That was the rumor about the 2.4C, but no one really knows for sure outside of Intel. I don't recall that ever being substantiated. That said, I have actually seen a 2.4C that wouldn't do more than 2.7GHz or so. I've also seen a 1.8GHz Celery hit 3.2GHz. It was one of the gimped cache socket 478 chips so it was still slow as hell, but the clocks were insane. You might be right on the Bartons as well. I don't know for certain. Using the 2.4C and 2500+ as examples, I wouldn't be surprised if what you are saying has some truth to it. It only makes sense for Intel and AMD to fill the orders they are getting. If more people are buying mid-range CPUs than high end ones and their yields are good enough to make high end chips out of all of them, it's the sensible thing since their costs on manufacturring for a 2.4C or XP 2500+ are the same as making a 3.0C or XP 3200+.
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The Top 5 Worst CPUs of All Time @ [H]
That was the rumor about the 2.4C, but no one really knows for sure outside of Intel. I don't recall that ever being substantiated. That said, I have actually seen a 2.4C that wouldn't do more than 2.7GHz or so. I've also seen a 1.8GHz Celery hit 3.2GHz. It was one of the gimped cache socket 478 chips so it was still slow as hell, but the clocks were insane. You might be right on the Bartons as well. I don't know for certain. Using the 2.4C and 2500+ as examples, I wouldn't be surprised if what you are saying has some truth to it. It only makes sense for Intel and AMD to fill the orders they are getting. If more people are buying mid-range CPUs than high end ones and their yields are good enough to make high end chips out of all of them, it's the sensible thing since their costs on manufacturring for a 2.4C or XP 2500+ are the same as making a 3.0C or XP 3200+.
Honestly, there are so many bad CPU's out there I probably should have made it a top 10 or more.
andrewaggb
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I had a cyrix 486 33 chip and it was unstable. I never tried another Cyrix again. My friend had a 6x86 and it's floating point performance wasn't great.
I had an AMD 486 dx4/120 which was fine from a stability point of view, but it was way slower in Quake 1 than my friends Pentium 75 (could have been a 90, don't remember for sure). In integer games it was pretty decent but the floating point on the pentium's was way faster.
I also had an AMD k6-200. It was great for most games (starcraft for instance) but again the floating point was much worse than a Pentium 166-mmx so Quake 2 suffered. I upgraded that machine to a k6-2 300 (worked in the same socket) and that was an ok chip. There was a 3dnow version of quake 2 that I could get 60fps with my voodoo2 in the timedemo and so it was pretty decent. My friend had a pentium 2 350 and a voodoo2 and he only got slightly better fps. The big problem with the K6-2 was that the 3dnow version of quake2 was always a release behind (so you couldn't play online) so I ended up using just the 3dnow version of the opengl/minigl library on the stock quake2 binaries which was about 5 fps slower (55 fps in timedemo 1).
My takeaway throughout the 90's was that I tried Cyrix and AMD and almost always would have been better off with a lower clocked Intel chip. I was a kid and didn't have much money (I won the voodoo 2 playing starcraft) so I did what I could
mvmiller12
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I had a cyrix 486 33 chip and it was unstable. I never tried another Cyrix again. My friend had a 6x86 and it's floating point performance wasn't great.
I had an AMD 486 dx4/120 which was fine from a stability point of view, but it was way slower in Quake 1 than my friends Pentium 75 (could have been a 90, don't remember for sure). In integer games it was pretty decent but the floating point on the pentium's was way faster.
I also had an AMD k6-200. It was great for most games (starcraft for instance) but again the floating point was much worse than a Pentium 166-mmx so Quake 2 suffered. I upgraded that machine to a k6-2 300 (worked in the same socket) and that was an ok chip. There was a 3dnow version of quake 2 that I could get 60fps with my voodoo2 in the timedemo and so it was pretty decent. My friend had a pentium 2 350 and a voodoo2 and he only got slightly better fps. The big problem with the K6-2 was that the 3dnow version of quake2 was always a release behind (so you couldn't play online) so I ended up using just the 3dnow version of the opengl/minigl library on the stock quake2 binaries which was about 5 fps slower (55 fps in timedemo 1).
My takeaway throughout the 90's was that I tried Cyrix and AMD and almost always would have been better off with a lower clocked Intel chip. I was a kid and didn't have much money (I won the voodoo 2 playing starcraft) so I did what I could
In all fairness to that 486, it's performance would have matched an Intel 486 very closely. You are comparing it to a Pentium, which was Intel's next step beyond the 486 and it did indeed have an improved FPU. As to the K6 and K6-2 processors, yes the raw FPU was not as strong on those but it was only an issue for certain games such as Quake. The integer performance on them was fantastic however, and so the performance for almost everything else was at least equal if not better when compared to the Intel chips at the time.
