Best CPU's of all time?

My Pentium 66mhz. For life. And the 386. The 386 still deserves the love. Both of mine still work. I've got some Cyrix around somewhere, but that doesn't remotely deserve to be mentioned in this thread.
 
It was kind of entertaining to see the Tualatins outpacing the P4s of the time. I remember working for a short time in a computer shop and I would play around with the systems we had on display. I borged them for distributed computing purposes (naturally) and would watch as the Tualatin-based Celeron we had as an office computer, which was 1.2ghz (or may have been 1.4), routinely beat the P4 we had when running the same work units. It was 1.7ghz.

I think the Core Duo was pretty nice for its time. It represented an Intel that realized it had just stubbed its toe on the Pentium 4, and went "ok, we fucked up, let's backtrack and try this again", ultimately leading to the Core 2, which provided some much needed competition. Neither AMD nor Intel are immune to resting on their laurels when they're so far ahead.
 
I really loved my micro channel 386.

That said, the Q6600 has really served me well to date.
 
fury said:
I think the Core Duo was pretty nice for its time. It represented an Intel that realized it had just stubbed its toe on the Pentium 4, and went "ok, we fucked up, let's backtrack and try this again", ultimately leading to the Core 2, which provided some much needed competition. Neither AMD nor Intel are immune to resting on their laurels when they're so far ahead.
Click to expand...

++1
 
e6300 for it's double'd OC of 3.6, loved the v's though... Still running in my spare rig at a lowly stock speed.
 
Camaroz06 said:
What was the AMD processor that everyone seemed to blow their load over 10? or so years ago. It might have been the first consumer chip to hit 1ghz. Was it code named Thunderbird? Cant remember the architecture.
Click to expand...

Good old ceramic tbird chip, you could cook eggs on the thing I think, I still have a 1ghz one in my closet collecting dust, I should pull it out and play with it. I also have a 1ghz PIII from the good old days, was my first real aftermarket computer. I ought to have a performance war between the tbird and the coppermine :eek:

Up until I got my i7 950 with a whopping 1.2 ghz oc, my best chip of all time was my 2400+ barton mobile that does 2.55ghz @ 1.75V for a 950mhz oc.. all back in 2004! It also collects dust in my closet.. it IS mini space heater, tdp must be 165W or more on the thing, used to heat my room up quite a bit even with the windows open during the winter, Also my longest lasting chip, used it from 2004 up till the end of 2007. Good times

I just looked over in my closet.. I have still have a pentium pro 180mhz DEC workstation with a whopping 80mb of ram and a 2 gig hd XD imma get it out too.

My brother loved his K6-2 550, he ran it from 2003 all the way till nov 2008 when he finally upgraded to a C2Q 8200 XD

Oh, almost forgot the Dixon Core PII mobile.. the only PII with 256K on-die full speed L2 cache, came in 300-400mhz and was very very quick, used one in a compaq armada 7800 from 2005 till 2007 and it served me well
 
Last edited:
I actually have a CPU collection, starting with an old 8086 cpu, it ranges from that, to 386, 486, pentium, pentium ii, pentium 3, some k6-2 and k6-3 cpus, durons, celerons, you name it... been collecting old parts for a while.

Some of my favorites that I actually used:

Celeron 366, I used to pop it out of the slot 1 and chuck it in the freezer let it sit for a few hours, then pop it in and was able to boot up at 550mhz, it lasted only a few minutes before the heat took it out.

a duron 600 that overclocked to 1.2ghz... 100% overclock. I used it in a build for my grandmother, so after all the fun overclocking, i set it back to stock speeds, sighed and left it at her house.

Recent overclocking cpu victory:
the AMD Athlon X2 5000+... this cpu is actually a quad core deneb (phenom II) in disguise! I bought it for $30; unlocked 2 cores, enabled the 6mb L3 cache, and overclocked it to 3.6ghz, now that is some serious value! (only $7.5 per core!)

Best CPU ever award based on architecture for its time... would be Core 2 Duo E6600, but it was long due coming after the netburst architecture, so I give the award to the 1156 Core i7 860, Intel wasn't even up against the wall, and came out with some great hardware that still has little competition in pure performance, notice I didn't say the 1366 Core i7... the first gen Core i7 were much less efficient with regard to power consumption, and had less agressive turbo modes but the 1156 Core i7 860 is a pretty incredible balance of features.

