CPU hall of fame (sister-thread to the GPU one of same name in VC&G)

[Borealis7]

in my opinion, for the consumer space (no particular order)

Intel E6300 - the first Conroe, the CPU that shocked the world.
Intel i486DX2 - 66MHz - reigned for years until the introduction of the Pentium processor.
AMD Athlon X2 3800+
Intel i7-920 - the second revolution
Intel Q6600 - the beginning of the mainstream quad-core era for consumers.

 

[pantsaregood]

Prescott and Cedar Mill deserve honorary mentions. They're one of the early cases of an entire series of CPUs being capable of pushing clocks up by high percentages.

Prescotts at 4.5 GHz aren't unusual at all. I doubt 5 is unusual. I think the record is 8.1 or so.

 

[AtenRa]

Intel Celeron 366@550MHz with ABIT BE6-II. It was faster than Intel Pentium III 500MHz most of the time at a fraction of the price.

Intel Celeron E-1200(1.6GHz). A ~$50 CPU that could double the frequency when OverClocked on air.

Intel Pentium E-2160(1.8GHz). A sub $100 that could reach 3GHz+ on air easily and be faster than any default Core 2 CPU at a third of the price.


I miss those days

 

[Arcanedeath]

I think the 300A / 333A chips deserve the hall of fame 50 percent overclocks were nice and it was in an era where every little bit helped, not like today.

E2140, my first chips to get over 100% overclock I got mine up to 3.4ghz but ran it at 3.2 as a daily driver that was an overclocking monster, it was basicly crippled from the factory.

Honorable mention goes to the A64 x2 4400+ most overclocked past 4800+ speeds and were the fastest CPU's aside from the FX's for a long time, when Conroe came out it was faster but not dramiticly so unless you overclocked.

 

[lehtv]

AMD 2500+ Barton was a nice CPU indeed, was my first overclocker

Of more recent years, I'd say top 3 are

Intel Q6600
Intel i7-920 D0 stepping
Intel i5-2500K

 

[hans007]

I just bought a celeron g530 and I'm nominating it. At $40 it can do anything and is fast enough for even most gaming and has quicksync even though Intel says it doesn't. Best value CPU in quite a while

 

[lehtv]

I just bought a celeron g530 and I'm nominating it. At $40 it can do anything and is fast enough for even most gaming and has quicksync even though Intel says it doesn't. Best value CPU in quite a while

Imagine a Celeron G530K ... *drool*

 

[KompuKare]

I'd have to go for Celeron 300A. Had two of them and they ran for years at 450MHz which was an easy 50% overclock. Never really tried higher than but I think the one mobo would have managed (one was in an Abit and the other an AOpen, the AOpen was a better clocker AFAIR).

Honourable mentions would be other value overclocks like the Celeron E-1200 and even this Celeron 430 (Core2 single-core) which I bought for £3 to test a mobo but never got around to overclocking. I believe like the E-1200 it can get 100% OC too: it's a 65nm 35W single core so it wouldn't even get very hot.

Don't see me buying a £200+ chip to overclock to the 2600K/3770K don't appeal to me. If I can't cheapskate overclock a budget chip, what's the point?

 

[msparrow88]

the processor in the Super Nintendo.

Revolutionary.

 

[Batmeat]

I'm glad others agree with my Celey 300 point. I don't remember what I ever got it to, but I do remember taking the thing out of the plastic and attaching a cooler directly to the chip. I know I hit over 500mhz easily, with only a average cooler. I remember reading posts of people with multiple fans and setups pushing it even faster....so for me..

1. Celeron 300a
2. Can't remember...AMD cpu you unlocked via conductive pen or pencil lead
3. E6300
4. 2600k at 4.4Ghz
5. none yet....

 

[exar333]

486DX2 (66-100 or 100-150+)
Celeron 300A
AMD Barton 2500+ mobile
Q6600
2500K

Honorable mention:
Pentium II 233mhz at ~300mhz
A64 single or X2 90nm (up to ~2.8-3.0ghz on the upper-end; 2.5-2.6 for earlier CPUs)
i7 920 (edit: forgot this one!)

The first three are probably the most dramatic, as others have said, because of the HUGE gains you saw back in the day for a small mhz increase.

 

[Ferzerp]

but I do remember taking the thing out of the plastic and attaching a cooler directly to the chip

Interesting memory considering that only the Pentium 2s were encased in plastic like that The Celeron was an open board.

SEPP vs SECC

 

[Batmeat]

Interesting memory considering that only the Pentium 2s were encased in plastic like that The Celeron was an open board.

SEPP vs SECC

its been to long maybe it was my p2 350 I did that to???