I personally could never play FPS games in general and twitch shooters in particular due to getting motion sickness from them (some worse than others - Wolfenstein 3D and Doom were pukesville in a matter of seconds, Quake took ~10 minutes or so), so it was never an issue for me.
I had a cyrix 486 33 chip and it was unstable. I never tried another Cyrix again. My friend had a 6x86 and it's floating point performance wasn't great.
I had an AMD 486 dx4/120 which was fine from a stability point of view, but it was way slower in Quake 1 than my friends Pentium 75 (could have been a 90, don't remember for sure). In integer games it was pretty decent but the floating point on the pentium's was way faster.
I also had an AMD k6-200. It was great for most games (starcraft for instance) but again the floating point was much worse than a Pentium 166-mmx so Quake 2 suffered. I upgraded that machine to a k6-2 300 (worked in the same socket) and that was an ok chip. There was a 3dnow version of quake 2 that I could get 60fps with my voodoo2 in the timedemo and so it was pretty decent. My friend had a pentium 2 350 and a voodoo2 and he only got slightly better fps. The big problem with the K6-2 was that the 3dnow version of quake2 was always a release behind (so you couldn't play online) so I ended up using just the 3dnow version of the opengl/minigl library on the stock quake2 binaries which was about 5 fps slower (55 fps in timedemo 1).
My takeaway throughout the 90's was that I tried Cyrix and AMD and almost always would have been better off with a lower clocked Intel chip. I was a kid and didn't have much money (I won the voodoo 2 playing starcraft) so I did what I could
There was no comparison, a Pentium was much faster than a 486 per clock. The only thing that helped is that some 486's ran at 100MHz or more. Even then, the Pentium would blow them away at anything involving the FPU. Quake is an example of this. The Cyrix 486 chips sucked ass. My Cyrix 486 DX2-80MHz was slower than an Intel 486 DX2-66MHz CPU. AMD was a little better in this area, but not by much. Intel was king in the 486 era. AMD's 486 DX4 100 and DX4 133MHz are well regarded, but you were effectively stuck with a 486's platform and they still were only barely competitive with early Pentium processors.
In the Pentium era, no one came close to Intel's FPU performance. NexGen Systems had the NX586, AMD had the K5, and Cyrix/IBM had the 6x86. In some cases the alternatives could be faster than Intel CPUs and often were per clock. However, the NX586 lacked an FPU until later on. The K5 was late to market and its performance fairly abysmal in general. Cyrix had the best Pentium alternative as those CPUs were faster, but again anything with an FPU like Quake showed the Cyrix in a poor light. I seem to recall my Cyrix PR200+ only running Quake about as well as a Pentium 100MHz or 133MHz CPU and that's perhaps being somewhat generous. In many other areas my system was faster than a friend's box with a Pentium 200 in it.
The K6 and K6-2 were decent processors, but lets not get carried away. They weren't Pentium II killers by any stretch of the imagination. They had some software compatibility issues and a slower FPU. They traded blows in some applications, but as I recall Intel had the faster overall processors during those days. They certainly had the better motherboard platform as well. Super 7 had AGP compatibility problems and other issues.
AMD can't even take full credit for the K6 as they didn't develop it. That chip was mostly developed by the NextGen Systems people while working for NextGen on the NX686.
I had a Northwood 2.4C running at 3.4ghz for years. Eventually, it did start to degrade. Started not running stable at overclocked speeds. I would step it down a hundred mhz and that would be OK for a few months, then it wouldn't even run stable at stock speed. That's the only processor I can honestly say I killed overclocking.
I was given a Celeron D 2.4ghz for free and that ended up running at 4.0ghz stable. It felt it had pretty respectable performance. I had to use the watercooling setup that I ran the previous 2.4C on to do it though.
I had great luck with earlier Celerons as well. I had a Mendocino Celeron 433@590, Coppermine 633@1066, Coppermine 1100@1300, Tualatin 1400@1600. The last two weren't exactly cost effective, but they still ran great.
I have very fond nerd memories of going to computer shows and hand picking CPU's with the slowest clockspeed and the highest revision stepping to get the best overclockers. D0 Celerons, M0 2.4C's, etc.
