favorite CPU in all time?

[Cookie Monster]

Pentium4 northwood 3.0GHz "30 Capper" chip.

Damn these were pretty good for their worth.

 

[nemesismk2]

my fav cpu was the amd athlon xp mobile which was a very good overclocker

 

[Dribble]

Mmm, northwood 2.4C was pretty good - good value, did 3.2 without much effort.

Q6600 was even better - good value, fast stock at the time, did 3.2 and still is pretty good today.

However the best ever has to be the 2500K. Cheap, very fast stock, low power, huge o/c potential, v easy to o/c due to unlocked multiplier (so easy I just let my motherboard do it automatically, one reboot later and I have a 4.3Ghz cpu). Because it's using multiplier still stays low power in light use as it can still clock right down.

 

[Sephire]

Q6600

 

[uo7]

Barton 2500+
Opteron 170 was using up untill today 🙂

 

[Tsavo]

Pentium Pro without a doubt. If you owned one you were the envy of everyone that didn't. And those were mere amateurs. (or 16 bit users!) :biggrin:

This.

I had an HP Kayak at work that had dual PPros. I can't remember what CPU I was using at home at the time, but it was hard going home to the relic, so I put together a single PPro PC that quickly turned into a secondary box when I decided I couldn't live without SMP. I can't remember exactly what I stuffed that box with, but it is the most expensive PC I've ever built at over $5k.

I only had dual 180's that I set to 66 MHz FSB. 200's and 512'ers were just too pricey.

At some point, most of the PC's in my old place of work had PPro 200/256's which we replaced with Overdrive units. I had over 100 PPro's stacked on a table next to my desk that were sent to the crusher. :|

I still have the SMP mainboard, ram and CPU's, though I haven't got a use for them. I could rewire the whole bit just to run SuperPi or something, though. 😛

 

[Specop 007]

Another vote for the AMD K6-III+.

Was just cool running a mobile chip on an ATX board and the motherboard was using a beta BIOS. (FIC VA-503+ board)

If I may add a 2nd place CPU it would have to be my 1GHz AMD Athlon (Thunderbird). Did the "pencil trick" and ran at 1.4 GHz. 40% OC. I use a GlobalWin FOP38 heatsink on that thing with the notorious Black Label Delta fan that would burn out motherboard fan headers.

I had the box in the basement. You could go upstairs to the 2nd floor and still hear the fan whirring. I still have it for sentimental value.

Agreed on the Thunderbird.

 

[Tsavo]

Further, all the PPro variants were my favorites; the P2's and 3's, even the Celery 300A@450 was hard not to love.

I wanted to love my X2 4800+, but the Nvidia chipsets were garbage.

My 750 is pretty awesome for what it is; cheap and powerful in its day. It's my current favorite because it reminds me of how awesome PPro's were in SMP way back when.

I can't say much about the 2500K I built for myself because my gf claimed it as her own shortly after I built it.

I admired the 990x that I bought for work, but it was just too damned expensive to love.

I'll use my 750 until IB-E, then I'll dosh out and....not let my gf touch it. :biggrin:

 

[khon]

I really liked my E6400.

Fairly cheap, good overclocker, and great performance at the time.

I kept it for ~4 years, and it never felt outdated.

 

[john3850]

Started with petium 66 in late 93 upgraded it later with a intel overdrive 200MMX slow.
Then I wasted time with many xp,batons and 3coppermines.
My BEST pc was my first AMD Winchester 939 with a triple outlet wb and later a xtpe in it.
The best non guad of all time has to be a AMD 939-940.

 

[john3850]

As others have mentioned, the s939 opterons were amazing. My favorite was my s939 x2 3800+. First dual core I owned and got it up to 2.5ghz for many years. Great CPU and costs me $300. Weird to think that I just paid ~$200 for a 2500k. How times have changed.

My first C2D cost $900+ First out E6600,680i,2 gigs crucial
My 2500k cost $350 for the same parts.

 

[sm625]

E6xx0 4M conroe. Very fast and capable, competes well with regor core which is my other fav. And now you can get them on ebay for $30. Combined with a P45 mobo they overclock very well. I dont know if its a DPC latency thing or what but they are much faster than an X2.

