Best CPU's of all time?

Flyboat said:
over 15 years ago, Intel used to release processors like 166mhz, 200mhz, 233mhz, 266mhz.
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Your memory is probably fuzzy. :p

While Intel was releasing faster processors (particularly in the speed ranges you listed), AMD, VIA and Cyrix introduced "PR" ratings, which AMD kept around until the Athlon 64 X2 days. That was because those companies were falling behind in clock speeds.

When AMD released a "450MHz" processor (K6-2 in early 1999), Intel had released the PII 450MHz over 6 months earlier.

Intel had actually been steadily increasing clock speeds over the years at a consistent rate (..., 233, 266, 333, 366, 400, etc), consistently faster than the competition* until the release of the ill-fated Pentium 3 1GHz processor.

* there are a couple of exceptions where competitors were releasing older, slower IPC architectures at higher clock speeds. But those processors were not faster than newer architectures (Netburst excepted).
 
Celeron 333 OC'd to 450 all day long. that was an amazing processor. Slot 1 cartridge type.

Second greatest ever was probably the Core I7 2500K. Just due to its amazing overclocking head room..
 
seriously no one overclocked a p3 to 1.9-2ghz?

I can't believe no one knows the glory of tualatin.
 
If you go simply by OCing headroom, the Celeron E1200 at 1.6Ghz stock would clock pretty easily to 3.2Ghz. Plus it cost less than $50.
 
I'm sure I've replied to this thread already, but I'll do it again... Q6600. I've never owned a CPU this long, much less have it be powerful enough to still be very useful year after year.
 
Celeron 300A @ 450. That thing belongs in the Smithsonian.
 
AMD 3200+ Venice. These were highly sought after when they were released. I loved this cpu. I paid only around $100 for it and the thing overclocked to a modest 2.8GHZ if I remember correctly. It was a lot of bang for the buck.

My E6400 which I just upgraded from literally a month ago. I bought that used off a forum for around $125 back when they were fairly newly released many years ago. The thing does 3.1GHZ on STOCK voltage. Pretty amazing. Used that CPU for around 4 or 5 years rock solid stable at 3.1GHZ.

Now I think the new champ has to be the i5-2500k. I am happy with the upgrade. Pretty amazing they can overclock so well. Pretty huge bang 4 buck when you consider a basically guaranteed performance increase. I wish they were slightly cheaper but... I am sure the i5-2500k/2600k will go down in history as being one of the best cpu's to date. I have not yet started to get into overclocking with it though.
 
pxc said:
Your memory is probably fuzzy. :p

While Intel was releasing faster processors (particularly in the speed ranges you listed), AMD, VIA and Cyrix introduced "PR" ratings, which AMD kept around until the Athlon 64 X2 days. That was because those companies were falling behind in clock speeds.

When AMD released a "450MHz" processor (K6-2 in early 1999), Intel had released the PII 450MHz over 6 months earlier.

Intel had actually been steadily increasing clock speeds over the years at a consistent rate (..., 233, 266, 333, 366, 400, etc), consistently faster than the competition* until the release of the ill-fated Pentium 3 1GHz processor.

* there are a couple of exceptions where competitors were releasing older, slower IPC architectures at higher clock speeds. But those processors were not faster than newer architectures (Netburst excepted).
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That was not the case with the AM386-bqased parts, as they were (except for the 40 MHz part) direct replacements for the same-speed Intel 386 parts. (The Am386-40 was, in fact, the only AMD-based CPU I've ever owned - it started in battery with Windows 95 RC2, and finished running NT 3.51 Workstation.)

The later Am486 CPUs were also mostly socket/motherboard-swappable with the Intel CPUs - fact that galled Intel to no end, and led, in fact, to the Great CPU Bru-haha that has gone on ever since.
 
I think all the cpu's I have had were really great.

Most inspiring? The MOS Technology 6510, in my commodore 64. That was awesome. And that computer held its head high for many years, being still the most sold computer model.

Motorola 68.000 in the Amiga. Fantastic. :) Spinoffs are still in production.

486, 66mhz. Fastest computer i ever had. Or rather, dos 5 was really fast in reacting to anything you did. Unlike todays slow disks.. :)

Athlon 3800x2. Great
Q9550. Great
I7 980x. Simply fantastic. Best cpu ever. But not as inspiring as the 6510 :)
 
PGHammer said:
That was not the case with the AM386-bqased parts, as they were (except for the 40 MHz part) direct replacements for the same-speed Intel 386 parts.
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What I posted had absolutely nothing to do with socket compatibility. I don't get how your response has anything to do with what I wrote and you quoted. But if you want to get into when AMD started shipping those "replacements", see below.

The person I responded to was talking about some supposed leap AMD took because Intel wasn't releasing upgrade speeds fast enough. That was a false claim as I showed.

BTW, the AM386DX processors were released incredibly late, not until 1991, around 1.5 years after Intel was already shipping the 486DX. (The Intel 386DX started shipping in 1985.) Higher speed AM386DX (40MHz) chips did not come until over a year later, when Intel was already shipping the 486DX2-50/66 models. The first Pentium model was released a few months after that.

