Memorable Overclocking-Friendly CPUs

Athlon XP 2500 to 3200 was a more noticeable difference than overclocked Celeron 300A.

I believe the PII 450 was the fastest and most expensive CPU at the time. My 300A ran 512 mhz on a 112 bus. I also had the XP2500 and yes, it was an Intel slayer at the time.
 
I think part of the reason my celery 464 felt so fast was I was coming from a K6-200 which I had for years... as others have noted I can't rule out my 920 which I bought launch week and it clocked to 3.8 sans hyper threading on air... I got a LOT of use out of that setup...
 
Still got my i7 920 D0 going strong paired with Gigabyte 5970, both from late 2009....I started with 6GB triple channel DDR2000, which sadly was probably cheaper 5 years ago when it was still top of the line than it would be today with RAM prices being what they are. Haven't gone this long without a major upgrade since....forever!
 
Turbo wasn't for overclocking in the 386 era. :p iirc, most 386 and 486 boards would switch between full speed and a lower speed (often 8MHz). Later chips in the Pentium era would switch between full speed and 1/2 speed. I used to hate those front panel LEDs. So many jumpers to move to make it display properly and you'd cut up your hands or fingers while doing it. A few "retro" boards far later did use a switch to control overclocking, but it never really caught on.

Most 386 chips were difficult to overclock. And you had to do all kinds of things to make the overclock stable (in coarse speed bumps... I did a 25 -> 33MHz overclock in 1989), like using a heatsink and/or a fan. Craziness!

Hush, you're spoiling my fun! :p
 
I've been through a few of the ones on the list. The AMD Durons were what really got me started in overclocking, and I think I still have a 1GHz Thunderbird (AXIA stepping) around the house somewhere. For the most part over the past decade or so I've favored stability over raw speed, but my current system (with an i5 3570K in it) is rock solid on a fairly aggressive overclock. I suspect you'll be seeing those on one of these lists at some point in the future.
 
because they were crap.
I had a Cyrix 166+ which was supposed to be equivalent to a Pentium 166Mhz.
I did a test with Lightwave 3D using my Cyrix against my brothers Pentium 100Mhz and the Pentium blew it away. I sold the Cyrix system the next day and went Intel.

I was just kidding...

It looks like you were suckered into buying a Cyrix, then you had to turn around to sucker another sucker :D
 
As in my sig: C2D 6320 (1.86Ghz) @ 3.3Ghz. 77% OC!!

By far the beastliest OC I ever saw, and I ran that 24/7 stable for 6 years, and retired it still working. I still wonder if it wasn't a mis-branded E6600 or something. Only paid $65 for it, too. :D
 
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Browser ate my long reply.

Above is a system I still own, a PA-2007 with 1 meg cache, 64 mb of EDO ram, 233MMX running at 263 mhz with ET-6000 for primary video and Voodoo Graphics for secondary.

Soundblaster 16 with a 3-com NIC with 10baseT coax and 33.6 modem. Win95-OSR2
 
Anyone still mess around with old SECC 2 CPU's and do soldering on them to make them run super fucking fast? I recall seeing pics of people soldering wires to bridge certain points on the SECC II CPU and also modified the motherboard components and they were able to adjust FSB speeds with a manual turn dial. It was hard core shit back then, still is if you can do it on new hardware today.
 
I enjoyed that, it's basically my buying history of processors.

My favourite is still the i7 920 though, wasn't the biggest overclock by percentage (got 4.0ghz from mine) but for sheer longevity it can't be beaten. I could still use that processor today and I wouldn't be that far behind where I am with my 4770K

Still got my Rampage 3 and the i7 920 sitting in a box somewhere, I should make use of it.

I still use my i7 920 as my main gaming rig. Still holding strong at 3.8 GHz for over 5 years without issue.

My i7 build has seen 3 upgrades in video cards during it's operation.

Love this CPU.
 
I was just kidding...

It looks like you were suckered into buying a Cyrix, then you had to turn around to sucker another sucker :D

lol, ya. my friend that I sold it to didn't need the speed, he just wanted a computer.
I was playing around with 3D graphics at the time and it was a pain to sit there and wait for the computer to render a frame, so speed was a must.

I had an Amiga 3000 with a Newtek Video Toaster 4000 card (only way to get Lightwave at the time) and then traded the Toaster Card for a nice 486 DX2 50 PC when Lightwave was unbundled from the Toaster Card, just so I could have a windows PC. Then I got the Cyrix 166+ setup when they released Lightwave 3D for Windows.
 
I had an old packard bell with a 25 Mhz 486 sx. The processor didn't even have a heat sink let alone a fan. I stuck a heat sink on there and moved a jumper and had that thing running at a reliable 50 Mhz. 100% overclock right there!
 