 

[Phynaz]

6502
6800
68000
8086
80286
80386
Pentium
V10
A64
Core 2
Z80

 

[Medikit]

Game changing processors:

1. Celeron 300A
2. 486 DX2 66
3. Original Socket A Athlon 1 ghz
4. Intel Core 2 Duo
5. Pentium 4 Northwood

 

[borisvodofsky]

Definitely Athlon s939 3500+, overclocked to 2.8ghz, and was only $300.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

my list is more based on long term relevancy, ie a CPU being so good it wasn't made irrelevant for years to come

while the Q6600 deserves some props for being a first quadcore as well as an excellent overclocker, the Q9000s were soon on its heals and of course Nehalem not long after that.

I also can't really praise Core 2 Duo too much, it just looked that much better next to the relatively abysmal garbage that Netburst was, I never felt the urge to jump from my heavily overclocked Opteron 165 back to Intel until they had the Q6600 and E8400 as options.

My top 2 would easily be either the i7 920 or the 300A, with the Opty 165 behind that. Just about any of these CPUs had far greater life spans in terms of "future proof" performance assuming you were a day 1 adopter (or close enough), heck, a 4GHz i7 920 is still a top notch CPU despite being nearly 4 years old, that's pretty much unheard of...

 

[Martimus]

The K6-233 was my favorite value chip. Was faster than the fastest Pentium Pro in nearly all Windows 95 programs and cost a third the price!

 

[Zardnok]

Not nearly enough love in this thread for the Athlon XP Mobile chips. They were binned to run cooler with less voltage and had unlocked multipliers! I had a Thermaltake vacuum cleaner on a 2600M and OCed the snot out of it! I had seven 80mm fans in that case if you count the three in the PSU! Aaah, the good old days when your computer sounded like it was about to take off!!

As for "newer" multi-core CPUs:

The Opteron 165s were crazy powerful for the money and easily OCed.

The original Conroe C2D chips swung the balance of power back to Intel.

Q6600 was the chip that changed them all, but it gets plenty of love! Plenty live on today powering modern games without breaking a sweat.

2500k is the latest game changer. Add any decent aftermarket cooler and turn up a multiplier is about as easy to OC as it gets!

 

[borisvodofsky]

Not nearly enough love in this thread for the Athlon XP Mobile chips. They were binned to run cooler with less voltage and had unlocked multipliers! I had a Thermaltake vacuum cleaner on a 2600M and OCed the snot out of it! I had seven 80mm fans in that case if you count the three in the PSU! Aaah, the good old days when your computer sounded like it was about to take off!!

As for "newer" multi-core CPUs:

The Opteron 165s were crazy powerful for the money and easily OCed.

The original Conroe C2D chips swung the balance of power back to Intel.

Q6600 was the chip that changed them all, but it gets plenty of love! Plenty live on today powering modern games without breaking a sweat.

2500k is the latest game changer. Add any decent aftermarket cooler and turn up a multiplier is about as easy to OC as it gets!

It isn't "that" easy to oc, lots of people are actually running unstable rigs, they just don't know it. D:

 

[TraumaRN]

I used to have an old AMD 3500 that I had clocked to 2.65 loved that processor.

Now I've had a Q6600 for a few years now. Rock solid stable at 3.2ghz. Although it can be stable up to 3.45 and it will boot at 3.67. But 3.2 is a sweet spot for temps and performance so that's where I leave it. Still don't feel the need to upgrade as it runs modern games just fine. Maybe next year I'll update.

 

[jhu]

1. Intel 4004
2. Zilog Z80
3. Intel 8088
4. Motorola 68000
5. DEC Alpha EV4
6. IBM POWER3
7. Intel 80386
8. NexGen Nx586
9. Intel Pentium Pro
10. Opteron 240
11. ARM ARM1

 

[pukemon]

From my personal list of legendary CPUs, I started reading Anandtech because I went with the Celeron 300a @ 450MHz on an Abit BH6 a very, very long time ago. That compy got me through college.

I gotta add the pencil trick Durons, I had a 700 @ 933 using the stock el cheapo heatsink fan, on some DFI mobo with a VIA KT266A chipset. Man, I think that was over ten years ago...

As for modern times, I'm gonna go with the Core 2 Quad Q9550, because that's the last desktop CPU I've bought. I know there have been three generations of Core i3/5/7 that have succeeded it, but for everyday desktop usage, I still can't justify replacing it quite yet.

 

[Idontcare]

It isn't "that" easy to oc, lots of people are actually running unstable rigs, they just don't know it. D:

All rigs are unstable, the only question is how long till she goes nips up. Entropy and metastable compositions will get you in the end. Even diamonds aren't forever :hmm:

 

[Ferzerp]

All rigs are unstable, the only question is how long till she goes nips up. Entropy and metastable compositions will get you in the end. Even diamonds aren't forever :hmm:

I just noticed a bad thing.... Some ESX hosts here that have been up for 2 years. *crap* no patching :/