All that said... i really like the 1055T as well :D
 
I liked my P3 700mhz best, until an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (S939). Next favorite was Q6600 (quad-core Core 2). I'm currently on an i7 920 but I think I will enjoy Sandy Bridge.
 
my fav chips of all time

my clerons' on my abit bp6

2500+ barton
3800x2
now my i7 980x

these were more memorable chips over the rest
 
I have fond memories of my 80486 DX/4 100 as the first chip I burned out. Had to got back to my DX/2 66. Ouch.
 
I have to agree with Filter: Dual Celerons on a BP6 was pretty cool. The P3-S 1.4GHz were also great. I ran dedicated game servers on a box with 2 of them for many years.
 
i know it's an old thread, thought it might be interesting to resurrect.
any cpu that could OC 50% reliably without going batshit on cooling or mods deserves to be considered 'Best CPU's of all time'. that and not having to sell your left testicle or your 1st born child to own one.

-Intel Celeron 300A
as many others have already mentioned, the Celeron 300a would have to be considered. the 1st really overclockable processor. an minimum it could do 450MHz, was dirt cheap and in its oc'ed state the fasted cpu in its day. not only a budget processor, it was one of the first cpu's to have full speed on die 2nd level cache.

-AMD Athlon64 X2 3800
the first real dual core cpu, the Athlon64 X2 range, specifically 3800 must also be mentioned. it was cheap, oc'ed well and offered a sample of what seamless computing experience was like. and hourable mention should also go to the Pentium4 Northwood C core chips. despite the fact it was based on the shitty netburst architecture, it was a big step-up from the ealier P4 (Willamette) cores. specifically the P4 2.4C with hyperthreading. with its pseduo dual core performance and its decent OC'ing potential (3.2GHz + on air was easy for most chips)

-Intel Q6600
with the junking of the netburst (especially after prescott with its insane heat output and its longer pipeline from northwood C chips) the PIII/Tualatin based conroe chips, the kentsfield Q6600 must be considered up there. the G0 revision in most cases did 3.6Ghz + (50% + OC). the fact that this chip has hung out there for 4 + years and still considered fast enough to do almost everything in its OC'ed state. not bad for a cobbled-together quad core chip that's couple die shrinks old.

obviously there have been faster and more efficient processors released since q6600, none of them offer imho the revolutionary speed bump that this chip offered. with SB out it difficult to see if this chip will fall into 'Best CPU's of all time' category. you're limited to OC'ing the chips intel says its 'ok' on OC (in the form of 'K' cpus) and the hiccup with the 67 motherboards. probably have to wait still BD and IB is out to see is any fall into this class. i reckon the first company to offer a 8 core chip that OC's well, isn't hamstrung too much and doesn't cost a fortune will be next.
 
Dan_D said:
The K7 was a good CPU. However the motherboards that you had to use with it, especially the initial boards were all pretty much crap. I don't remember it totally wiping the floor with Intel's offerings. At least not to the same degree as the Athlon 64 did.

Here is how I rank them:

Top 10 processors of all time in order of influence and relevance:


#10 Core i7

This CPU really only makes this list because it's performance right now is truly unmatched. While it's a remarkable piece of technology, it was probably badly timed as the market didn't really need it when it was introduced. It has always been expensive and has shown a very slow adoption rate. Its never enjoyed the success of lesser models. (Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, Core i5/i7 LGA1156 CPUs) It says goodbye to Intel's FSB and hello to integrated memory controllers. It also is notable for being the fastest CPU at the time of this writing in the form of the 32nm Gulftown (6 core) CPU better known as the Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 980X.

#9 Core 2 Duo

The Core 2 was certainly amazing for one reason. It blew everything that had come before out totally out of the water. Priced competitively it saw a fast adoption rate and still powers many enthusiast rigs today. While long in the tooth now this CPU took seemingly forever to be equaled much less surpassed. This is also the final Intel CPU to use a traditional front side bus and an off die memory controller.

#8 NexGen Systems NX586

Notable as being the first real competitor to the Intel Pentium even managing to surpass it in some areas while running at lower clock speeds. While not commercially as successful as the Pentium or even the Cyrix/IBM 6x86 CPUs this company and it's processors gained AMD's attention. In fact NexGen's designs for upcoming processors were worked into the K6 family of processors (and beyond depending on who you ask) which were a commercial success for AMD. It is for this reason that the NX586 makes this list.

#7 80486

While not the first 32bit CPUs these were certainly prolific. The Intel 80486 was often copied with varying degrees of success. It's clock speeds ranged from a mere 25MHz to an astounding 133MHz. This CPU also sparked litigation over copyright and processor model numbers. The decision that numbers couldn't be copyrighted forced Intel to name their processors from this point on. These processors also shared the market with their successor, the Pentium for some time.

