Worst CPUs ever, now with poll!

[dark zero]

The single cores in-order Atoms have no saving.

A clear candidate for Worst design along the AMD E1-2100 or the C50 and the VIA C3.

I can see it even stuttering while running SNES emulator.

 

[Topweasel]

Reading back through this, I feel as a single processor the PIII 1.13GHz CPU doesn't get enough hate.

Released for over $1k. Already golden sample CPU's. Only gotten as far as to ship to like 10-15 reviewers. Was running so badly it performed like a CPU that was overclocked to far. Recalled and never relaunched.

 

[A///]

Reading back through this, I feel as a single processor the PIII 1.13GHz CPU doesn't get enough hate.

Released for over $1k. Already golden sample CPU's. Only gotten as far as to ship to like 10-15 reviewers. Was running so badly it performed like a CPU that was overclocked to far. Recalled and never relaunched.

Not quite. Intel shipped that after reviewers found a serious bug with the processor. They later found the bug themselves and sent a halt order to their OEM partners.

Intel Admits Problems With Pentium III 1.13 GHz: Production and Shipments Halted

We just reported our latest bad experiences with Intel's recently released high-end processor. While I asked Intel to consider the retraction of their Pentium III 1.13 GHz processors once more, I couldn't know how close Intel was to actually do exactly that. Read the full scoop on the situation.

www.tomshardware.com

CPU embarrassment: Intel recalls Pentium III 1.13GHz

CPU embarrassment: Intel recalls Pentium III 1.13GHz

www.itprotoday.com

What I remember from this period was Intel threatened to blacklist lower rung reviewers/sites if they kept pushing this then unconfirmed bug until they themselves discovered the flaw. Otherwise they had been shipping the processor for 4 weeks.

Customers who own a Pentium III 1.13 GHz will be contacted to either get some kind of replacement or a refund. Intel states that the number of end users with a 1.13 GHz system is rather small. Our own estimates are between 10,000 and 20,000 shipped systems. Intel did not quote a number.

That last part is very funny because I was one of those unlucky customers! Oh how we laughed at the store...

 

[Topweasel]

Not quite. Intel shipped that after reviewers found a serious bug with the processor. They later found the bug themselves and sent a halt order to their OEM partners.

Intel Admits Problems With Pentium III 1.13 GHz: Production and Shipments Halted

We just reported our latest bad experiences with Intel's recently released high-end processor. While I asked Intel to consider the retraction of their Pentium III 1.13 GHz processors once more, I couldn't know how close Intel was to actually do exactly that. Read the full scoop on the situation.

www.tomshardware.com

CPU embarrassment: Intel recalls Pentium III 1.13GHz

CPU embarrassment: Intel recalls Pentium III 1.13GHz

www.itprotoday.com

What I remember from this period was Intel threatened to blacklist lower rung reviewers/sites if they kept pushing this then unconfirmed bug until they themselves discovered the flaw. Otherwise they had been shipping the processor for 4 weeks.





That last part is very funny because I was one of those unlucky customers! Oh how we laughed at the store...

I didn't remember it being the widely shipped. Considering the trend of Review samples and shipping products 3-4 months later at the time I thought that number was mostly just maybe units shipped to their distributers and barely any if any at all made it to end user.
'
Part of the problem was Tom's hardware. Tom was a big Intel fanboy, even a couple years later stacking the deck against AMD in an uptime time test, had the Intel system fail miserably, blamed it on the Nvidia chipset and proceeded to use that as proof that AMD wasn't a good platform because people primarily used Nforce chipsets. Kinda of a bit of a side tangent. But its important because, him confirming that the "bug" existed was needed to get Intel to act. But he basically refused to look into it because it passed there test and took Kyle Bennett sending his and convincing to other sites he was working with to ship Tom their CPU's and force him to look at it. He then while giving some credit to Kyle and the rest, acted like he was the only able to confirm there was an actual issue and worked with Intel's fantastic crew that was caught completely off guard by the issue to start the recall. While Toms was the only site to have the pull to get Intel to listen, that had more to do with Intel's PR team then anything Tom did.

 

[A///]

I didn't remember it being the widely shipped. Considering the trend of Review samples and shipping products 3-4 months later at the time I thought that number was mostly just maybe units shipped to their distributers and barely any if any at all made it to end user.
'
Part of the problem was Tom's hardware. Tom was a big Intel fanboy, even a couple years later stacking the deck against AMD in an uptime time test, had the Intel system fail miserably, blamed it on the Nvidia chipset and proceeded to use that as proof that AMD wasn't a good platform because people primarily used Nforce chipsets. Kinda of a bit of a side tangent. But its important because, him confirming that the "bug" existed was needed to get Intel to act. But he basically refused to look into it because it passed there test and took Kyle Bennett sending his and convincing to other sites he was working with to ship Tom their CPU's and force him to look at it. He then while giving some credit to Kyle and the rest, acted like he was the only able to confirm there was an actual issue and worked with Intel's fantastic crew that was caught completely off guard by the issue to start the recall. While Toms was the only site to have the pull to get Intel to listen, that had more to do with Intel's PR team then anything Tom did.