Katmai P3's and Willamette P4's were junk...
I never had good experiences with AMD K6-2's and K6-3's. Could never get them to run right, but it was almost certainly the motherboards I was using at the time.
I was given a Celeron D 2.4ghz for free and that ended up running at 4.0ghz stable. It felt it had pretty respectable performance. I had to use the watercooling setup that I ran the previous 2.4C on to do it though.
I had great luck with earlier Celerons as well. I had a Mendocino Celeron 433@590, Coppermine 633@1066, Coppermine 1100@1300, Tualatin 1400@1600. The last two weren't exactly cost effective, but they still ran great.
I have very fond nerd memories of going to computer shows and hand picking CPU's with the slowest clockspeed and the highest revision stepping to get the best overclockers. D0 Celerons, M0 2.4C's, etc.
Katmai P3's and Willamette P4's were junk...
I never had good experiences with AMD K6-2's and K6-3's. Could never get them to run right, but it was almost certainly the motherboards I was using at the time.
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mvmiller12
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I will agree 100% that the Intel platform was a better platform. No question, the Super-7 chipsets SUCKED, and AGP WAS DEFINITELY an issue (particularly with nVidia TNT series cards). There were some good Super 7 boards (the Supermicro ones were really good) but they were few and far between, AND you had to hunt for them. The FPU on the Pentium series CPUs was clearly leagues better than those sported on any of the other x86 compatible CPUs at the time. NexGen WAS the group responsible for the K6 series, essentially saving AMD's bacon at the time and getting them ramped up to K7/Athlon.I personally never ran into any software compatibility issues, but I will concede that it may have been an issue for some - lots of software out there, so I can't speak to all of it ...
But the integer (and thus general) performance of the K6 processors was really, really good. Now mind you, we are talking early Pentium II's here and the K6 chips were generally outclassed all around by the Pentium III's for their entire run, but the K6 and K6-2 systems sitting next to comparable Pentium MMXs and Pentium IIs in our store were nearly indistinguishable (or in AMD's favor) all the way until you loaded up something like Quake which benefited from that monster FPU Intel had. And for quite a bit less $$$, too.
...But the integer (and thus general) performance of the K6 processors was really, really good. Now mind you, we are talking early Pentium II's here and the K6 chips were generally outclassed all around by the Pentium III's for their entire run, but the K6 and K6-2 systems sitting next to comparable Pentium MMXs and Pentium IIs in our store were nearly indistinguishable (or in AMD's favor) all the way until you loaded up something like Quake which benefited from that monster FPU Intel had. And for quite a bit less $$$, too.
AltTabbins
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I really like retrospectives like this. You guys should do some more. Maybe a top 5 worst GPU's of all time.
Khahhblaab
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Wow! Thanks for the F'n forgotten memories
Yep, Matrox millennium, b4 I got the first 3dfx. I really liked that card, was kinda cool to have to install two cards to do QuakeGl. Forgot all about it, thx.
DuronBurgerMan
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Can't say I disagree with the selections chosen for the list. I wouldn't have chosen the Pentium 60/66... but as I read why you put it on the list, you changed my mind. Bad math is an instant fail for a CPU.
Bulldozer really does compete for that number 1 spot, though. Yes, I know, it was okay for budget rigs. And it would have been fine if AMD just admitted they had given up on performance. But they didn't. I remember all the marketing hype and then it was like they had taken a giant crap on the industry. I was so disappointed, because I had (and still have) fond memories of all my Athlon rigs. The 650 OC'd to 1GHz, the Duron 800 I ran at 1200 with an FSB-only OC, The Tbird 1400 and the pencil trick, pushed to 1600 and hotter than a taco stand in Hell, a nice clawhammer Athlon 64 3000+ and finally my Athlon X2 rig, first damn dual core, and so fast I didn't even bother OC'ing it because fucking WOW.
Phenom was just treading water. We could wait. It was cool. Bulldozer was going to do it all over again. Another Athlon X2, oh yeah... until it didn't. It had trouble beating the Phenoms. What a steaming pile of horseshit. What a fucking disappointment. And so began 6 years of no competition and refreshed quads with small IPC and frequency bumps from the boys in blue.
Ryzen is great and all, and I bought one, and I'm glad competition is back. But I still don't exactly trust AMD anymore. They burned a lot of credibility with that bullshit.
