Best CPU's of all time?

Intel 4004. It was like a gazzillion times more powerful than what AMD offered at the time, plus everyone copies it.
 
Athlon 2600+ Mobile (Barton). It OC'ed like crazy on my Abit NF7-S. My parents are still using it.
 
AMD Athlon XP 2500+
Intel Pentium 4 2.6c
AMD Athlon X2 3800+
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550

Still have one of each of these CPU's rocking in a computer of mine or parents (except the E8400, sold that :( for my Q9550). Of course they are all overclocked; the reason why they are the best. Skipping the AM3 and LGA 1156/1366 generation for the next sockets due to the pure awesomeness of the Q9550.
 
Bop said:
Athlon 2600+ Mobile (Barton). It OC'ed like crazy on my Abit NF7-S. My parents are still using it.
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Wow that's really funny, that post works for me word for word. Same proc, mobo, reason and my parents are also still using it.

I'll also throw in the intel 2.4c p4, great little chip.
 
486 DX4 100mhz - this thing screamed for a 486. Pentium 60mhz performance woot.
Intel Pentium 133 MMX - it was amazing.
AMD K6-II 300mhz with 3DNow! - Power with a good price. This was the Half-Life CPU to have.
Intel Celeron A 300mhz - 450mhz guaranteed.
AMD Athlon 500-700mhz - the first-gen Athlons kicked some serious butt. Superior architecture (if barely) to Intel for the first time ever. First to use DDR.
AMD Athlon 1.2 ghz Palomino core - first genuinely overclockable Athlon.
Intel Pentium III Tualatin 1.4Ghz - Intel's dirty little secret - this thing beat the snot out of 3ghz Pentium 4's and later became the basis for the Core architecture. Intel should never have put up with the Netburst architecture for so long with this gem in their pocket.
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ Barton - lots of cache, unlocked, and 2.4Ghz guranteed. Yesss.
AMD Athlon 64 Clawhammer - Leaps and bounds better than anything before it. Forced Intel to make shady deals with OEMs to keep their processors.
Intel Core 2 Duo - IPC through the roof. 1+ghz OCs on stock volts.
Core 2 Quad Q6600 - years old and still going strong. Quite possibly one of the longest-viable gaming processors ever.
AMD Athlon X2/X3 unlockables
 
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my q9550 rocks for now, I definitely wont be upgrading till sandy bridge 4ghz at 1.2v!
 
cyclone3d said:
K7 - wiped the floor with Intel.
Athlon 64 - again, wiped the floor with Intel... first consumer processor with IMC. The X2 was also the first consumer processor that had 2 cores on a single die. The Pentium D doesn't count because it had two seperate dies.
Core2 - Intel caught up and surpassed AMD.
i7
And heres to hoping that AMD can once again regain the performance crown. Bulldozer... Yay for no more cheapy Hyperthreading junk. Even if they only match the IPC of the i7, the better multithreading should bring them above Intel since it looks to be way better than HT.
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this :)
 
1.486 DX 100Mhz
Made windows 3.11 fly

2.PII 450
At the time so games only needed 128Mb, 450-500MHz, 8Mb video. Now the power is to high for me.
My cousin still uses my duel PII gateway till this day.
 
(1) Q6600 (amazing longevity.... near 4 years old, still good enough for pretty much anything...)
(2) Pentium M 400mhz FSB Dothans (specifically these because of how far ahead of their time they were)
(3) Core i7 920 (they've been out a *long* freaking time, and *still* part of the best CPU line!!)
 
Best CPU? Core i7 980x, for obvious reasons, of typical 'PC' processors.

Favorite CPU I've owned? Core i7 965, first cpu I've owned that runs faster than I can give it stuff to do.
 
Mine would have to be the Celron 300A as well. That thing ran at 500mhz all day long, and with my Voodoo2, quake was so much fun. Along with my two 32mb sticks of ram and the 64mb stick I saved so many pennies to buy.

Good times.
 
Mine would be the q6600.

Still running mine and in about half a year, should be 4 years old.

Keeping it till Sandy bridge.
 
I'll have to echo a couple procs..

