HD Radeon 4650 1GB (obviously AGP :D)
HDD: 2x 80GB 7200RPM IDEs
MoBo: Asus P4P800 VM

Now I plan on buying (only if i can run 7) 2x 1GB of ram to replace the 2x 256s, giving me 3GBs (32bit can only address 3.5 and i want dual channel so ill stay with 3), and I do have a P4 HT 3.2GHz 800FSB at my dads I just need to get it out of storage so I plan on placing that in. I'm also buying a 500GB 7200RPM SATA2 drive (the mobo is SATA1 but I'd rather just have a good drive for later in the future). now I plan using this computer as a file/media server and im having trouble getting vista to allow my XP machine access to the shared 2TB Hard Drive in the vista machine so I want to install Windows 7 the graphics are there to play guild wars, and a few other games in the same resource area. so what do you think?

the Final outcome would look like this
CPU: P4 HT 3.2GHz 800FSB
RAM: 3GB DDR400
HDD:500GB 7200RPM SATA1
80GB 7200RPM IDE (To hold random stuff)
VGA: ATI HD Radeon 4650
MoBo: Asus P4P800 VM

it would only cost me 120 bucks on on the 3 upgrades which is nothing
 
Last edited:
lucasbytegenius

lucasbytegenius

Well-Known Member
Looks like you're all set:
Windows 7 requires a 1 GHz CPU, you will have a 3.2 GHz.
Windows 7 requires 1 GB of RAM, you will have 3 GB.
Windows 7 requires 16 GB HD space, you have 500 GB.
Windows 7 requires 128 MB min. of graphics memory for Aero, you have 1 GB.

Not all hardware will work for 7, so I would test-install it on another HD or partition before keeping it. Also note that you can't upgrade XP to 7, no matter what others say.
 
K

Kaylik

New Member
ok well i dont believe in the minimum requirements for operating systems, they are what is needed to run the OS thats it. Maybe 1 window, example windows xp only needs a pentium 2 (Pentium equivalent 233Mhz cpu) with 128mb of ram (windows 98 computers tended to have that) and well its a terrible experience.

I decided to dual boot it with my current hardware and the OS seems to be snappy with a 3.8 rating due to the processor which is a single thread so that would be obvious on the low score, as windows 7 likes dual core cpus cause its multi-treaded orientated, so i think with the HT cpu even tho its still a single thread the HT should be able to still do something more efficient for anyone that would like to know.

conclusion: windows 7 runs decent on older hardware that Vista would otherwise set to flames.
 
Shane

Shane

Super Moderator
Staff member
Windows 7 will run fine on that system,i ran windows 7 home premium on an old Socket A AMD Sempron 2800+ 2Ghz system with 1gb of ram,9600 pro graphics card...to my amazement it ran quite well,so your beefed up system should run it no problems. :)
 
fastdude

fastdude

Active Member
Go for it, dude. You show Micro$oft that outdated machines can still run their precious new OS's :)
 
tremmor

tremmor

Well-Known Member
All right. that may be. I thought you were talking about if ya did not have Vista you could not install 7. Never the less. i did a full format 1st. then installed all file backups afterward. I would want a full install and never a upgrade. a low level format for me and clean install and its done.
 
sound computers

sound computers

New Member
I have windows 7 on a very similarly equipped machine in the guest room. it works fine. My graphics card is older than yours (also agp) and it gave a wee bit of install problem. I had to install the drivers in compatibility mode for xp sp2. I am not 100% sure, but maybe not all version of 7 can do that. (i may be mistaken) even after that, the OS would occasionally warn me that things weren't all 100% compatible. good luck!
 
F

fohawk17

New Member
Windows 7 should wipe vista off the planet..... This os is what vista wishes it could grow up to be. Much better hardware useage. Go for it
 
Drenlin

Drenlin

Active Member
Why wouldn't Aero work with that? It needs DX9, right? The 4650 is 10.1...

You could actually do a bit of gaming on that system. If you like multiplayer, Half Life: Deathmatch, Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, and Counter Strike: Source would run well, and keep you occupied for months, if not years. Throw Garry's Mod in, and you've got some HUGE time-wasting potential. :p
 
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Gareth

Gareth

Active Member
I ran Windows 7 on a Pentium 3 850MHz with 512MB of RAM and it run fantastic, so it will run good on that system too :)
 
Shane

Shane

Super Moderator
Staff member
G25r8cer said:
No Aero needs dx11 as Win Vista/7 came with it
Click to expand...

Aero does not require DX11,I had Aero on Windows 7 on my old socket A system which has a old school Radeon 9600 Pro graphics card (DX9) . ;)

Worked just fine right out of the box.
 
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