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

[CurseTheSky]

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.

I had an X2 4200+ that would do 2.7GHz. It wasn't as good as some of the Opterons, but still nothing shabby. The motherboard was REALLY picky about memory though, so if you had to reset the CMOS, you had to screw around with 30 minutes no POST until things were workable. Still, it's probably my most memorable overclocking experience.

I do agree though - overclocking seems to be slowly fading into more of a niche than it already was. With multiple cores being the norm, the price gap has increase significantly enough that the true budget chips just aren't worth it for many of us anymore. If you could grab a quad core for $50-75 and have it literally be the same as the $300 mid-to-high end processors except for clock speed, it would be a different ball game.

 

[nyker96]

i'd say my old x4 620 isn't bad in terms of value, at the time for 100 bucks, quad core performance. compare to same price point intel's E4xxx series. It's a lot of CPU for the money (at the time it was introduced). a great value.

 

[CZroe]

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.

OK, that's the one I was thinking of! Thanks.

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.

Actually, they started as "near worthless" with no L2 cache memory and quickly reversed everything with the Celeron A. They have been back and forth ever since.

 

[videogames101]

2500k

i put these in so many damn systems for friends because they were really such a great value with massive O/C headroom even under a $25 212+

 

[SammichPG]

e2160 1.8ghz-->3.2ghz with an arctic freezer 7

that cpu was amazing

 

[cytg111]

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.

But the on die 128kb cache on the 300a was full clock speed where as the P2's off die was half. As value chips those celeron a's were monsters edging out its bigger bro's in many tasks (games). I had a 300a that did 504 .. a screaming monster for its time.

 

[24601]

A8-3500M @ 3.0Ghz

Best value gaming/workhorse laptop ever.

 

[Headfoot]

2500k. Got mine from MicroCenter for $160 w/ a Z68 Motherboard, RAM, Coolermaster Hyper 212+ and extra fan ended up being ~$280 total after all the great deals. Its the only other legendary value since the Q6600 G0 because the 2500k was very reasonably priced and overclocks like a champ.

Next up would probably be i7 920 D0, the platform cost was fairly high at the time which is why I give the edge to the 2500k. But that processor is still a champ and still fast to this day. Lastly I'd give it to the i5 750 when that came out. Very reasonable platform and processor cost, and they overclocked really quite well

 

[SPBHM]

But the on die 128kb cache on the 300a was full clock speed where as the P2's off die was half. As value chips those celeron a's were monsters edging out its bigger bro's in many tasks (games). I had a 300a that did 504 .. a screaming monster for its time.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/174/4
it could be faster than the P2 at the same clock, can you imagine this
happening now, some cheaper CPU faster than the i7 at the same clock?

A8-3500M @ 3.0Ghz

Best value gaming/workhorse laptop ever.

this CPU have a base clock of 1500MHz, what kind of laptop could handle the power and dissipation at 3GHz (same clock as the 3870k! apart from the IGP)?
running the 4 cores at 2.4GHz looked common, but I don't remember seeing anything higher.

 

[buklau]

C300A -> 450 (100x4.5)
P2 300 SL2W8 -> 450 (100x4.5)
P2 333 SL2TV -> 500 (100x5)
C366 -> 550 (100x5.5)
C533A -> 800 (100x8)
C566 -> 850 (100x8.5)
C1000 Tualatin -> 1500 (150x10)

Athlon XP 1700+ tbred-b -> 2.2ghz (200x11)

P4 506 2.66 -> 4.0 (200x20)

E8400 E0 -> 4.5ghz (500x9)
Q6600 G0 -> 3.6ghz (400x9)

My current chip is a 2500k 3.3 -> 4.6, can run at 4.7 but I need more than 1.4v...

 

[24601]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/174/4
it could be faster than the P2 at the same clock, can you imagine this
happening now, some cheaper CPU faster than the i7 at the same clock?





this CPU have a base clock of 1500MHz, what kind of laptop could handle the power and dissipation at 3GHz (same clock as the 3870k! apart from the IGP)?
running the 4 cores at 2.4GHz looked common, but I don't remember seeing anything higher.

You can overclock and undervolt.

I helped a friend purchase one and set up the overclock (3ghz) and did all the tests to make sure it was stable.

The key is to choose a laptop with a good cooling solution.

 

[cytg111]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/174/4
it could be faster than the P2 at the same clock, can you imagine this
happening now, some cheaper CPU faster than the i7 at the same clock?

With all ISA's and a 50+% overclock? Hell no. It looks like we get better deals all around when there is just a tad bit of healthy competition.

 

[SlowSpyder]

I bought a 1.6GHz AMD Duron that overclocked north of 2.2GHz on a slightly better than middle of the road heatshink/fan. That chip cost me under $40 if I remember right. In the days of pricey Athlon XP and Pentium 4's it was an absolute steal.


*edit - If I remember right, that's the first motherboard I owned that allowed me to overclock in the bios, the pervious were jumpers on the motherboard. It felt like such a luxury at the time!

 

[JimmiG]

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.