The "direct replacements" part is funny. One company I worked at stopped selling AM386 chips because customers complained about how buggy they were. I'm sure later versions corrected errata, and give people warm fuzzy memories of high speed 386 chips when the rest of the world was about to enter the Pentium era. And don't get me started on the "AM486". :p
 
AMD K6-2 cuz it was such a great deal. Oh and the AMD Am486DX4 cuz that was a fast 486, 120mhz!.
 
dustNbone said:
Oh and the AMD Am486DX4 cuz that was a fast 486, 120mhz!.
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... and released in 1995, where it did compete favorably against the Pentium 60MHz released 2 years earlier, but not against the Pentium 120 or 133 released around the same time. And don't get me started on the AMD K5 "PR"ocessor. ;)
 
486 DX/66

Pentium 166

Pentium 233MMX <-- AMazing proc that lasted a loooong time

Celeron 300A <-- Overclocking dream for its time

AMD K62 300 and 333

AMD Athlon XP (early models) <-- Much better deal than P4 at the time

AMD Athlon x64 <-- Same as above, just blew away the competition

Core2 Quad Q6600

i7 2500k / 2600k / 2700k
 
Not much love for the i7 920.

My 3 year old processor (when overclocked to 4.4Ghz) is still among the best performers. Realistically, if it wasn't for my urge to upgrade, I could probably get another 2 years out of this processor before it feels long in the tooth.
 
My personal experiences:

P4 1.6A @ 2.53 GHz
P4 2.4A @ 3.4 GHz
E8400 @ 3.8 GHz
Q9550 @ 3.7 GHz
 
#1 Pentium - Original -- what a beast

#2 AMD X86-64 -- ushered in the 64bit age of personal computing

#3 ADM Athlon - First CPU to break the 1Ghz Barrier, massiver clocker - the early K7's easily could overclock from 500 to 750Mhz.. with the gold finger's and a voltage bump 900Mhz was pretty standard.
 
Got into PC's when Core 2 Duo came out so my choices are all pretty recent.

E6600 - pretty awesome leap forward. Great overclocker.

Q6600 - affordable quad core that lasted a long time in terms of performance.

AMD PII 555 - High unlockability - quad core for cheap. Awesome bang for the buck

i7 920 - super performer with extreme overclockability. Still putting out high end performance in 2012.
 
I bought a tualitan p3 and a mobo because of this thread. I am going to try to make a computer I can throw against the wall and have it still work.

if I fail it's 40 bucks wasted, but I am going to really enjoy this.
 
1.1A Tualatin Celeron
1.4GHz PIII-S Tualain
Q9650

Both the 1.1A and 1.4 Tualatins could overclock like stink, but I could never find RAM that could match up to run at 1:1 dividers :(
 
Celeron 300A - In it's era this thing was a monster.

Q6600 - This chip lasted such a long time. Very solid overclocker. Heck, it's still a reasonable chip for gaming/general use.
 
Clawhammer and Sledgehammer athlon 64 in 2003 as they had huge performance jumps and ditched the front side bus and northbridge memory controller. Also introduced x86-64 for consumer chips. Of course the original opteron as well as it was the chip these two were based on. Definitely the biggest change in cpu architecture in the past ten years for x86.
 
For last century, the Celeron 300A

For this century, so far, the Q6600...

I still am using the Q6600 and playing BF3 with a GTX560 Ti, and it's great for 1920x1200. I don't expect to need to upgrade for another year at least, after Windows 8.
 
The Pentium Pro was pretty epic. It had gold on it - that's pretty cool. :) I also really liked my Celeron D 365, given the kind of clocks it could reach.
 
Back in the day the Cyrix 568 and 686 were kicking everybody's butt. So my list starts there;

Cyrix 568 and 686
AMD K6-2 350
Celeron 333a
Pentium III Coppermine 733. Overclocked to 1050 most of the time on a 440BX chipset
AMD FX-57. The last super chip that AMD made.
Core i7 920. It OC'd very well
Q6600. Some still run this awesome chip
i5 2500K. nuff said.
 
Skillz said:
I am still fond of the Dothan CPUs. Pinmod FTW!
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As soon as I saw how far ahead of the current Pentium 4s and Athlon 64s of the time, I knew right away that Dothan was the future, and AMD would be in for an epic, 6 year (still going strong) ass whooping

Those CPUs were the mobile equivalent of Conroe, they were "good enough" for most users, even up to this very day... but, even better, they came out 2 years before :)
 
My favorite system that I ever owned and swore to myself that I would never get rid of sits in my closet to this day. It is my compaq DeskPro 400. A Pentium Pro 200MHz with 2mb of cache. My Soundblaster AWE32 is the audio card (ISA), An Diamond/Nvidia Riva TNT with 16MB of video ram (PCI Bus) and my trusty Diamond Monster 2 3dfx pci card. I have 2 50GB IDE-HD for storage along with a Creative DVD drive. Windows 95/2000 is the operating system which I get pretty good performance out of. I usually play BF 1942, XWing Alliance multiplayer with other fleet members who have stayed together for 12 + years of moving overseas and other states over the web. We also fire up Hexen, Quake 2 and Heretic II MP for good times as well, very pleasurable to run Glide in those games. Trusty system for sure...

Honorable mention goes to my current rig in my sig...
 
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