Let's say I want to build a secondary PC. This PC would

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Let's say I want to build a secondary PC.

This PC would be aimed at the golden era of gaming.

It would be using Windows XP, and would need EAX support.

What's the best hardware I could put in an XP machine and still get proper hardware support for EAX and proper GPU support (drivers)

The goal is playing 98/XP games with hardware from that time for perfect compatibility, including EAX (back when developers cared about audio).

I would also hunt down an old 5.1 system.

Here's what I'm thinking right now.

Athlon 64 4000+
Sound Blaster X-Fi Pci version (I think that's the last XP generation sound card they made),
Not sure what mobo or GPU though.

My original XP machine was a BFG 6800 Ultra OC (AGP) which got shat on when post processing effects came out due to still using pixel pipelines. Athlon 64 4000+, Had an X-Fi as well.

I didn't upgrade for many years afterwards, so perhaps the entry level dual cores would be worth it, idk, although from what I remember they were actually the 4000 split into two cores.