Worst CPUs ever, now with poll!

[lakedude]

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

I bought a P4 because the SSE made the P4 the best for video encoding. Other CPUs took overnight to encode a video, the P4 was the first to get done in a reasonable time.

Now my phone can do that job faster on battery power...

 

[igor_kavinski]

I bought a P4 because the SSE made the P4 the best for video encoding. Other CPUs took overnight to encode a video, the P4 was the first to get done in a reasonable time.

There was something about the crazy frequency of Northwood (2.4 GHz) that made it feel frickin' fast. I remember seeing the MS Office XP installation finishing on it in less than 5 minutes and filled to the brim with envy coz it wasn't my system. I later got an Athlon 1.4 GHz for another dude but it lacked that feeling of being fast. The next memorable time I would feel that kind of speed was using a Core i5-12400. Before that, I had experienced Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad Q9300, Core i7-3770, Core i7-4770, Core i7-5775C, Core i5-8400, Core i5-10505, Ryzen 3000 series laptop, Ice Lake laptop and Core i5-11400. None of those made me feel like the CPU was a speed demon.

 

[lakedude]

...that feeling of being fast.

Back in the day I bought CPUs so often the speed increases were incremental and not really that noticeable except on benchmarks. Can't say I've ever got that fast feeling from a CPU.

The biggest jumps in a system feeling fast were from faster storage. I swore by the WD 10,000RPM Raptor drives back in the day. Later the SSD was by far the biggest jump for that fast feeling of any computer upgrade.

Also somewhere along the way we gained the ability to multitask while burning optical disks. Before SSDs and multicore CPUs it was very risky to do anything with your computer while burning a disk.

 

[DZero]

Thinking well... Mediatek has a share of recooked processors .
The Helio G99 line, the Helio G3X line and the Dimensity 6XXX line.

Despite all of them are decent, except the Helio G3X line, those are the same processors all over again and again and again.

 

[Thibsie]

Willamette is missing from this poll IMO.
Even K5 had a lot of merit compared to Willamette.

 

[poke01]

pity the poll was started in 2012 and not 2023/24, would have been so easy to pick 13900k/14900K

Is this is the only CPU ever made to degrade?

 

[Markfw]

pity the poll was started in 2012 and not 2023/24, would have been so easy to pick 13900k/14900K

Is this is the only CPU ever made to degrade?

I think so. I say its the worst ever.

 

[igor_kavinski]

So whose maintaining the updated list of worst CPUs?

It should be:

Raptor Lake and its Refresh
Rocket Lake
P4 Prescott

AMD Athlon The Smoky One

AMD Bulldozer and descendents
The unstable Intel Coppermine 1.13 GHz (https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-admits-problems-pentium-iii-1,235-3.html)
Intel Itanic
The Pentium with the FDIV bug

Did I forget any?

EDIT: Removed MTL on DAPUNISHER's suggestion.

 

[cebri1]

Jaguar, held gaming development for 8 years.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Jaguar, held gaming development for 8 years.

But it was still a commercial success of sorts. PS4 did well.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

But it was still a commercial success of sorts. PS4 did well.

And is the only reason AMD is still in biz.

I don't think Meteor lake should be on there. It's a good product, regardless of how bad Intel nerfed the fab process.

Athlon I am torn on. The lack of thermal protection, and how easy it was to chip the core installing a cooler, were major design flaws. I experienced both. I burned up a Duron 600 through negligence, told AMD exactly what happened, and still got a replacement. I had also chipped the corner on that one, though it ran fine until the meltdown. They did not have any beef over the physical damage either.

I bought a protective pad for the core on the replacement, and was meticulous in my methodology/checklist after that. I also was far more careful about equalizing pressure during cooler installation pad or no pad. Used a graphite pencil to unlock it and it ran as high a 1GHz. 40% overclock was pretty sweet. The overclock and lessons learned, along with the excellent RMA experience, hopefully make you understand why I am conflicted about it.

 

[igor_kavinski]

The overclock and lessons learned, along with the excellent RMA experience, hopefully make you understand why I am conflicted about it.

It was unfortunately a huge PR disaster for them, though. I remember that video went viral.

 

[Thunder 57]

And is the only reason AMD is still in biz.

I don't think Meteor lake should be on there. It's a good product, regardless of how bad Intel nerfed the fab process.