Anyone have one of those Evergreen overdrive cpus? I used to see them in the PC mags all the time but never had one.. 486 to 586 overdrive!!! I am guessing they weren't much to write home about.
 
I still use my i7 920 as my main gaming rig. Still holding strong at 3.8 GHz for over 5 years without issue.

My i7 build has seen 3 upgrades in video cards during it's operation.

Love this CPU.

Yeah, I recently moved on to a 4790K but the 920 is still serving our house well in my GF's gaming machine. Probably one of the best performance/dollar value pieces of hardware I've ever bought.
 
So many memories..

Northwood 2.4C chip is one..

Q6600 for sure

My Intel P3 533 wasnt bad but only to 644.
 
I miss the OC'ing, but I do not miss the noise involved.

Ain't that the truth.

When I was younger it didn't bother me at all. Now I can't stand a noisy computer, so much that I only use my bigger rig for gaming because I'm too focused to bother with the noise. When doing anything else I stick to my Celeron J1900 fan-less machine. Thank you Canada.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041298772 said:
If I may ask, why did you opt for Xubuntu. Is the graphics hardware not sufficient to handle the more intense xsessions?

Because it's a no-nonsense interface with lots of usability that works fast on anything. If I were to install Linux on my more powerful machines, I would still chose Xubuntu over anything else.
 
Ain't that the truth.

When I was younger it didn't bother me at all. Now I can't stand a noisy computer, so much that I only use my bigger rig for gaming because I'm too focused to bother with the noise. When doing anything else I stick to my Celeron J1900 fan-less machine. Thank you Canada.

The noise that used to be associated with OC'ing is long since gone.

Hell, even the complications of OC'ing is long since gone, all you have to do is make sure you have the right chipset these days.
 
Athlon XP 1500+ on an ECS K7S5A was my first overclocking. Then Barton, mobile barton. Athlon 4000+ Then my Core 2 Duo was my best. 1.83 Ghz to 3.3 Ghz on MSI P6N-SLI. Ran it for three years. I don't think I've had a CPU for more than a year since.
 
The noise that used to be associated with OC'ing is long since gone.

Hell, even the complications of OC'ing is long since gone, all you have to do is make sure you have the right chipset these days.

My roommate in college hated my 80mm delta :p
 
the PIII 700mhz x 100mhz FSB (everyone remember "front side bus" ?) used to overclock easily to 933 which wasn't bad when you considered the price difference.

here is a dually 1ghz setup that I run @ 1140 , these chips at 1ghz were about the end of PIII

Abit VP6 , 2 x PIII 1ghz @1140mhz , Voodoo 5500 AGP , dual boot W2K pro / XP pro , 2 gig Infineon memory , 3 x 18g scsi raid 0 , WD 500g , Kenwood TrueX 72x (the fastest CDR ever) my good ol' Sony 21" E540 Trinitron @ 120Hz

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HAH! So true! :D



Had those coolers too, pretty sure they made some for the tbirds as well.

Yup.... those were the GORBS. The ones for the AMD's were silver in colour. The GORBS would crush the tbird core, so thermaltake came out with the silver version which wasn't so tight.
 

It's awesome to see the Q6600 kicking it in the top 10 on both of those lists hahaha, I guess I can still hold off on upgrading >_<
Ok, Ok, Ok, so I know it's value is under 3k, but that is with stock clock @ 2.4 which is lulz. I usually sit with mine at 3.2 so meh
Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.40GHz - 2,990
 
Why? It's not like he could hear you over it.

I remember having a Thermoengine cooler with a Delta 60mm fan on my T-Bird.. man I remember the first night I tried to sleep while it was on since I wanted to run Prime95 overnight.
 
Still got my i7 920 D0 going strong paired with Gigabyte 5970, both from late 2009....I started with 6GB triple channel DDR2000, which sadly was probably cheaper 5 years ago when it was still top of the line than it would be today with RAM prices being what they are. Haven't gone this long without a major upgrade since....forever!
I'm still on my i7 860 oc'ed to 3.8. I keep thinking I should upgrade because I've been conditioned to with previous gen CPUs, but my system remains more than fast enough for everything I do on it. I will probably do a new build when Skylake drops.
 
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Browser ate my long reply.

Above is a system I still own, a PA-2007 with 1 meg cache, 64 mb of EDO ram, 233MMX running at 263 mhz with ET-6000 for primary video and Voodoo Graphics for secondary.

Soundblaster 16 with a 3-com NIC with 10baseT coax and 33.6 modem. Win95-OSR2

BEEFY!!
 
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