I don't know, 4.5 "AMD GHz" is closer to 3.0 to 3.5 "Intel GHz". I owned a Ph-II @ 3.7 GHz before, so I've been able to do some quick IPC tests. It wasn't not pretty for the AMD chip. It's not really 8 full cores either, though more resources are duplicated than on an Intel HT chip. A 4670K will give you better performance most of the time unless you only do massively parallel stuff.

2500K was probably the last "legendary" one. Intel 22nm overclocks have been too unpredictable and inconsistent. The 4820K might actually turn out pretty good if it uses solder, but it will also be priced much higher than LGA 115x CPUs and requires more expensive mobos. I think a "legendary" CPU has to be below $200 and consistently overclock by 50% or more on a mainstream mobo/platform.

Also the first Durons (650 MHz?) are missing from the list. They often did close to 1 GHz and were not much far behind the Thunderbird Athlons per clock.

 

[sequoia464]

I don't know if these are in the same league as some of the other chips mentioned here, but for a while AMD had a 960T Zosma available. As released they were clocked at 3.0 GHz - 4 cores.

A large portion of these unlocked to 6 cores and ran decently towards 4.0GHz.

Think I paid around $120 for the one I had.

Someone already mentioned the Mobile Barton - that was my favorite, I ran one of those for years.

 

[Sweepr]

I'd say Core i7 920 D0 was also a very nice chip. Mine was fully stable @ 4GHz 1.2V, a 50% OC on air. The first 4C/8T CPUs were released almost 5 years ago and still perform very well in current games and apps with proper OC.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

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

I agree, though I have to say the G1610 is also very competitive when undervolted. I have one here working at 0.5V idle and 0.8V loaded. Same ~15W max (idle 5W) power consumption, but dual core @ 2.6GHz...

My G465 wouldn't POST at under 0.728V...

 

[Sheep221]

I agree, though I have to say the G1610 is also very competitive when undervolted. I have one here working at 0.5V idle and 0.8V loaded. Same ~15W max (idle 5W) power consumption, but dual core @ 2.6GHz...

My G465 wouldn't POST at under 0.728V...

Yea well that's because G465 is constructed from planar transistors, while G1610 is 3D-based. But agree, it is also very competitive CPU on Ivy bridge series.

 

[richierich1212]

Any of the AMD AM2+/AM3 cpus that could unlock cores.
Had a Phenom II 550 and 555 that could unlock and overclock to 4GHz.
2500K for immense value and is still relevant today.
If there were better AM3+ mATX mobos out I would have easily picked up the FX-6300. It's so cheap for what you get.
Intel, damn you for locking down real overclocking on non-K cpus.

 

[Sable]

Another vote for the 2500k.

 

[Z15CAM]

Cost wise for the Bang, I would say the 100FSB 1.3Ghz Celron Flip Chip Taulatin. You could run the FSB up to 140 Mhz's (forget the Voltage but it was Hi) to 1,800Mhz's on a Vidded Slot 1 Converter Card on an ASUS P3V4X with VX 150Mhz SDRam. Now that is one FAST WinSE Slot 1 Box as I still have it - LOL

The Barton 1.833 and unlocked AMD Athlon Barton XP's ruled the Single Thread Processor era hitting over 2.6Ghz's on nForce 7N400 MB's. I still have a GA-7N400 Pro2 (rev2) running Win7 Ultimate SP1 32-Bit at 2350Mhz's 24/7 with 3GB's of OCZ at 2-3-2-5-1T with FSB at around 410 MHz's - Very dependable but long on the tooth for Multi-Tasking.

I believe the SB i5 & i7 K's will probably the last of the great O-Clocker's as most Enthusiasts seem to think with the timing increases of IB & HS running around 4GHz's at low voltages is fast enough for ToDays PC's.

Except for Mainframes and Servers, the day of the DeskTop are limited - We're going Mobile.

 

[FalseChristian]

I have 2 favourite chips:

1) 566MHz Coppermine (.180) Celeron that I overclocked to 877MHz which is an unbelievable 55% overclock!

2) My current i5 2500K 3.3GHz overclocked to 4.5GHz at only 1.275v! THis CPU is still viable today and may be for the next 5 years! I've had it to 5GHz stable but until I need that extra 500MHz I'll stick with 4.5GHz.

 

[Zor Prime]

1GHz AMD Thunderbird @ 1.4GHz. 40% OC. Damn nice.

Have a fondness of my old K6-3+ 450 @ 550MHz, king of Super Socket 7.

 

[TerryMathews]

If we're doing a best of thread, the Xeon 1600LVs at 3200MHz have to rate in here somewhere. I ran an NCCH-DL with a 6800GT and a pair of those chips for an embarrassingly long time. Honestly, probably 7 years.

Amazing value.

 

[canadiantrex]

this CPU have a base clock of 1500MHz, what kind of laptop could handle the power and dissipation at 3GHz (same clock as the 3870k! apart from the IGP)?
running the 4 cores at 2.4GHz looked common, but I don't remember seeing anything higher.

I've run my A6 llanos laptop at 2.8 for gaming perfectly stable. Of course this was in the winter with lower ambient temps. It also sucked down so much power that even with the power brick plugged in, it drained the battery from a ~50% charge to nothing in about 3 hours. :awe::awe: