CPU Progression (2015 update)!

Zarathustra[H]

Zarathustra[H]

Extremely [H]
Joined
Oct 29, 2000
Messages
38,830
Hey all,

I loved the CPU progression thread in this subforum, but it died in 2013, and I didn't want to necro it.

How about a new one?

I'll start with mine:

I found that my memories were getting a bit hazy, so I went ahead and charted my entire system history last night.

I've been building computers since 1991, so I decided a cutoff was in order. I started with 1997, the year the [H] started.

Click to embiggen:
 
Intel 8088 5Mhz
Intel 386DX 33Mhz
Intel 486DX2 66Mhz
Intel Pentium 133Mhz
Intel Pentium 166Mhz w/ MMX
Intel Pentium 200Mhz w/ MMX
AMD K6-2 450Mhz
Intel Pentium3 700Mhz @ 933Mhz (Coppermine)
AMD Athlon 1.4Ghz @ 1.6Ghz (Thunderbird)
2x Intel Xeon 2.4Ghz @ 3.06Ghz (Prestonia)
2x Intel Xeon 3.06Ghz @ 3.42Ghz (Gallatin)
Intel Q6600 2.4Ghz @ 3.6Ghz (Kentsfield)
Intel Q9650 3.0Ghz @ 4.4Ghz (Yorkfield)
Intel i5-2500k 3.3Ghz @ 5.0Ghz (Sandy Bridge)
 
GotNoRice said:
Intel 8088 5Mhz
Intel 386DX 33Mhz
Intel 486DX2 66Mhz
Intel Pentium 133Mhz
Intel Pentium 166Mhz w/ MMX
Intel Pentium 200Mhz w/ MMX
AMD K6-2 450Mhz
Intel Pentium3 700Mhz @ 933Mhz (Coppermine)
AMD Athlon 1.4Ghz @ 1.6Ghz (Thunderbird)
2x Intel Xeon 2.4Ghz @ 3.06Ghz (Prestonia)
2x Intel Xeon 3.06Ghz @ 3.42Ghz (Gallatin)
Intel Q6600 2.4Ghz @ 3.6Ghz (Kentsfield)
Intel Q9650 3.0Ghz @ 4.4Ghz (Yorkfield)
Intel i5-2500k 3.3Ghz @ 5.0Ghz (Sandy Bridge)
Click to expand...

Nice, I jumped in at the 286 level, but my parents had an XT machine before that. I skipped 386 all together and went straight to a 486 sx25 (which I overclocked to 50Mhz!)
 
Intel 286 [Turbo button pressed in]
486 SX 25 [stock]
486 SX 33 [stock]
Pentium 166@200
AMD K6-2 266@300
K6-2 [unknown] @ 450
Celeron 300A @ 450
Celeron 566 @ 800
Thunderbird [unknown]
Athlon X2 3800 [stock]
Q6600 @ 3.3
2500K @ 4.4
 
I honestly can't recall what we were running in the early 90s. I know we had a 386 at some point. I think our next computer was an AST with a Pentium 200 MHz.

I think I bought my first computer in the late 90s in 7th grade. It was a Pionix and with a Pentium 3. I've haven't made that many upgrades :)
Pentium 3 667 MHz
AMD 64 X2 4400+ (toledo? s939)
AMD Phenom II X4 920 (current cpu)
 
Desktop progression

Am486 SX4-40mhz
Cyrix 6x86-P166 133mhz
AMD K6-2 300mhz@350mhz
AMD Duron 600mhz@900mhz
AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.2ghz@stock
AMD Athlon 64 3500+@stock
AMD Athlon 64x2 4000+@3ghz
AMD Phenom X4 9950@3ghz
AMD Thuban 1055T@4ghz
AMD Bulldozer [email protected]
AMD Piledriver 8320@5ghz
Intel [email protected]

I started in the 486 era. I started to overclock with the AMD K6-2 then well the passion just grew.
 
Some of the older ones were from when I was a kid, but we all had to start somewhere, right?

Main and secondary computer progression:
Intel 8088 4.77MHz
Intel 386 SX 25MHz
Motorola 68030 33MHz (First one all to myself-only functional Mac I've ever owned)
Pentium 166 (No MMX)
Pentium II 400 @ 448 (Oldest one I still have, and still works)
Pentium 4 Willamette 1.7 GHz
Pentium 4 Northwood 3.06 GHz
Athlon 64 Newcastle 3800+ 2.4 GHz
Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 3.2 GHz
Core i7 3930k @ 4.2 GHz (current)
A6 5400k (HTPC)
i5 [email protected] (former work PC)
i3 2120T (media server)

Plus lots and lots of others ancient and newish for various other useful and non-useful duties, and some dead ones for wall displays.
 
