Legendary value CPUs: Celeron A@100FSB, mobile Barton, O/C'd Q6600 G0...-What's next?

[CZroe]

I've been out of it for more than a few years (wasting my time mucking around in ATOT) so I actually have to ask: Have there been any other crazy-good values for enthusiasts like these examples but in more in recent years? Anything in the pipeline that looks similarly promising?

My C2Q Q6600 G0-stepping CPU served me well for years but I'm tired of running all my encodes on a Sandy Bridge notebook (M11x R3) just to put off upgrading my desktop.

Edit: It looks like Core i5 2500K and i7 920 simply can't be over-looked. I didn't even have a clue the i5 2500K existed, which is what I meant by being "out of it" for years. I kept trying to remember the s939 Opteron that was such a good deal and you guys reminded me of it so now I recognize: CelyA, mBarton, Opty165, Q6600G0, i920, 2500K, ...

 

[Idontcare]

I would say an 8-core FX-8320 is a chip that will likely be remembered as legendary value. Overclocks to the mid 4.5GHz, 8 hardware threads of performance, and priced low enough that many budget builds can afford it.

On the Intel side, the quad-core non-HT K-model chips (be it the 2500k, 3570k, or 4670k) are excellent chips for gaming, power efficiency, and general performance for the price.

 

[USER8000]

I think one of the best value CPUs I saw in recent times,was when a mate managed to unlock their Athlon II X3 to a Phenom II X4(the L3 cache was present). Not bad as it was nearly half of the price of a Phenom II X4.

There was some other cheaper Athlon II X2 CPUs which were based on the Deneb core and could be unlocked to quad cores if you were lucky. Some of the unlockable AMD CPUs were pretty good value if they unlocked.

The socket 1156 Core i3 was pretty decent considering how far it overclocked on cheap motherboards.

 

[SPBHM]

yes, unlocking Phenom II was pretty nice, a good number of successful 2c to 4c unlock, no l3 to 6MB l3, the X2 to PII X4 was the 2.2GHz "Athlon X2 5000+" (no 64 or II on the name, but it's Am2+, not AM3)

as for current CPUs, maybe the X4 750K, FX 6300... the 2500K was also probably "legendary value" when you consider it was more overclocking friendly than its successors, and it still looks really good when overclocked after 2.5 years.

the i7 920 was also pretty amazing, as was the 750, i5 530...

 

[zir_blazer]

Most Socket A Durons, specially Applebreads, they obliterated Netburst Celerons and costed far, far less. Maybe Socket 939 Opterons, you could get 1 MB Cache L2 and A64FX quality bin for around A64/A64X2 price.

 

[Ratman6161]

I think the days of the legendary overclockers is pretty much over. The ones I think of as legendary is back when you could buy somthing like a Celeron 300a where you could run it at 450 and had the bottom of the barrel cheap CPU performing as well or better than Intel's best of the day. Or my personal favorite, my good old K63+ 450 which hummed along nicely at 600 Mhz. But the days when you could buy a cheap cpu and make it run with the best are over. On intel, if you don't get a "k" cpu you are not going to get any significant overclock and with AMD you can overclock it....but it needs it to compete with comparably priced Intel products.

Oh well, a locked down i3 performs better than most people actually need anyway.

 

[CZroe]

I would say an 8-core FX-8320 is a chip that will likely be remembered as legendary value. Overclocks to the mid 4.5GHz, 8 hardware threads of performance, and priced low enough that many budget builds can afford it.

On the Intel side, the quad-core non-HT K-model chips (be it the 2500k, 3570k, or 4670k) are excellent chips for gaming, power efficiency, and general performance for the price.