I couldn't stand it, and edited the typo in your title, sorry.
Markfw900
Anandtech Moderator

Jeez it still comes off as "unstandable". In all time? 😕 What was it before you changed it?

 

[videopho]

Jeez it still comes off as "unstandable". In all time? 😕 What was it before you changed it?

CBU as I "misunderstood" it for Cluster Bomb Unit, lol.
Then mod had to change it and I don't blame him either and neither could I stand it.

 

[tranceport]

Cel 300 costa rica.

 

[tweakboy]

What is it?

e2180 for me, bought for $100 and overcocked to 3.4ghz. It had the performance of a Core 2 Duo X6800, a chip which cost $1000 at the time I bought the e2180...


I couldn't stand it, and edited the typo in your title, sorry.
Markfw900
Anandtech Moderator

1998 ASUS P2B scsi adapter built on. 9gb cheetah 10k Pentium 2 450Mhz. With 256MB ram. It will render a 1 hour video in about 5 days LOL if your lucky.

 

[rbk123]

1. E2140/Q6600 - the 2140 OC'd to 3.2G which was an absurd bargain; the G0 Q6600 OC'd to 3.6g was a steal at $199 and is still my main rig.
2. 2500k - due to Microcenter's $179 price plus $$ off any motherboard - it would normally be #1, but I'm pretty nostalgic on how high the 2140 could OC.

 

[dguy6789]

I had an Athlon 64 2800+ back when they first came out. The one I got could undervolt to slightly under one volt. It would get somewhere around 35C full load on the stock cooler. At the time it was also very very fast. That's probably my favorite in terms of what it was for the time.

 

[Gikaseixas]

My top 5

1 - AMD Athlon X2 4400+
2 - Intel Pentium 66 (my first processor ever)
3 - Intel Core i7 860
4 - AMD Duron 1.0
5 - Intel Pentium III 450

 

[Golgatha]

Core i7 920.

Still does everything I ask of it for nearly 2 years now. Still nothing that's a substantial upgrade for it either. The only reason I have a 960 in my rig now is because I got an X58 B-Stock motherboard from eVGA for nearly free after using eVGA bucks, and I wanted the slightly faster replacement chip in my main rig instead of my HTPC. Paid $199.99 for each of those chips from Microcenter.

 

[IGemini]

For me:
- E6600 Conroe: was faster than any AMD CPU when it was released
- Q9650 Yorkfield: Double the E6600 cores and up the speed to 3GHz, can get up to 4GHz. It was expensive when I got it but it has enough staying power to bypass a couple generations.

CBU as I "misunderstood" it for Cluster Bomb Unit, lol.
Then mod had to change it and I don't blame him either and neither could I stand it.

This^n. Typos are excusable when they're near each other on the keyboard. P and B are not.

 

[jacktesterson]

My Thunderbird 1.2GHz AMD CPU...... with a Geforce 2 GTS and 256MB Ram... Man I thought it was a beast. Went to this from a Pentium 233 MMX and a K6 II 350 MHz I beleive it was.

It was definitly the most notable upgrade I've had.

 

[Chiropteran]

Pentium 2 300mhz. Seemed to remain viable for a longer time than any previous CPU. Didn't upgrade for about 3 years until I built a 700mhz Athlon system, but even then I kept the pentium 2 around to run linux.

 

[exar333]

AXP-anything (loved these, mobile or not)
-got a few low-end CPUs up to ~2.1 or 2.2ghz
-OCd a 2500+ mobile to 2.4ghz on a cheap MB

Core2 Pentiums
-e2160 1.8ghz -> 3.2ghz for $50
-built a rig for this and sold it a year later for the same price I paid - great bang-for-the-buck!

i7 920
-Bought on launch-day and has been going with about a 1.2ghz OC for three years
-Rock-solid and FAST (even good today)

 

[soccerballtux]

My Thunderbird 1.2GHz AMD CPU...... with a Geforce 2 GTS and 256MB Ram... Man I thought it was a beast. Went to this from a Pentium 233 MMX and a K6 II 350 MHz I beleive it was.

It was definitly the most notable upgrade I've had.

wow. That must have been like enlightenment or something. :thumbsup:

 

[jhansman]

Ah, I'd have to say the Pentium 100MHz. I still remember having to drive some 80 mi. to get it (no interweb or Newegg then!) and its mobo, and how excited I was to build a new system around it.