My memory of those days isn't so great but I do remember being told on a now defunct forum that Tom's was to be avoided for such and such reasons but I don't recall any specificity to what those accusations were. Six years later on I mentioned Toms a few times and people would clown on the site. Up until now I didn't know the full extent of how bad Toms had handled their bias. 23 years later but oh well.

I'm not sure how many were shipped but the store I bought it from had left me a message about it. In those days the stores around here would take your info down. I didn't mind that process but at the time I was dealing with hardware failures as was common in those days and I'd been dealing with the rtm of ME at work for a month or two. Between 1997 and 2002 I was spending upwards of 15 hours a week after work at the store exchanging hardware that died. If you remember nothing was rock solid in those days. The only two devices I can say were rock solid were the smart and friendly burner I'd bought without thinking through in 99 and my first lcd monitor later on. I'd bought two models of Haupagg's cable cards, one of which I used to import home vhs tapes or watch them. Although I used it mainly to watch tv at the computer. I don't know if those are still a thing.

I did buy a few prebuilts in that era. One caught on fire, another took itself out in the most spectacular audio and visual fashion. I always have a good laugh when younger folks in this hobby complain about small but annoying bugs like the persistent USB bug on some AMD mobos. They've never experienced true frustration with hardware. In those days you could go to the pc store and look at harddrives, and if you looked at them with a mild glint in your eye they'd all turn into dead drives.

In the early to mid 2000s there were some component quality issues affecting mobos. I always wondered if that issue was extended to other hardware. I never looked into it. Probably because I spent so much time in the return lines.

 

[dark zero]

Reading back through this, I feel as a single processor the PIII 1.13GHz CPU doesn't get enough hate.

Released for over $1k. Already golden sample CPU's. Only gotten as far as to ship to like 10-15 reviewers. Was running so badly it performed like a CPU that was overclocked to far. Recalled and never relaunched.

Literally the Galaxy Note 7 of their era... now this is a new champion. The rest of them weren't recalled.

 

[Ninjak]

K5 does not deserve to be on that list, for shame! Cyrix 6x86 had worse thermals, worse FPU, more shady marketing, cache bug! Both were budget P5s, but the AMD part was actually respectable.

 

[dark zero]

Ive already mentioned this, but the worse cpus, ever, were AMD small cores, starting from Bobcat, Bobcat itself was not considered bad at their time because they were way better than the Atoms of that time, but it was really bad regardless, their cpu performance was below of the previous Neo budget cpus like the L335 and and igp perf was gimped due to single channel memory and with CPU cores not helping, perf was generally below Intel HD2000/3000 that launched that same year with the 2nd gen core.

But the worse came after that, AMD started to really milk the small cores and allowed OEMs to put them anywhere, the number of DOA 100% unusable e-Waste from Day 1 notebooks that i saw with the C-30 to C-70 APU was increible, the damage that caused to AMD brand is increible, and they never stopped!!! they keep this up for a few years until the small cores were dead. The last few ones, like the Beemas quad cores were not terrible, but they were still bad and the dual core Beemas were really slow regardless. And use considerable more power than a Gemini Lake.
They are still around, im sitting next to a box of Asrock QC6000Ms.... im actually suprised that after Ryzen AMD didnt re-buy all those chips that were still around and burn them.

Those small cores were an insult to everyone. Bobcat is the exception. But then those pieces of crap that can't even run an SNES emulator properly were flooding the market. Then comes Intel Bay Trail and literally made them rendered as pieces of the past.

 

[DZero]

I want to add another candidate and maybe they will be the All Time Heavyweight champions of the thread.... the Raptor Lake processors. Unlike the rest, those processors have a lethal CPU code bug that literally degrades the processor over time rendering it useless at the end.

 

[Thunder 57]

I want to add another candidate and maybe they will be the All Time Heavyweight champions of the thread.... the Raptor Lake processors. Unlike the rest, those processors have a lethal CPU code bug that literally degrades the processor over time rendering it useless at the end.

At this point it's certainly more deserving than some of those on the original list.

 

[Markfw]

I want to add another candidate and maybe they will be the All Time Heavyweight champions of the thread.... the Raptor Lake processors. Unlike the rest, those processors have a lethal CPU code bug that literally degrades the processor over time rendering it useless at the end.