Athlon I am torn on. The lack of thermal protection, and how easy it was to chip the core installing a cooler, were major design flaws. I experienced both. I burned up a Duron 600 through negligence, told AMD exactly what happened, and still got a replacement. I had also chipped the corner on that one, though it ran fine until the meltdown. They did not have any beef over the physical damage either.

I bought a protective pad for the core on the replacement, and was meticulous in my methodology/checklist after that. I also was far more careful about equalizing pressure during cooler installation pad or no pad. Used a graphite pencil to unlock it and it ran as high a 1GHz. 40% overclock was pretty sweet. The overclock and lessons learned, along with the excellent RMA experience, hopefully make you understand why I am conflicted about it.

I remember installing heatsinks oon socket A. Not fun. Design wasnt great until later on where they put stops in to stop your screwdriver from slipping off. Never broke a CPU though.

 

[Markfw]

So whose maintaining the updated list of worst CPUs?

It should be:

Raptor Lake and its Refresh
Rocket Lake
P4 Prescott

AMD Athlon The Smoky One

AMD Bulldozer and descendents
The unstable Intel Coppermine 1.13 GHz (https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-admits-problems-pentium-iii-1,235-3.html)
Intel Itanic
The Pentium with the FDIV bug

Did I forget any?

EDIT: Removed MTL on DAPUNISHER's suggestion.

AMD the smoky one should not count. Who completely removes the heatsink from a CPU ? Only an idiot.

 

[igor_kavinski]

AMD the smoky one should not count. Who completely removes the heatsink from a CPU ? Only an idiot.

An idiot dared by an Intel user to remove their heatsink

 

[igor_kavinski]

your screwdriver from slipping off.

I hate installing CPUs coz of this. I don't have laser vision and CPUs should be simpler to install without needing screws. Someone wake up and innovate, darn it!

 

[DAPUNISHER]

AMD the smoky one should not count. Who completely removes the heatsink from a CPU ? Only an idiot.

*Raises hand* The graphite wore off, so I had to trace new lines. Sometimes even after doing it, the connection was not good enough so I have to go over them again and again until it did. I blame the pencils I had. Anyways, during one of those sessions, while booting to check if I could change the multiplier I forgot to reattach the cooler, it was only 2-3 seconds before I killed power, but that was long enough to cook it.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I forgot to reattach the cooler, it was only 2-3 seconds before I killed power, but that was long enough to cook it.

Typical AMD oversight:

CPU boots? Check.
CPU stress tests passed? Check.
CPU temps nominal with average heatsink and fan? Check.
CPU throttles and shuts down with no heatink? HUH? Who would be dumb enough to run a CPU without a heatsink?

OOPS.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I hate installing CPUs coz of this. I don't have laser vision and CPUs should be simpler to install without needing screws. Someone wake up and innovate, darn it!

Stock AMD coolers were tooless for a good while. Wraith Prism still is.

 

[Markfw]

*Raises hand* The graphite wore off, so I had to trace new lines. Sometimes even after doing it, the connection was not good enough so I have to go over them again and again until it did. I blame the pencils I had. Anyways, during one of those sessions, while booting to check if I could change the multiplier I forgot to reattach the cooler, it was only 2-3 seconds before I killed power, but that was long enough to cook it.

that does not apply to you really. It was not intentional.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

that does not apply to you really. It was not intentional.

I know. Just adding some context to what the hoopla was all about. I was far from the only one that cooked one by forgetting to make certain the cooler was both attached and the fan spinning. Because you could burn them up with passive cooling too. The lack of thermal protection was a pretty bad goof. You may not be able to make it idiot proof, but you can certainly up the difficulty level for PICNIC issues.

The bright side was that it taught me to never take shortcuts and adhere to best practices.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Wraith Prism still is.

Didn't know that. It still comes with something like 8500G/8700G, right?

 

[lakedude]

AMD the smoky one should not count. Who completely removes the heatsink from a CPU ? Only an idiot.

Yeah that was the prevailing theory of AMD owners at the time.

The guy who called me an idiot for not buying AMD burned his up...

I sent a pre-built AMD aystem to a friend. Evidently the heatsink got knocked off in shipping so the CPU burned up. UPS also broke the (EDIT: CRT) monitor so it got some rough handling.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Because you could burn them up with passive cooling too.

Did not know that. Wow

 

[igor_kavinski]

The guy who called me an idiot for not buying AMD burned his up...

Did he ever apologize to you?