Intel 486 dx2 66mhz - was my first PC build
Intel PII 450mhz
AMD Thunderbird
AMD Barton 2600+ - one of the best price/performance CPUs of all time
AMD64 Clawhammer DTR 3200+ - Awesome CPU. Overclocked like a dream and ran very cool
Intel Q6600 - not much to be said that already hasn't. Could be considered the pound for pound best CPU ever when taking in cost, performance, longevity, and the time period in which it was released.
 
Intel PIII Coppermine 500
AMD Duron 700
AMD T-Bird 1.33
AMD XP-M 2800+ Barton
AMD Sempron 64 2800+ (Palermo core)
AMD Opteron 165
AMD Phenom II 955BE
Intel Q9550 Yorkfield

Ah the great memories with those systems.
 
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Hard to beat the Q9550 I had that ran right around 4Ghz. My father has the whole rig now and has zero problems. Best $175 I ever spent on a processor.
 
Without a doubt the i7 920 DO stepping cpu's followed closely by the i3/i5 dual core 1156 socket chips.
 
Dan_D said:
Among my personal favorite's really is the Pentium Pro.
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Agreed. First powerhouse system I built was a dual processor P-Pro 180. Initially built it for a customer to use as a firewall machine, but Checkpoint Firewall-1 did not like the dual processors. Customer didn't want it, so I kept it. Slapped in a Diamond Stealth-3D 3000 and had one nasty gaming rig, even if games were only single threaded. Who else at the time was running a dual processor rig? lol
 
rickss69 said:
Without a doubt the i7 920 DO stepping cpu's followed closely by the i3/i5 dual core 1156 socket chips.
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yep.my new 3849B019 is the best of all my CPU's.ive owned 7 i7 920's and a 980x a W3520 3 i3-530's ,1 i5-750,i i7-860,1 i7-870,
1 i3-540,5 E8400's 2 E8500's, 1 E8600 and a phenom 9500 x4 a phenom II 550,athlon64 x2 5000 athlon64 x2 6400
and none compare to the 3849B018 i7-920 OCing wise:D
 
I haven't been in this game for very long--I loved my Opteron 170 (it got me FX-60 speed for much less than the FX line commanded at the time).

The Q6600 has some amazing staying power. I'm not planning on getting rid of it until Sandy Bridge (at least).
 
Intel:

Celeron 300A (Come on, this was one of my first overclocked CPU's, easily getting 75% OC's)

Pentium 4 2.4C Northwood (These were beasty little CPU's that easily clocked to 3.2GHZ+)

i7 860 (This is gonna go down as one beasty chip and a hell of a value)

AMD

2700+ Thunderbird

955 BE Phenom 2
 
Agreed, the 300A is legendary, other follow-ups like the 366 didn't have quite the impact because we had been de-sensitized by the 300A. The AMD DX4-100 and 120 were cool (as cheap as the DX2-66 from intel), the original Athlon was the first AMD cpu I bought out of my own pocket, and in recent years the C2D E6600, Q6600 and the i7-920 are amazing because they are sweet spot processors that were available at relatively low costs close to launch, overclocked well and stayed competitive (with overclock) years after they were first released.

I always find the 'tick' processors more impressive than the tock (referring to intel's tick-tock philosphy, which I believe can be traced backwards even before the term was coined), because the 'ticks' are big jumps, and the tocks may hit higher clock speeds and lower voltage requirements, but they have lost the "shiny new" feel of the originals over time.
 
These are based on the processors that just blew me away at the time.

PowerPC G3: I remember moving up from a PowerPC 601 60Mhz to one of these 300 Mhz monsters, I could believe how this thing screamed.

Pentium 4: Pretty much the same as above. This is the frist processor I remember thinking most people wouldn't need anything faster unless they were doing video work or high end gaming.

Pentium D: While not having as good of performance as the Athlon X2, this chip really brought the dual core processor into the mainstream, especially with the Pentium D 805.

There were some other chips that I'd like to give honorable mentions: Pentium Pro, Pentium II, and Core series.
 
For me its my e6420 i went from an athlon 64 3000+ that wouldnt overclock for shit to this and was blown away. I honestly can remember upgrading and getting such a difference.