#6 Athlon X2

This processor beat Intel to the punch by being the first widely available dual core CPU on the market. This CPU essentially launched SMP into the mainstream. It can also be argued that this design was more elegant than the dual core implementation used by Intel which featured separate dies instead of a single dual core integrated die.

#5 Athlon 64

Notable for being the first real decisive victory against Intel CPUs, which couldn't be questioned by even the most fanatical Intel fans. Though many consider the original K7 to be Intel's first true equal, I find this disputable. There is no disputing the Athlon 64's performance when compared to Intel CPUs of the day. Additionally it is the first consumer based CPU to house an on die memory controller which is common place today.

#4 Pentium 4

The Pentium 4 was many things. It represented a huge gamble for Intel and although successful from a sales and financial stand point it's performance was sub-par in most areas compared to AMD's Athlon 64 processors. This CPU had a bad reputation in most of it's forms. This CPU had a long reign and went through many changes, some of which were good, and some bad. It had almost as many sockets as the Pentium did and produced a laughable amount of heat and used a ton of power for its day. Its variants included the ever popular "A" and "C" processors as well as some EM64T variations as well. This CPU can also not be forgotten as Intel's tactics to sell these monsters are very much in question in both the moral and legal sense. This CPU also has the distinction of having been sold at the highest stock clock frequency to date by any x86 processor maker at 3.73GHz. While such speeds are easily surpassed through overclocking, none have been offered at such high frequencies out of the box.

#3 Pentium

The first major technological leap forward since the 386. It was much more powerful than the 80486 CPUs despite being clocked much lower at first. Scaling from 60MHz all the way to 233MHz, this CPU architecture really had it all. The competition took forever just to equal low end Pentiums. Additionally this CPU is notable for it's initial FPU bug and being Intel's most major recall and as such, probably their greatest failure. Despite the initially bad reputation, this CPU had a long reign at the top with few competitors. Even AMD and Cyrix's best only managed to match this CPU some of the time and at serious cost in other areas. Truly this CPU was never surpassed until Intel's Pentium Pro went mainstream in the form of the Pentium II.

#2 Pentium Pro

The number 2 CPU in this list has to be the Pentium Pro. The P6 Micro-architecture is undoubtedly the most influential since the original 8088. This architecture gave us Pentium Pro, Pentium II, III, and Pentium M. It was also a CPU that the competition never could surpass until well after the Pentium II was launched.

#1 8088

This CPU makes the top spot only because it was the first to use the x86 instruction set. Although this instruction set is hardly the same anymore, it's influence is still present in today's microprocessors. This instruction set remains firmly entrenched and has been for the last three decades. There is no signs of it going away anytime soon either.
Click to expand...

I'd take the pentium 4, and replace it with K7 if only because it won the 1ghz race.
 
I'm going to say the skt 939 AMD dual cores! I still have my opteron 165 @ 3.0ghz!
 
Coppermine, mendocino, Northwood to ring a few on intel side, on amd side definitely opteron and a few others. :cool:
 
I really got to say a 486dx running at 66Mhz. I was on a 386 before that and when I jumped to 486 I was able to play Doom all the way up with no slow downs I was so happy. I remember going to best buy and buying the processor, for 299.99 or so. Actually it was my mom who bought it. I was an early teen at that time.
 
Athlon 64 and Conroe/Kentsfield for their architecture advancements. Those are the ones that stick out in my mind
 
I remember briefly running fluid dynamic simulations on a Sun workstations in the early 90's, and to me it really wasn't until the Q9660/Q9550 when I felt I had the stability on a PC to run several calculations at the same time for days. Before Conroe and Win7 it was really pretty hit or miss whether one would crash by morning. My vote goes to the Q9550, fairly efficient and for 99.9999% of computer users it is fast enough. We've really hit a plateau for the typical office PC, and home user, even engineer. I think it is hard to say that more than a Q9550 is needed, and thats going on 3 years?
Maybe makers of 3D computer animated movies need something faster than a Q9550, who else really does? So IMHO the Q9550 sits at a unique spot where we may look back in 10 years and see that there haven't been any big performance improvements since, in fact it looks like the future is less flexible, battery powered, lower performing, portable PC's and the goal is to get those little netbooks/pads to perform like a Q9550 with 1/10 the power. Sandy bridge and Ivy Bridge just seem like maybe a last squeeze from a matured technology.

I've been struggling with the questions, do I need a SB? If not why, what am I missing, and who really does need a SB? Before the Q9660/Q9550 we didn't ask those questions, it was obvious that the CPU was a bottleneck in a lot of areas, just ain't so anymore (unless you are "backing-up" Blue-Rays or producing movies.)
 