Oh FUN down memory lane!

Pentium 133MHz
Celeron 300 @ 450MHz
Pentium II 450MHz @ 533MHz
Pentium III 600MHz @ 800MHz (semi unstable, so i used windows o/c software to boost it when i needed!)
Athlon 1000GHz @ 1.2GHz Thunderbird (holy crap did it make a difference in C&C Red Alert! The game could run at 4x speed without skipping and the CPU would wreck you in 10 minutes)
Athlon XP 2800+ @ 2.5GHz (Might have killed this one with a Peltier cooler)
Pentium 4 Northwood 2.8GHz @ 3.2GHz
Core 2 Duo E6420 (forgot what o/c, close to 3GHz i believe)
Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.8GHz (these Q6600 were the pits for o/c 4 samples couldn't even get 3GHz, whats what you get for lowest binned chips!)
Core i7 920 @ 3.8GHz (still have this today!)
Core i7 2500K @ 4.5GHz
Core i7 3500K @ 4.4GHz
Core i7 6600K Coming soon!
 
I had so many processors between 2002-2006 that this may be a bit tricky :p

Pentium Pro 200Mhz
Pentium II 350Mhz
Duron 800Mhz
Athlon XP 1900
Athlon XP 1700 (JIUHB)
Athlon XP-M 2500
Athlon 64 3000
Athlon 64 3400
Athlon 64 3400-M (Newark)
Opteron 165
E8400
Q9650
i7 920
i7 2600k
i7 4770k
 
sKiDmArK said:
I had so many processors between 2002-2006 that this may be a bit tricky :p
Click to expand...

That's funny. That was me in 2001.

After 2005 I just fell off the planet though. Didn't play any games, or make any changes to my rig from 2005 until 2009.



my GPU updates between 2009 and 2012 were very busy as well!
 
I couldn't even begin to count how many CPU's I've owned, but that Geforce 2 GTS... that card changed my gaming forever. Full 32-bit color! It could do anisotropic filtering! I think in 1997 I was rocking a pentium OD 125mhz chip though, state of the art packard-bell tower :)
 
LigTasm said:
I couldn't even begin to count how many CPU's I've owned, but that Geforce 2 GTS... that card changed my gaming forever. Full 32-bit color! It could do anisotropic filtering! I think in 1997 I was rocking a pentium OD 125mhz chip though, state of the art packard-bell tower :)
Click to expand...

yeah, I decided to draw the line in 1997 when the H was founded, because details and memory quickly become hazier when I go back further than that.

My first computer experiences were with my Friends Commodore 64's and my parents old 8086 and 8088 laptops.

My early list of my own computers foes something like:
1991: 286 at 8mhz
1993: 486sx25 @ 50mhz
1996: Inherited Pentium 120 parts when fam got new Pentium 150.
1997: Inherited Pentium 150 and OC:ed to 200

Then my list above follows.


The funny thing is, I remember CPU's and video cards very clearly. Motherboard, amount of RAM, etc. is completely foggy.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041780955 said:
yeah, I decided to draw the line in 1997 when the H was founded, because details and memory quickly become hazier when I go back further than that.

The funny thing is, I remember CPU's and video cards very clearly. Motherboard, amount of RAM, etc. is completely foggy.
Click to expand...


Most of us were young bucks back then :-D. I will agree that most of the stuff is kinda foggy for me outside of my duron 600 build, which was back in the year 2000. Motherboards, ram, and hard disk's kinda ran together. Then there was the period of time where I grad high school(03) and started college, I was too busy chasing women and being social rather than worrying about computers.

I remember rocking one of those delta 60mm 7k rpm fans on a copper heatsink. My friends and family thought I was crazy for dealing with such noise, but all i cared about was my overclock and all that extra performance :-D
 
ebduncan said:
ans on a copper heatsink. My friends and family thought I was crazy for dealing with such noise, but all i cared about was my overclock and all that extra performance :-D
Click to expand...

Yeah, my college roommate hated the copper peg heatsink with the 7k delta! ha,
 
Intel Pentium 233 w/MMX (Quake build) W95B
AMD K6-2 300mhz (Quake II build) W98
AMD K6-2 350mhz W98SE
AMD K6-2 450mhz@500mhz W98SE
AMD K6-2 500mhz (Quake III build- epic fail slideshow at 10fps) W2000Pro
AMD K6-3 533mhz W2000Pro
AMD Athlon 1700+ XP Thoroughbred@1640mhz (Quake III & Unreal & Halo goodness at last) WXPH
AMD Athlon 2500+ XP Barton@2000mhz WXPPro
AMD Athlon 3000+ XP Barton@2200mhz WXPPro
Intel Pentium 4 3.0C Northwood@3200mhz (Doom III & HL2 & Farcry build) WXPPro
Intel Pentium 4 3.2E Prescott@3400mhz WXPPro
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego@2550mhz (Quake IV build) WXPPro
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Toledo@2600mhz WVH32
Intel Core 2 Quad 9550 Yorkfield@3833mhz WVU64
Intel Core i7 2600K Sandy Bridge@4500mhz W7U64&W8.1Pro
 
AMD 5x86-133
Pentium II 233
Celeron 300A @ 504
Pentium 3 600 @ 800
Pentium 3 800 @ 1066
Pentium 4 1.6 @ 2.4
Pentium 2.4 @ 3.2
Core 2 Duo E6300 (stock)
Core 2 Quad QX6700 (stock also sadly)
Core i7 875k @ 4.3
Core i7 5280k @ 4.2
 
I was envious of your great spreadsheet. So I've had to make my own.
So after hours of research into my old orders and forum posts elsewhere, here it is:



I've skipped 1992 and 1993 as nothing had changed during those years.
I was a student until 2006 so budget was very tight until then, except when my parents lent a helping hand, like in 1998 with the PII which was only released a few months before I got it, so it cost a fortune.

By far my favourite CPU was the Celeron 600 as it was rock solid at 180% overclock, with generic air cooling. If I could've water cooled it I bet it would've easily reached 200%.
With some extra fans I could run some benchmarks on 1134 (9x126), but I couldn't stabilize it with the crappy coolers we had back then. Compared to todays CPU coolers those things were tiny.
 
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MOS Tech 6510 -> Intel Pentium 4 3GHz. Is there anything newer yet?
 
M76 said:
I was envious of your great spreadsheet. So I've had to make my own.
So after hours of research into my old orders and forum posts elsewhere, here it is:



I've skipped 1992 and 1993 as nothing had changed during those years.
I was a student until 2006 so budget was very tight until then, except when my parents lent a helping hand, like in 1998 with the PII which was only released a few months before I got it, so it cost a fortune.

By far my favourite CPU was the Celeron 600 as it was rock solid at 180% overclock, with generic air cooling. If I could've water cooled it I bet it would've easily reached 200%.
With some extra fans I could run some benchmarks on 1134 (9x126), but I couldn't stabilize it with the crappy coolers we had back then. Compared to todays CPU coolers those things were tiny.
Click to expand...


I'm impressed with the level of detail!

I couldn't for the life of me figure out amounts of RAM or motherboards for anything but the last couple of builds.

(well, I will never forget the 4MB in simms in my first 286, but...
 
Zarathustra[H];1041781806 said:
I'm impressed with the level of detail!

I couldn't for the life of me figure out amounts of RAM or motherboards for anything but the last couple of builds.

(well, I will never forget the 4MB in simms in my first 286, but...
Click to expand...

Frankly I wouldn't bet my life on the accuracy of the RAM column between 1997 and 2007, but I owned all of those, just not sure about the exact upgrade dates.

But since I always had my actual config posted in my signature on another forum, that linked to a page I created just for that I could extract my MB data from the leftover files. Without that I would only have remembered the memorable ones. Like the P2L97, my first hi-end build, and my first actual OC. Or the ECS K7S5A Which had killer value compared to what it actually cost. And my last two builds.
 
im 2004-2009, you got a 9200 because you were not gaming and the 6800 was PCI...

you mean AGP I think :)
 
68030 @ 25mhz - My Amiga 3000 desktop.
Intel 486DX2 50
68040 @ 25Mhz Amiga 2000HD with accelerator card
Cyrix 166+
Intel Pentium 133Mhz
Intel Pentium 200MMX
Intel Pentium II 300Mhz
Intel Celeron 266Mhz - I think this was the one that ran at 450Mhz
Intel Pentium II 450 Dual CPU
Intel Pentium III 500Mhz
Intel Pentium III 733Mhz
Intel Pentium III 1Ghz
Intel Pentium 4 2.4Ghz
Intel Pentium 4 2.8Ghz
Intel Pentium 4 3Ghz
Intel Pentium 4 3.6Ghz
Intel Core2Quad Q6600
Intel Core2Duo E8400
Intel Core2Quad Q9400
68040 @ 25Mhz - Amiga 3000T system
Intel Core2Duo E5200
Intel Core i7 870
Intel Core i7 2600k
Intel Core i7 3770k
Intel Core2Duo E6700
Intel Core2Quad Q9550
Intel Core i7 4790K

I am probably missing a few and these are only desktop machines.