Bulldozer really does compete for that number 1 spot, though. Yes, I know, it was okay for budget rigs. And it would have been fine if AMD just admitted they had given up on performance. But they didn't. I remember all the marketing hype and then it was like they had taken a giant crap on the industry. I was so disappointed, because I had (and still have) fond memories of all my Athlon rigs. The 650 OC'd to 1GHz, the Duron 800 I ran at 1200 with an FSB-only OC, The Tbird 1400 and the pencil trick, pushed to 1600 and hotter than a taco stand in Hell, a nice clawhammer Athlon 64 3000+ and finally my Athlon X2 rig, first damn dual core, and so fast I didn't even bother OC'ing it because fucking WOW.
Phenom was just treading water. We could wait. It was cool. Bulldozer was going to do it all over again. Another Athlon X2, oh yeah... until it didn't. It had trouble beating the Phenoms. What a steaming pile of horseshit. What a fucking disappointment. And so began 6 years of no competition and refreshed quads with small IPC and frequency bumps from the boys in blue.
Ryzen is great and all, and I bought one, and I'm glad competition is back. But I still don't exactly trust AMD anymore. They burned a lot of credibility with that bullshit.
swatbat
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Both of these came to mind first along with the original pentium's due to the bugs with them. Thinking back through I don't know if I'd put the VIA chips on the list. They sucked but I don't think they ever really got anywhere on the desktop. I guess they had such a small market that they didn't matter enough to list.
That MediaGX was semi common from memory though. I knew a bunch of people that had systems around them and they sucked. Far slower than they should have been which sucked for us trying to play games on them. That along with the Cyrix 6x86. The mediagx ended up in shitty systems sold to parents on the lower end. The Cyrix 6x86 was sold by local computer assemblers as a "its as good" option that also sucked. Both of these should be on the list way before anything like the itanium.
The MediaGX didn't make the list because, while it sucked, it was kind of innovative and it wasn't terribly prolific. The VIA C3 and C7, or IDT Winchip didn't make the list for similar reasons. Esoteric processors with next to no market penetration weren't as big a deal as the outright failures of Intel, AMD and Cyrix who were all CPU makers with a long history who should have known better. Those were companies with far less room for excuses than others.
The 6x86 CPUs were good CPUs which would have been even more successful if they had come out before Quake I became so popular and gamers began to care about FPU performance. The follow up to the successful 6x86, the 6x86MX/MII was another matter entirely. It wasn't so bad as it was similar to AMD's K5 in that it was "too little, too late."
On a technical level, Netburst as an architecture was one giant misstep. However Intel were able to use their lead over AMD in manufacturing technology to compensate for the architectural shortcomings and remain fairly competitive in terms of the actual end products.
It was really only when Conroe came out that I think people realized what a huge liability Netburst had been for Intel. Suddenly we got CPUs that performed 50% better at half the TDP, on the same manufacturing process. Overnight, the stagnant K8 and misguided Netburst (betting everything on higher clock speeds they ultimately failed to achieve) architectures were made almost completely irrelevant.
Or, you know, their bullying and illegal tactics at the time.
thebufenator
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The Socket 423 PIV sucked. No way around that. You had the spectacle of the TBird 1.4 GHz being the fastest cpu available, at some stupid cheap price. The 478 Pentium IV did make it more competitive.
Still can't see having Bulldozer on the list, specifically compared to netburst.....but netburst not on the list. Fastest Pentium 3 was faster then the fastest Pentium 4 when it first released, if that doesn't suck I don't know what does.
Still can't see having Bulldozer on the list, specifically compared to netburst.....but netburst not on the list. Fastest Pentium 3 was faster then the fastest Pentium 4 when it first released, if that doesn't suck I don't know what does.
As I said, the Netburst architecture may have sucked when it was first released, but there were some innovations there which paid off for Intel later on. It was a shit architecture to be saddled with, but again, some good came from it. Thermal throttling was introduced on the Pentium IV, they clocked well, etc. Some chips that came from that family, like the 2.4C were legendary. Bulldozer has nothing like that I can think of. Each CPU from the Bulldozer architecture, and it's refreshes were all more of the same crap.
Bulldozer is often cited as AMD's Netburst, but in truth Bulldozer is worse than that.
N4CR
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Same was with the Opterons. Check out the launch dates and clocks
The 165s often went to 30-40% OC. Funnily enough mine topped out just short of 2.9GHz, aka a 190...
thebufenator
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See I don't about that. There are good use cases for the FX-8x00 CPU's. I have an 8320e running a NAS/plex server, and it works great in that capacity. Its pretty low power, 8 threads for transcoding, and 990 chipsets with lots of sata ports were cheap. A wopping $80 brand new. A while back I purchased an $80 8320e w/ a $5 mobo from Microcenter for light virtualization duties. Only Intel cpu's in that price range do not come close to having 8 threads for vm hosting. Or ECC support. Or VT-x (sp?) support.
Apart from gaming, the FX series had good use cases where they made sense. I don't think that could be said about Socket 423.
D
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I don't know the sales numbers but the MediaGX was used by Compaq, Acer and IBM, to build a $1000 home PC bundle (incl. monitor and usually a cheap inkjet) in the late nineties. This was an incredibly low price point at the time. As in less than half a typical AMD home system and a third the cost of a typical Intel bundle, so they flew of the shelves at the retail level.
I was threatened to be fired daily for refusing to sell these trash PCs. Being able to upsell to a K6 or Pentium was the only thing that saved my job.
I worked at Best Buy during those days selling computers in the late 1990's when the MediaGX was new. I also worked briefly at Comp USA in the parts department where we actually sold MediaGX motherboards which had the processors soldered onto them. In both places, we sold very few MediaGX based units despite their low price. Sales people would often upsell buyers into more computer than that and the reputation of the MediaGX was already less than stellar at the time. It wasn't a good performer and everyone knew it. People also expected to pay more than $1,000 for a decent PC at the time and as is often the case, the mid-range was the sweet spot for sales.
Working as a computer technician at Comp USA and then back at Best Buy from 1997 up until mid-2000, I saw very few MediaGX machines ever. This backs up the my experience with the product''s sales figures. I hardly saw MediaGX machines "fly" off the shelves.
D
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No disrespect intended, but you are almost making my point for me.
The CPU was plentiful enough that we both saw them in retail PCs and as standard ATX components for DIY, but it was so awful that people avoided buying or selling them.
I do see your point though, drop in the bucket market wise as a whole.
I don't know how plentiful it was. Best Buy at the time carried the Compaq Presario 2100 and 2200 desktops that had the MediaGX CPU's in them. Again, we sold very few of these at the time. I worked there for a few months before going to CompUSA. I worked in the parts department for a couple months before moving back to the tech shop. We had a single motherboard with a soldered MediaGX 150MHz processor on it. We sold one or two of those ever. We never got anymore back in stock after those were sold. CompUSA carried them as well, probably until it was discontinued but again, I never saw that many of them sold. I wasn't on the sales floor, but I had sales people come back and asking me questions all the time, and we unboxed and tested a lot of systems for customers before they were taken home as well.
I'm sure they sold in greater numbers than I saw, and I'm not saying they didn't sell. It's just that we sold greater numbers of other models. As you said, it was a drop in the bucket compared to everything else. Now, I do recall running into a software compatibility problem on someone's custom built MediaGX system. It simply wouldn't run it. I don't recall what it was now, but I know it wouldn't run it. I also recall having a few of them come through the tech department for memory upgrades or warranty work on occasion. I even recall one or two later Windows 98 upgrades on these which were a cluster fuck.
But, this discussion has inspired me to write another editorial......
thebufenator
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Worst OS would be too easy, and too obvious. E-Machines were fucking horrid though. I remember having to replace dozens and dozens of E-Machine power supplies and attached hardware that shit the bed when the PSU's blew up.
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386SX (or 386SUX as I used to call it) w/out the coprocessor.. added one and didn't seem to do a damn thing. heh I think I remember the CPU being plastic and soldered straight to the board, no need for heatsink... it may have had a math bug too.. can't remember exactly.
D
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I worked for IBM Store, which used to be a thing in Canada. Along with IBM PCs, we sold the MediaGX based Ambra Inspiratis.
Example:
http://www.morochove.com/watch/cw/ff70724.htm
We only carried them for a few years, but our slimiest salespeople sold truckloads of the damn things because they were so damn cheap. For a while, it was at least 3 to 1 numbers wise vs Aptiva (AMD mainly) or PC300GL (Intel). We only stopped selling them because Ambra had been shutdown in the US in 94, but remained in Canada until 96. We kept on selling past that, as there was a ton of old Ambra inventory to get rid of.
PS. It's great to hear other perspectives from the glory days of PC retail sales. Cheers
I like the editorials and discussions. Keep up the great work!
"IBM Ambra Ispirati 33EX leases for $99 per month, including 100 hours/month Internet access."
Ah, dial-up, what a cruel mistress thou had been.