I had a 1.4 ghz Tualatin Celeron in 2000 that was pretty kickass. It oc'd easily to 1.8 ghz on air. Good value.
 
I loved my dual Opty's but the i7 980x is my current favorite. However, when Commodore released the 128, I was very happy!
 
And I'll add, I had a love/hate relationship with my parents first pc, a 486 33mhz...to this day I knew they should never have paid $3k to bb for that pos that wasn't even top of the line back then! They continue to not listen to my computer advice and prices, heck, I was like 10 or 12 or something back then and knew better!
 
Intel Core i7 980X
£795 Hex-core CPU
The recently released Core i7 970 is largely the same six-core, 12-thread processor at a slightly less offensive price point.:D
 
whatslife said:
Intel Core i7 980X
£795 Hex-core CPU
The recently released Core i7 970 is largely the same six-core, 12-thread processor at a slightly less offensive price point.:D
Click to expand...

For the price those processors are not even all that great when you get right down to it. Unless you do a serious amount of editing they are a massive waste of money.
 
Athlon XP Barton cores are quite good. My current build just replaced my Athlon XP 3000+ Barton (6600GT, 1.5 GB RAM). I could play L4D2 at mostly low settings at 1600x900 and TF2 at a few medium settings, until the newer updates game out and made it too choppy.
 
glen said:
My vote goes to the Q9550, fairly efficient and for 99.9999% of computer users it is fast enough. We've really hit a plateau for the typical office PC, and home user, even engineer. I think it is hard to say that more than a Q9550 is needed, and thats going on 3 years?

I've been struggling with the questions, do I need a SB? If not why, what am I missing, and who really does need a SB? Before the Q9660/Q9550 we didn't ask those questions, it was obvious that the CPU was a bottleneck in a lot of areas, just ain't so anymore (unless you are "backing-up" Blue-Rays or producing movies.)
Click to expand...

I have to agree there. First time in a LONG time I've skipped 2 cycles... skipped I7 and now skipping SB... just don't see the need for the speed increase. I will be getting Ivy Bridge (or AMD's equivelant) probably this time next year, but for now 45nm quad core is doing fine, even for uber gaming.

Cyrix P166+
It was very cheap for what it did. If memory serves my 16MB Win95 machine was ~$1K less with this proc than with the P200.

300A, first proc to get everyone really excited about o/c on the Abit. Back then a 150Mhz o/c was massive.

Q9450
As above.
 
Ultra Wide said:
Dual Celeron 300A + Abit BP6
Click to expand...

Good times. :cool:


9062650641.jpg
 
toddw said:
I have to agree there. First time in a LONG time I've skipped 2 cycles... skipped I7 and now skipping SB... just don't see the need for the speed increase. I will be getting Ivy Bridge (or AMD's equivelant) probably this time next year, but for now 45nm quad core is doing fine, even for uber gaming.

Cyrix P166+
It was very cheap for what it did. If memory serves my 16MB Win95 machine was ~$1K less with this proc than with the P200.

300A, first proc to get everyone really excited about o/c on the Abit. Back then a 150Mhz o/c was massive.

Q9450
As above.
Click to expand...

Imo, that's also largely in part to some stagnation in software. Lack of 64 bit programs and properly multithreaded programs. They are making huge strides in cpu performance, but ethe software isn't really here to utilize it.
 
nalc said:
Lack of 64 bit programs and properly multithreaded programs.
Click to expand...

Yeah I can't believe they have now had Win XP 64-bit out for how many years now?

I figured upgrading to Win 7 64-Bit pro from Win XP 32-Bit pro this year would have had all 64-bit supported programs by now.

To say the least, I was surprised. Maybe in another 10 years. :p
 
I could go way back... but honestly, a lot of my old cpus weren't great.

Anyway, my c2d e8400 still holds a special place in my heart.
 
MOS6510 would be my best cpu of all time, but then I still have the old 64 in the attic (and I think it works just haven't tried in a long time)

Apart from that the MC68K series is very good.

But then, what is the "best cpu of all time?" It's almost always going to be the latest one going by performance.
 
Favorite Classic Overclocking Chip: Celeron 300a, that thing was a beast, I had mine at 480mhz.

Favorite all over chip: My current Q6600. Honestly it does everything I throw at it well. I upgrade about every 2 years. This is the first chip where I really don't feel the need to upgrade. With games now finally starting to really become 4 core aware, it wouldn't surprise me if I got another 2 years out of it playing games in high settings.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top