I vote this way also. Nothing in that original list compares with these, as these will self-destruct way before the warranty goes out.

 

[CakeMonster]

We don't know how bad this case is yet though, I think it would be better to consider that in retrospect.

Seems most of these are criticized over the architectural design and disappointment in performance compared to expectations. The Raptor Lake case is different than that, for better or worse, and should probably instead be compared to other candidates with similar problems.

 

[lakedude]

Cyrix 6x86 had worse thermals, worse FPU, more shady marketing, cache bug!

Gotta agree that Cyrix was the worst.

Only bad CPUs I've ever seen were Cryix and early AMD before thermal protection was added.

Got a feeling RL is going to result in a ton of bad parts but I'll never see them because I'm retired and we bought AMD 7xxx last time.

 

[DZero]

Gotta agree that Cyrix was the worst.

Only bad CPUs I've ever seen were Cryix and early AMD before thermal protection was added.

Got a feeling RL is going to result in a ton of bad parts but I'll never see them because I'm retired and we bought AMD 7xxx last time.

That is the issue... how Raptor Lake was so screwed up in the execution if is the same of Alder Lake in terms of uArch

 

[igor_kavinski]

That is the issue... how Raptor Lake was so screwed up in the execution if is the same of Alder Lake in terms of uArch

How Israel saved Intel

Five hundred employees and guests crowded under a white tent half the length of a football field at Intel's Santa Clara, Calif., headquarters as Chief Executive...

www.seattletimes.com

They are in FULL control of Intel CPU architecture design. That's why Jim Keller couldn't finish his tenure there.

 

[Ranulf]

How Israel saved Intel

Five hundred employees and guests crowded under a white tent half the length of a football field at Intel's Santa Clara, Calif., headquarters as Chief Executive...

www.seattletimes.com

They are in FULL control of Intel CPU architecture design. That's why Jim Keller couldn't finish his tenure there.

Not sure what you mean? Keller and the design team didn't get along?

 

[igor_kavinski]

Not sure what you mean? Keller and the design team didn't get along?

Yep. The Israelis hated Keller and his guts because he told them straight to their faces what they were doing wrong and what they needed to do right. They are so arrogant and haughty that they didn't take his criticism well. They think they own Intel coz it was their Banias (Centrino) CPU design that saved Intel during the P4 disaster era. Being proud of your success is one thing but when arrogance creeps in, that's when the mind closes itself off to any ideas coming from others, even the good ones.

 

[DZero]

Yep. The Israelis hated Keller and his guts because he told them straight to their faces what they were doing wrong and what they needed to do right. They are so arrogant and haughty that they didn't take his criticism well. They think they own Intel coz it was their Banias (Centrino) CPU design that saved Intel during the P4 disaster era. Being proud of your success is one thing but when arrogance creeps in, that's when the mind closes itself off to any ideas coming from others, even the good ones.

With that screwup I suspect that the layoff might come from their team now.

 

[igor_kavinski]

With that screwup I suspect that the layoff might come from their team now.

I doubt that. It would just be hardworking folks losing their jobs. Bad managers tend to blame their subordinates to save their necks.

 

[Mopetar]

Yep. The Israelis hated Keller and his guts because he told them straight to their faces what they were doing wrong and what they needed to do right. They are so arrogant and haughty that they didn't take his criticism well. They think they own Intel coz it was their Banias (Centrino) CPU design that saved Intel during the P4 disaster era. Being proud of your success is one thing but when arrogance creeps in, that's when the mind closes itself off to any ideas coming from others, even the good ones.

That's the first time I've heard this and unless you have a really good source I'm not particularly inclined to believe it.

 

[MadRat]

SX and SLC versions of 386 and 486 rank right up there with NVidia promoting the releasing 64-bit memory channel Ti cards. Felt like a bait and switch for the prices.

 

[eek2121]

Raptor Lake by far.

The rabbit hole goes deep. These chips are going to likely see a 30% drop in performance with the microcode update.

 

[Panino Manino]

SX and SLC versions of 386 and 486 rank right up there with NVidia promoting the releasing 64-bit memory channel Ti cards. Felt like a bait and switch for the prices.

More like "GeForce MX", without shaders, that held back game technology for years.

 

[eek2121]

More like "GeForce MX", without shaders, that held back game technology for years.

I actually kind of miss the fixed function pipeline, but I am glad we moved on.

Graphics tech was so simple back in the day.

 

[StinkyPinky]

I loathed the P4's, especially the early SKU's. Dog crap slow, just awful performance.

However my vote goes to the entire Atom line. Garbage tier. They were designed to run netbooks and couldn't even do that simple job.