I have these in a box somewhere in my room, not sure what to do with them,
procs.jpg
 
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Intel Pentium 90
Intel Pentium 166
AMD K6-2 300
AMD Duron 700
AMD Athlon XP 1900+
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
Intel i5 750
 
(1998)Pentium 233mhz with MMX, 16mb, 6GB, 15" CRT
(2002) Athlon XP 1800+, 128mb -> 384mb, 40GB, 15" CRT
(2004) Athlon XP 2800+, 512mb -> 1024mb, 80GB, 17" CRT
(2005) Athlon FX-51, 2GB, 250GB, 17" CRT
(2006) Athlon 64 x2 4200+, 4GB, 320GB, 24" LCD
(2008) Q8200, 6GB, 640GB, 24" LCD
(2009) Athlon II x4 620, 8GB, 1TB, 3x 24" LCDs
(2014) Phenom x6 1055T, 8GB, 2TB, 24" LCD
(2015) AMD FX-4130, 8GB, 2TB, 24" LCD
(2015) Xeon E5649, 15GB, 2TB, 24" LCD
 
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Intel 486sx 33mhz
Intel 486dx2 66mhz
Intel Pentium 120mhz
***can't remember
Intel Celeron 300A 450mhz
***can't remember
AMD T-bird 1.33ghz
AMD Athlon XP 1800+ 1.53ghz
AMD Athlon XP 2100+ 1.733 ghz
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 2.0 ghz
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400
Intel Core i7-920
Intel Core i7-3770
Intel Core i7-6700k
 
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I started with a 386 and the best thing since sliced bread was the turbo button. :D
 
- Commodore Plus /4
- Commodore Colt (8088 XT Clone)
- Aries 386SX 16mhz (first VGA card, Diamond Speedstar)
- 386DX 33mhz
- 486 DX 50 (note, this was a true DX, not a DX2 or 4).
- Pentium 133mhz
- Athlon K6 200 (oc to 233mhz)
- Pentium III 866mhz (w/Voodoo 1 Diamond Monster)
- Pentium 4 2.4ghz (Radeon 8500, then Hercules Geforce 2MX, followed by Radeon 9800 Pro).
- Dell P4 2.8ghz (MSI X800XL, X1900XT)
- Cyberpower I7-920 stock (GTS 250/Radeon 6950)
- My current rig in the sig.

Also, a number of laptops, but don't want to go into all that! :D
 
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My parents started out with a 286 and I used their machines up through the early Pentium era.

Here is my complete list of CPUs I personally owned along with their stock clock speeds. When I acquired video cards is somewhat hazy. I've listed most of them, but I believe there were a few others.

K6-2 300 Mhz Had an ATI Rage for a couple weeks, but returned for the shiny new Matrox G200.
AMD Duron 800 Mhz
Athlon XP 1800+ (1.533 Ghz), somewhere in here I got a Geforce 2 GTS
Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0 Ghz) Geforce 6600, maybe the GT model?
Athlon 64 x2 4800+ (2.5 Ghz Dual Core) Radeon 3850 (this setup currently serves as the brains of my MAME cabinet)
Intel i5 3570k (3.4 Ghz base Quad Core) Radeon 3850 later updated to Radeon 7870 XT

As you can see I've been more or less on a double something with each upgrade path. Mhz, 32 -> 64 bits or cores. I'm feeling the itch to upgrade again, but can't logically justify the 6700k for any reason other than putting the 3570k in my MAME cabinet.
 
Let me think...

Pentium 100
K6-2 350
A dual core P4 of some type
Core2duo of some kind
3770k
5960x
 
Holy crap. This one's gonna take me a while to remember all the setups I've used over the years.

Apple IIc
Xerox 8086
IBM PS2 w/386 SX20
IBM PS2 w/486 SX25

End of prebuilt machines

Various Intel DX setups...

AMD 386 DX/40 with Math Co
Intel 486 DX2/66
Intel 486 DX4/100
AMD DX4/120 (Remember those janky VLB Video Cards? So glad they were gone when they were.)

There's a few configs I've undoubtedly missed here... I experimented with a lot of setups during the 486 DX era.

Intel Pentium 150 (With ATI 3D Rage II+ with that huge memory addon board)
AMD K6-2/300 (With Voodoo 2)

AMD Athlon 600 (Slot A)
AMD Athlon 750 (Slot A)

AMD Athlon (TBird) 1.4Ghz (Socket A) (GeForce2 Ti)
AMD Athlon XP (TBred) 2.0Ghz

AMD Athlon X64 3800+ Laptop (With GeForce 4 440)
Intel Core2Duo T7200 Laptop (Asus G w/GeForce 7700m)

AMD Athlon II x4 630 (with ATI Radeon 4670 then a GTX 275 and then a GT 640)
A8-5500 (with GeForce GT 640, SFF Build, abandoned when I needed more ram)
AMD Phenom II x6 1055t 95W (with GTX 470)

Current: Pentium G3258 with dual GTX 470 SLI. Going to upgrade the CPU to a Xeon e3 1231v3 after payday.

And because people keep asking: The 470's specifically because they work well with After Effects for CUDA/Raytrace Rendering. I kinda need 'em and can't currently afford anything newer that would be x7x series and run much cooler. I'm well under 500 Watts PSU usage so it's still fine. So unless you got a pair of 670s to sell cheap, I'll stick with these. ;)
 
-Atari 800XL (Neighbor kid had a Commodore 64 so I got to game on it after school as well)
-Atari 1040ST (games were far better than on the 286 that was out at the time)
-486 33hz ordered pre built from Commuter Shopper Magazine
-Pentium single core, no idea what model. First self built machine. All self built from now on
-Pentium I cant remember. Possibly Dual Core.
-Intel Qx9770 First Quad Core consumer CPU available!
-Intel i7 970x
-Intel i7 980x
-Intel i7 990x
-Intel 5960x (current system, see sig)

Good thread. Brings back some memories. Sadly I cant remember what early Pentiums I had. Never had an Amiga or a neighbor with one, would have liked to have seen one back in the day.
 
- ZX Spectrum
- i286 25MHz
- i386SX 33MHz
- i486DX4 100MHz <- all self built starting from here
- Pentium MMX 166MHz
- Pentium II 266 @ 400MHz
- Pentium III 800Mhz + Riva TNT2
- Athlon XP 2400+ + GeForce4 Ti 4200
- Core2Duo E4500 + Radeon HD3850
- i5-2500K + Radeon HD6950
 
What if I regressed since then? In 2014 I acquired a 286-10 and then I got a Harris 286-20. Still need to swap crystals... :D
 
1996: Pentium 166Mhz + Voodoo 1
1999: Pentium III 550MHz + Voodoo 1 -> Nvidia Geforce 2 MX
2002: Pentium 4 Northwood 2Ghz + Ti 4200 -> FX 5700 (terrible choice)
2006: E6600 + 6600GT (AGP) -> 8800GTS (640MB ver)
2008: i7 920 + GTX 260 core 216 -> GTX 580
2014: Used X5670 + GTX 980
2015: 5820K + GTX 980 (then to pascal or pascal SLI when it arrives)

I just bought the 5820K yesterday, as well as an ASRock Extreme11 and some DDR4 ram. I'm waiting for them to arrive to do my build.
I'm a gamer and storage enthusiast, so the Extreme11 will go to good use. I'll just get an add-on card for USB 3.1 type C when it goes mainstream.

The only AMD CPU I have ever owned was on a laptop I bought in 2008. I probably should have gone red team at least once during the P4 era...
 
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zeroyon said:
2002: Pentium 4 Northwood 2Ghz + Ti 4200 -> FX 5700 (terrible choice)
The only AMD CPU I have ever owned was on a laptop I bought in 2008. I probably should have gone red team at least once during the P4 era...
Click to expand...

You went P4 AND FX at the same time. Ouch. That build couldn't have lasted long. ;)
 
1996 Pentium 166MHz, 16mb of ram, then upgraded to 48mb.
2002 Pentium 4 2.8GHz, 512mb of ram.
2009 i7 920, See Sig.
 
Apple IIc....hard hat mack for the win!
386DX-25
386DX-40
486DX2-66
Pentium 90 (to 100Mhz, First overclock)
Pentium 233mmx (i think)
Pentium 3-933MHz
Athlon
Athlon XP (multiple...changed CPU every 3 months! Most overclocking and tweaking I've ever done)
Athlon 64
Athlon 64 x2
Core 2 Duo @ 4GHz
i7 920 @4GHz
i7 970 / Xeon x5660 @ 4.4GHz
386DX-40MHz
486DX2-66MHz
etc.

then...GONE RETRO! Yes, I'm a retro geek. I've gone full circle! I'm not much interested in current hardware. Maybe once PASCAL hits. I want to see a major jump in performance and a WOW factor...not a "meh" factor.
So, I returned to my roots and playing the classics on real vintage setups. Half the fun with computer gaming was figuring out autoexec.bat files and memory management.

I've been on x58 FOREVER. Skylake-E I think is the next big upgrade in late 2016/early 2017, unless my current setup burns up.
 
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