:hmm: I am going to have to take a serious look at AMD O/C options over the next year. Mobile Barton at AXP 3200+ speeds was my favorite. I threw it in an nForce 2 HTPC before everyone knew what an HTPC was (Shuttle SN45G2-based). I never got the nVidia SoundStorm Dolby Digital Live thing set up because my "new" Logitech Z-680 speakers died on me (fixed recently-YAY!). I had to do the L12 pinmod trick to default to 400FSB but it worked like a charm, even when undervolted. I even switched to slower fans and let the temps climb because it could take it (converted to push/pull config with ducted 120mm external fan).

I think the days of the legendary overclockers is pretty much over. The ones I think of as legendary is back when you could buy somthing like a Celeron 300a where you could run it at 450 and had the bottom of the barrel cheap CPU performing as well or better than Intel's best of the day. Or my personal favorite, my good old K63+ 450 which hummed along nicely at 600 Mhz. But the days when you could buy a cheap cpu and make it run with the best are over. On intel, if you don't get a "k" cpu you are not going to get any significant overclock and with AMD you can overclock it....but it needs it to compete with comparably priced Intel products.

Oh well, a locked down i3 performs better than most people actually need anyway.

Yep. I ran two Celeron A 366MHz CPUs at 100FSB (550MHz) in an Abit BP6 dual socket 370 board. WAAAAY faster than my PIII 500 that I paid way too much for! The full-speed L2 made it faster than a 550MHz PIII, especially since nothing used SSE instructions back then. When we finally had PIII-optimized software it was mostly for video encoding which was still many generations away from being fast enough for normal use by mainstream users.

 

[CZroe]

Most Socket A Durons, specially Applebreads, they obliterated Netburst Celerons and costed far, far less. Maybe Socket 939 Opterons, you could get 1 MB Cache L2 and A64FX quality bin for around A64/A64X2 price.

Yeah. I was so disappointed with my O/C'd Athlon 64 X2 3800+. I really wanted to upgrade to one of those 939 Opterons everyone was jumping on.

 

[moonbogg]

i7 920 lasted people forever. I'll always remember the joy that my 2600k brought me. Best chip in computing history.

 

[Rio Rebel]

I think the days of the legendary overclockers is pretty much over. The ones I think of as legendary is back when you could buy somthing like a Celeron 300a where you could run it at 450 and had the bottom of the barrel cheap CPU performing as well or better than Intel's best of the day. Or my personal favorite, my good old K63+ 450 which hummed along nicely at 600 Mhz. But the days when you could buy a cheap cpu and make it run with the best are over. On intel, if you don't get a "k" cpu you are not going to get any significant overclock and with AMD you can overclock it....but it needs it to compete with comparably priced Intel products.

Oh well, a locked down i3 performs better than most people actually need anyway.

My sentiments exactly, including the comment about the i3. The Pentium G2120 is everything most people would need, but "Pentium" is an old brand and doesn't excite people much.

The Celeron 300a and 366 were legendary. In the 300a, you're talking about a chip where almost all of them would run at a massive 50% overclock, making it comparable with the P2-450, the most expensive and highest performing consumer processor on the market at the time. Now THAT's overclocking value. As time passed, I found overclocking less and less worth the trouble for the modest performance gains, and finally stopped entirely. Unless you're a serious gamer, the everyday gain from a processor overclock is pointless.

And that doesn't even get into the amount of money some people spend on advanced cooling solutions...

 

[thilanliyan]

I thought the Conroe E6400 was pretty good value...OCed pretty well too.

 

[SiliconWars]

Q6600 and i5 2500K, but for different reasons. The Q6600 was such immense value and lasted for what seemed like forever. The 2500K is lasting for what seems like forever and probably will because of a lack of improvements - it wasn't as cheap but for what you paid you sure got the most out of it and will for a few years yet.

The best AMD has done in a long time is the FX 6300.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm still of the opinion that the Pentium II 300 SL2W8 was better than the 300A. Sure, both would do 450 easily, but the extra L2 cache if the PII really gave it the advantage for multitasking.

 

[Sheep221]

Best CPUs of all time:
Celeron 300 and i5-2500K are the only CPUs that really were best of the best

No the best but notable also are these:
i7-920, first quad core with HT, still serves well in many high end rigs
Celeron G465, the best bang for the buck of present time, wanna go silence? HTPC, low power consumption, office computing? It's single core but it rocks for everything we used dual cores for few years ago, 15W power draw, and it even has HT
Q6600, one of the first quad core CPUs but very good one and served people well
i5-2550K, sister of 2500K but it has disabled IGP

Athlon XP 2500+ I was still ruling with this rig in 2008 and I retired it completely in 2012, I didn't OC it but there was nothing I couldn't do on it.
Athlon 64 FX-62, at that time the fastest CPU on the market
FX-8320 and FX-8350, doesn't matter they don't catch up with i7, these are good bang for the buck for any high end gaming machine

Overclocking:
I also agree that OC sucks now, I was never an overclocker but I remember alot of good OCs seen on other computers and at that time, it was fun, challenging and it served the purpose. Because it allowed the crap hardware to perform very much like high end hardware and that was about it, no OC premium boards, PSUs, cooling, no shit was needed, your stock heatsink did the job.
Today OC is mostly reserved for the highest range CPUs and mobos. Not to mention that cooling solutions and everything else that defines modern overclocked high end rig is just way too expensive for what it offers in exchange with OC. OC is just rich boys toy today I guess because before the poor overclocked crap HW to match with the ones with high end HW, now they don't have this chance.

 

[Smoblikat]

Id say the 2500K.

 

[blackened23]

Celeron 300a sticks out in my mind as one of the best ever. Anyone remember abit motherboards? There was an abit motherboard that was massively popular back then which I used with my 300a, can't remember the model # though.

300a @ 450 was pretty much identical in performance to the Pentium II-450 IIRC, while only costing a couple hundred. Definitely one of the best ever. It really doesn't seem like CPU prices have inflated much in terms of price since that time either, when comparing mainstream to mainstream....

 

[Bubbleawsome]

I'm not old enough to know these really old ones, but the best in recent memory to me are the 1st gen core i's. I know people that are on those (myself included) and have no real reason to upgrade.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Celeron 300a sticks out in my mind as one of the best ever. Anyone remember abit motherboards? There was an abit motherboard that was massively popular back then which I used with my 300a, can't remember the model # though.

BH6

 

[crashtech]

Pre-Netburst Celerons were pretty good. I seem to remember having a 500 Mendocino on one of those Slot 1 adapter thingies running at 750. That was my last Intel chip for many years, til Wolfdale actually.

 

[homebrew2ny]

I've seen nothing like the Mobil Barton that could even potentially belong in this discussion. That was the last of the super chips that just kept giving, and was dirt cheap.

 

[Lepton87]

No one mentioned P4 northwood 1.6GHz/1.8GHz those CPUs typically overclocked very well

 

[zir_blazer]

No one mentioned P4 northwood 1.6GHz/1.8GHz those CPUs typically overclocked very well

Four words: Sudden Northwood Death Syndrome

 

[chubbyfatazn]

Dropping in my vote for the Opty 165 (and higher-end Optys as prices fell).

I remember going down to Fry's and picking through the steppings until I found a CCBBE. Never did get it to 3GHz, though.

Also gonna mention the Athlon XP 2500+. I got that chip for $99 with a crappy ECS mobo and I still got it to 3200+ speeds.

 

[blackened23]

Pre-Netburst Celerons were pretty good. I seem to remember having a 500 Mendocino on one of those Slot 1 adapter thingies running at 750. That was my last Intel chip for many years, til Wolfdale actually.

Yeah, I wonder how the celeron line ended up relegated to the near worthless segment? Back in the day, celeron's were darn good chips - The 300a in particular is definitely one of my personal all-time favorite CPUs. If I could do a current day comparison, they were probably like the K line of i5 CPUs.

 

[Vic Vega]

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