Best and worst CPUs since 1998

[tweakboy]

Best PC 1998 CPU Intel 2 450Mhz on a P2B mobo with scsi built in, and a cheetah 9GB drive without monitor cost me 2200 dollars , oh and 256MB RAM. But guy I bought it off was nice,,,, he would get me the new video card I would return old as new stuff came out and back then it was Riva TNT then TNT 2 then voodoo3 for UT99 lol good ole days. Where everything seemed amazing LOL were spoiled now with CPUs soo fast most of us wil never grasp its full potential and choke it besides rendering.. gl

 

[Aikouka]

First Gen Athlon 64 x2 - Got a lot of use out of mine.

I loved my first-gen X2. Back then, I probably never would have suspected that multiple cores would have helped me out, but you never realize how much crap is happening without you actually seeing it until you have all them cores to feed!

Although, my lordy... they were expensive!

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo 2.2GHz Socket 939 Dual-Core Processor ADA4400DAA6CD - OEM
$615.0

 

[tynopik]

I truly think the Cyrix takes the cake for 'worst' because not only was it slow, but also often unstable at stock levels. Even some of the crappy CPUs listed in this thread were generally stable at stock speeds.

Which is what made the 1.13 PIII such an epic fail

if you bought a Cyrix, well you deserved what you got

but for Intel to release such a bad product was a huge black eye

how it managed to get through QA raised serious questions about all of Intel's procedures

 

[Arkaign]

The Athlon 1.4Ghz Thunderbird was such a huge game changer. It smoked anything that Intel had at the time and was one of the first CPUs that forced people to recognize that shear Mhz was not the only factor when it comes to CPU speed.

The Athlon 1700+ and the 2500+ were great single cores that followed. Both were extremely overclockable and were dirt cheap. The 1700+ with the Throroughbred core could do some outrageous overclocks that made it nearly pointled to buy something more expensive.

Intel C2D took everything that AMD had created for the previous few years and just smashed it with a hammer. When the Conroe core came out it made the AMD CPUs its bitch and Intel hasn't looked back since.

Hahah I had all of those chips! I loved the AXP 1700+ (mine was mobile), 2500+. I wasn't crazy about the 1.4Ghz T-Bird though, I thought it was a bridge too far. Even with a thermalright copper heatsink and super loud high-RPM Delta fan, mine was unstable within about a month of being new, and I had to downclock it to 100FSB to make it stable. With the stock HS/Fan it was insanely hot, maybe the hottest thing I've ever seen, and I've run Prescotts and Ivys. Of course heatsinks have gotten larger over the years, but my lord. I think it died within a few months of use. I replaced it with an AXP 1500+, and it was miles and miles better.

 

[kowalabearhugs]

Coppermine Celerons were a great value due to their high OCs. I ran my 533mhz @ 896mhz for two years then sold it to a friend. Not sure what became of it.

Full stats: Celeron 533A - 66mhz FSB, 128 KB, Socket 370

 

[VirtualLarry]

I had an AXP 1800+, which I overclocked a little in the BIOS (were multipliers locked back then, I forget). The BIOS would show 2000+ for the speed.

I couldn't get it any higher, because the 1800+ CPU I had defaulted to 1.5v, and the faster grades of AXPs had 1.6v stock voltage, but the BIOS on my MSI board limited me to a 0.05v overvolt. So I couldn't even reach the stock voltage for the faster chips.

It was a very stable rig though, even with a Via chipset (KT400).

 

[SPBHM]

I loved my first-gen X2. Back then, I probably never would have suspected that multiple cores would have helped me out, but you never realize how much crap is happening without you actually seeing it until you have all them cores to feed!

Although, my lordy... they were expensive!

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo 2.2GHz Socket 939 Dual-Core Processor ADA4400DAA6CD - OEM
$615.0

I know some unhappy people who owned the 939 X2,
first X2 were quite expensive compared to single core CPUs, not a long time later Intel released the Core 2 Duo (when Dual Cores started to really get relevant) which was just far superior, and the AMD pricing was just bad, even more with AMD abandoning 939 and going for AM2 around the same time...
while Intel released some cheap e2xxx and e4xxx later which could beat even the fastest K8 if you overclocked it...
I think the original K8 was a lot more exciting than the K8 X2.

as for me, I bought one k8 X2 Brisbane g1 (when it was already quite cheap, but I regret not buying a e2140/e2160 instead), it was awful to overclock, slower than windsor, and I ended UP upgrading to a E5200, now that was a great little CPU, almost as good as the XP 1700 in my opinion, you could get 4GHz and stock e8xxx level of performance for a lot less.

cheapest AMD dual core at the time Athlon 64 X2 4200+
$537

cheapest Intel dual core
Pentium D 820
$241

one year later you could buy this:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86GHz 2MB $183

and it could easily beat this:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2.2GHz 512KBx2 $240
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0GHz 512KBx2 $169

 

[crazymonkeyzero]

When I think of the phrase ,best cpu, I mean it as the biggest jump from previous generation/and or ahead of it's time (in a good, way, unlike bulldozer haha) 1 Conroe: Core2 Duo/Quad as ppl already mentioned, still holding up 6 years later. 2 AMD Athlon 64 Series Sigh~~back when AMD was truly giving Intel a run for their money... 3. Sandy Bridge. I though it was a considerable jump from 1366. I can't really think of a worst chip, but If I really had to choose it would be Pentium 4, bc I saw hardly any difference between it and Pentium 3, at least from my use...

 

[frozentundra123456]

When I think of the phrase ,best cpu, I mean it as the biggest jump from previous generation/and or ahead of it's time (in a good, way, unlike bulldozer haha) 1 Conroe: Core2 Duo/Quad as ppl already mentioned, still holding up 6 years later. 2 AMD Athlon 64 Series Sigh~~back when AMD was truly giving Intel a run for their money... 3. Sandy Bridge. I though it was a considerable jump from 1366. I can't really think of a worst chip, but If I really had to choose it would be Pentium 4, bc I saw hardly any difference between it and Pentium 3, at least from my use...

Dont know if it was the CPU or the OS or a combination of the two, but my worst CPU experience by far was a 600mhz celeron desktop, running Windows ME, on dialup, and with a whopping 2mb of integrated video memory.

 

[Iron Woode]

my first gaming rig was a SS7 system. K6-2 500, Epox MVP??-G-M board, 256 megs of sdram 133 and Voodoo 3 3000 video card. Was extremely stable and quite fast at the time.

The next gaming rig was my Athlon 2500+ setup: Epox 8RDA+, 512 megs DDR333 and my old reliable GF2 GTS. I replaced that card with a 6800GS later on.

worst cpu I have seen was my old cyrix 166+. P4 based celerons were also pretty crappy.

I am happy with my current system: Phenom II x4 965 BE, Gigabyte GA-770TA-UD3, GTX260 sp216, 8gb DDR13333, SATA6mps 500gig hdd and Pioneer DVD burner.

I don't really have a best cpu opinion.

 

[Centauri]

Whatever happened to Epox? And for that matter, Abit, DFI, FIC...

 

[kowalabearhugs]

Whatever happened to Epox? And for that matter, Abit, DFI, FIC...

Word. I have fond memories of Abit.

 

[bononos]

I remembered the cyrix cpus (at least the early ones) had their L1 disabled by windows. And their oddball 75mhz fsb caused some problems with harddrives, oc'ing, stability etc. Their fpu was slow and they ran hot.

 

[Cerb]

Whatever happened to Epox? And for that matter, Abit, DFI, FIC...

Commodization killed Epox, Abit, and DFI. FIC is still around, AFAIK. I'm sometimes surprised that Gigabyte than Biostar have held on.

 

[Centauri]

Word. I have fond memories of Abit.

I remember swearing by Abit. And going through my order history on NewEgg over the past decade confirms it.

 

[Cerb]

They were slow and hot, yes, but am I one of only three people on the planet that had stable and functional Cyrix CPUs from the Pentium era? Between myself, my father, and a family friend, we all had PR150+ and PR200+ CPUs, and aside from not being too fast, they worked just fine. I don't recall the chipset used, given how much time has passed, though, and that could have had a lot to do with it.

 

[Tsavo]

I had a 166 IIRC, and it was stable.

 

[pm]

My best was my Celeron 300A. I had a great time with that thing. Although I really like my Core i7 2600K right now too.

My worst had to be a Cyrix 5x86. It had some incompatibilities in things - so not all software worked on it - and it was probably the most unstable, non-overclocked computer that I ever owned. I'm not bad-mouthing Cyrix in general - I had a 486DX4-100 that was great. But my Cyrix 5x86 was expensive and flaky and it was one of the few computers that I built that I was utterly unhappy with.

 

[Iron Woode]

They were slow and hot, yes, but am I one of only three people on the planet that had stable and functional Cyrix CPUs from the Pentium era? Between myself, my father, and a family friend, we all had PR150+ and PR200+ CPUs, and aside from not being too fast, they worked just fine. I don't recall the chipset used, given how much time has passed, though, and that could have had a lot to do with it.

more than likely the chipset was either a 430VX or the TX.

 

[exar333]

Whatever happened to Epox? And for that matter, Abit, DFI, FIC...

REALLY miss my DFI boards. They were finicky as hell, but it was just a blast to eek every last fsb you could out of them. Huge loss...

 

[Arkaign]

more than likely the chipset was either a 430VX or the TX.

Almost certainly VX lol. All of the cheap VX-based boards ran super hot on the VRMs, even more so with Cyrix chips in them.

TX on the other hand, I probably installed a couple hundred TX-based systems with Pentium MMX and K6 CPUs, and those boards were fantastic.

 

[Abwx]

Commodization killed Epox, Abit, and DFI. FIC is still around, AFAIK. I'm sometimes surprised that Gigabyte than Biostar have held on.

What killed Abit was...Intel...

Strong pressure from Intel retained majors MB manufacturers
from launching officialy Athlon dedicated boards , Abit did even
state that they wouldnt release such boards as they were bidding
instead on the soon to be released Intel i820 chipset that would
take advantage of Rambus Ram for the PIII platform.

Alas for them , after million MBs were sold it became obvious
that the chipset was buggy and millions cards had to be recalled.

Where Intel had enough means to pay for its own MBs , Abit was left
bleeding since they didnt have the growing Slot A market as a saving
grace as was the case for ASUS.

They soon embarked in the slot A bandwaggon , but it was too late.

 

[Emo]

Wow, lot's of memories from these posts! For some reason I've never had good luck with AMD chips. They worked fine but they had no overclocking headroom compared to Intel chips. Started with a 486dx66 chip, K6-2 300, skipped AMD for several generations when the Cel 300A/ Pentium II were untouchable. Went back to AMD XP 1600+ that was basically a dud, upgraded to an Athlon 64 3500+ that would only overclock by 100Mhz, kept that until the Core2 duo came out. Since then, went through E6400 (overclocked by 1.3Ghz), E8400 (overclocked by 1.2ghz) and currently on an i5-3570k overclocked by only 800Mhz. The last 3 systems are still in use at home, the rest of them I probably still have them in my storage room.

 

[Lonbjerg]

because it was slower than Pentium 3 in many things, slower than Athlon,
and it was originally limited to RDRAM, it was just to expensive and slow

now Northwood was a great improvement, and later the platform improved with more chipsets, DDR support, high FSB, HT and all of that...

Back in the day were I got a 2.4Ghz P4 Northwood with 1 GB of RDRAM(PC800) There was nothing that could touch it.

The AMD Athlon XP 2000+ was no match..and DDR ram...PC 2100 (2.1 GB/s) vs RDRAM PC800 (3.2 GB/S) was really no match at all.

It took like 6 months before my CPU was surpassed...more for PC3200 DDR to come.

Paired with a Ti4600 that rig rocked..I think a lot of posters have failing memories...and just parrot older "memes"

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Paired with a Ti4600 that rig rocked..I think a lot of posters have failing memories...and just parrot older "memes"

No ones knocking the performance of the Northwood/i850. i850+RD-RAM was just so much more expensive. Don't even get me started on running a P4 on SDR-i845, that was horrible. At the time at least I thought that AMD was much better value... not least due to the venerable nForce2...

Coincidently some of my closer family was running an AthlonXP 1800+ for close to 9(!) years. That's what I call value. Unfortunately the MB died in late 2010...