D
Deleted member 134608
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In my case, the cruel mistress was girls that picked up the phone to call their friends when I had almost finished downloading pr0... research papers.
Yes, I remember those Vivo 320x240 documentaries. Very informational.
swatbat
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I can kinda agree with the MediaGX not being as prolific although I saw a bunch of them in the wild. I think they came more from big box stores than computer ones.
I disagree on the 6x86 being good. It was slow and lacked compatibility. If an app was written with a 486 in mind it could run at a good speed.
I remember those machines. The 12v rail on the powersupply would spike to like 20 plus volts and fry the motherboards. The only thing less reliable were the toshiba Pentium 4 consumer notebooks.
aaaa
On another note, I hated anything VIA, Cyrix, SiS, P4, Rambus, Pre-AMD designed motherboards, P4, Nforce, Fic, ECS, anything with some weird 3rd party usb chipset, Itanium, did I mention p4?
I almost forgot about the BX chipset, I liked that one.
On another note, I hated anything VIA, Cyrix, SiS, P4, Rambus, Pre-AMD designed motherboards, P4, Nforce, Fic, ECS, anything with some weird 3rd party usb chipset, Itanium, did I mention p4?
andrewaggb
Limp Gawd
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Yeah I hear that. Motherboards back then were worse than the processors
. The chipsets were such total garbage. Add to that cheap power supplies that were barely within 10% of their target voltage. It was fun but computers were pretty horrible back then.Yeah I hear that. Motherboards back then were worse than the processors
Motherboards were a mess back then. They had inconsistent cache designs, some had no cache at all or slow cache. They often had out of spec voltage regulation when coupled with non-Intel chipsets.
It was decent. For the money it was a good option. It was faster than Intel's at some things and close enough on most everything else. I ran one all the time while my friend's ran Pentium's. My machine was generally faster unless we fired up Quake in which case it looked like I was playing on a 486. I think part of the problem was that stupid "PR" rating system. My 6x86 PR200+ for example ran at only 150MHz. A 150MHz or even a 166MHz Pentium was rarely even close to my machine. A Pentium 200 on the other hand was a different matter.
A friend of mine had a Pentium 200 and in all the benchmarks we were close with him having a lead here and there. In games he had a much more consistent lead, even if the game didn't specifically use the FPU the way Quake did. The one exception was Redneck Rampage which was consderably faster on my machine. The game at the time was rumored to have been developed / compiled on 6x86 and other Cyrix equipped machines. Anyone else with lesser Intel's wasn't even close to me.
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DuronBurgerMan
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I had a Cyrix 6x86 PR166 (really a 133 MHz chip). The game MDK had a built in FPU benchmark, and it scored about the same as a Pentium 100. But in the other benchmarks (presumably integer focused) it scored more like a Pentium 150. I never did see it get up to Pentium 166 levels.
But as you say, it wasn't bad for the money. I remember it being around the same price as the Pentium 100, at the time. So value wise, you got similar FPU performance for the money, and better integer performance. Not all that bad. Certainly not bad enough to make the shit list.
If I recall right, MDK is one game that those Cyrix CPUs had trouble with. There were a few applications they didn't work right with. Up until the Athlon, all non-Intel CPUs struggled with software compatibility. And the 6x86 didn't make my shit list. The late to market Cyrix 6x86MX (later renamed MII) did.
Had a customer bring in a Toshiba laptop running a AMD E1 CPU a couple of years ago. Said it was 'a bit slow'.
Holy....shit. It was bad. Hardly had the horsepower to boot. It ran at 95-100% CPU even at idle all the time. Just no power at all.
In the end I had to put a 120GB SSD in it to make it perform application opening in the hour range rather than day range.
I still have nightmares about that machine. That's the worst CPU experience I've ever had.
Whomever designed that range of CPUs needs a good kick in the balls.
Holy....shit. It was bad. Hardly had the horsepower to boot. It ran at 95-100% CPU even at idle all the time. Just no power at all.
In the end I had to put a 120GB SSD in it to make it perform application opening in the hour range rather than day range.
I still have nightmares about that machine. That's the worst CPU experience I've ever had.
Whomever designed that range of CPUs needs a good kick in the balls.
DuronBurgerMan
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No idea if it was or not. But the way I figure it, it was an okay CPU overall, and decent for the money.
Nenu
[H]ardened
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2007
- Messages
- 20,315
I just found a Duron 700 on a shelf I forgot about, it was bought in the year 2K.
Wonder if I have a mobo it will go in...
Wonder if I have a mobo it will go in...