Its also lasted longer than any processor i can remember.
 
if i had to make a list.

1- Amd Athlon 64 -first leap towards 64bit compute, and on die mem controller.

2- Intel I7- when first released was light years ahead of everything, still has the crown.

3- AMD Socket A, duron / thunderbird matched every bit of intels performance at the time, and were cheaper.

4- AMD k6-2- first Amd processor to begin the performance war with Intel.

5- Amd Phenom x6- first 6 core cpu on the market, and for the $ remains unmatched.

6- Intel Celeron 333- first processor to be named the overclock king many users doubled or nearly trippled its factory clock speed.

7- Amd X2- first dual core cpu on same die

8- Intel duos, brought intel back in the light after Amd was gaining tons of market share with there dual core cpu's

9- Amd FX series processors first processors designed for gamers.

10- Amd Athlon XP- you know you have something good when you rate the performance of your processors faster than their actual clock speeds compared to the competions.

my all time is ENIAC, first digital computer back in 1946, still kinda hard to believe we came up with nukes before a digital computer. YIKES!
 
Rated for value and overclocking:

386 Clones (Press the Turbo Button!)
Celeron 300A
P4 2.4C Northwood
XP 2500+ Mobile
X2 3800+
C2D E8400
955 BE Phenom 2
C2Q Q6600
i7 860
 
Favorites:
3200+
Opty 165
e4400
1090t

Not So Favorites:
P4 any flavor
PD 930
Opty 1212
 
3.0 GHZ P4 still flys. Use it as a music only computer in my main room.
 
CamaroRacing said:
These are based on the processors that just blew me away at the time.

PowerPC G3: I remember moving up from a PowerPC 601 60Mhz to one of these 300 Mhz monsters, I could believe how this thing screamed.

Pentium 4: Pretty much the same as above. This is the frist processor I remember thinking most people wouldn't need anything faster unless they were doing video work or high end gaming.

Pentium D: While not having as good of performance as the Athlon X2, this chip really brought the dual core processor into the mainstream, especially with the Pentium D 805.

There were some other chips that I'd like to give honorable mentions: Pentium Pro, Pentium II, and Core series.
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Are you kidding? Must be an Intel fan eh? The P4 before Northwood was trash and after Northwood was not much better. And I don't remember the Pentium D ever getting much praise for anything.
 
RamonGTP said:
Are you kidding? Must be an Intel fan eh? The P4 before Northwood was trash and after Northwood was not much better. And I don't remember the Pentium D ever getting much praise for anything.
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Seriously... The CPU's to have around the time of the P4 was the AMD Athlon XP's and then the AMD64's came out and there was no competition, the Athlon 64 3000+ was the budget chip to own.
 
RamonGTP said:
Are you kidding? Must be an Intel fan eh? The P4 before Northwood was trash and after Northwood was not much better. And I don't remember the Pentium D ever getting much praise for anything.
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The pentium D 805 is the only one even worth mentioning because it did 4Ghz on air and was dirt cheap otherwise it was all garbage. Im not sure what he thinks made it mainstream? Maybe price? Only machines i ever saw this chip in belonged to overclockers and overclockers are pretty much the exact opposite of mainstream.
 
My first cpu was an Intel 486SX 25Mhz with 2 whole megs of 30 pin SIMMs RAM and a
Conner 60 MB HDD.
I remember drooling over a Cyrix chip that was kicking both Intel and AMD in the ass.
I also remember my brand new Pentium 233 going up in smoke along with my brand new TYAN 1571 mobo that had the i430TX chipset.
I overclocked a Celery 600 to 900 on an ASUS P3B-F that I still have.
Pentium III 733 which oc'ed to 1050 on a TYAN 1830
Pentium III 800 which I oc'ed to 992 on an ASUS CUSL-2...the good ol days
Don't forget the 2500 Barton
I'm still oc'ing a Prescott 2.8 Ghz to 3.2Ghz since they launched.
 
My personal favorites are my G0 stepping Q6600 that did 3.4Ghz on air and my buddies P2140 that would do 3.0Ghz on air.
 
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