• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

CPU History

Associate
Joined
22 Oct 2012
Posts
1,089
So... is anyone going to confess to a Bulldozer CPU on their main rig? ;)

hmm - I must be really old..

8088-5Mhz

....

5950x RTX3090 primary rig

I did a quick google and that represents a 250,000 fold increase in transistors, on top of the one thousand fold increase in clock speed.

250 million times the theoretical performance (in practice probably far more). It’s staggering how far we came in those 40 years.
 
Associate
Joined
28 Mar 2006
Posts
670
Cyrix MX-PR233 (188 Mhz)
Cyrix MII-333 (250Mhz)
AMD K6-2 350Mhz
AMD K6-2 500Mhz
AMD Athlon Slot-A 750Mhz
AMD Athlon T-bird 1GHz
AMD Athlon XP 2100+ (1733Mhz)
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (2GHz)
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 (1.8GHz @ 3GHz)
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition (3.4 Ghz, can't remember what it was running at)
Intel i5 2500k (3.2Ghz running at 4.5 Ghz, still going as second PC)
AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (3.2Ghz @ 3.8Ghz)
AMd Ryzen 5 3600 (3.6Ghz, PBO)
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Mar 2015
Posts
4,549
Location
Earth
  • Pentium 2 (Family PC)
  • Pentium 4 ( Family PC)
Years of laptops inbetween at school, collage Uni etc After that few builds in parallel

Main Build
  • 4790k
  • 5960X
  • 7980XE - Still have, while it guzzles power under full whack, does 4.8 Ghz on all 36 threads so still a powerhouse for most the part (internet browsing these days :p)
Shared build
  • 5820k
  • 3700x
HTPC
  • 4690k
  • 8700k
  • 9900k
 
Soldato
Joined
27 Mar 2006
Posts
4,051
Pentium P60 (1995)
Pentium P100
Pentium P150
Pentium P166mmx
Pentium P200mmx
Pentium PII 300
Pentium PIII 500
Athlon 1.0ghz
Athlon 1.2ghz
Athlon 1.4ghz
Athlon 2400
Athlon 2500+
Athlon 3200+
Core 2 Duo 6400
Core 2 Duo 8500 (2007)*
Core 2 Quad Q6600*
i5 4670k (2013)
i7 4770k
i5 4690k
i3 4130
i3 4160*
i7 4790k*
i7 8700k*
Ryzen 2400g
Ryzen 2600*
Ryzen 2700*
Ryzen 3900x* (2020)

*Still own the cpu's

These were desktops. Had several laptops over the years & current one is a AMD Ryzen 3500u.
 
Last edited:
Associate
Joined
3 Mar 2015
Posts
385
Location
Wokingham
Showing my age:

Owned a ZX81, then Spectrum.
BBC model B at my friends' house, and CBM PET at school.

As far as PC;, many years later...

I was probably the first person in the.UK to play 'Doom' when it was released. I was in a Uni 486 lab, logged into the release FTP server.on the day, 'ls'-ing over and over until it appeared. I 'get' the file straight away, installed and played. My mates turned up and we played on the LAN, 4 player collaberative. It was mind blowingly great.
 
Associate
Joined
25 Mar 2005
Posts
2,197
Location
Torquay, Devon, UK
I really feel old.

Commodore 64
Atari 520STFM
Amiga 500
Atari 520STFM

486SXx25
Pentium 3

AMD 2000
Pentium 4 3.2
AMD 3500
AMD Opteron 146

Intel i7 8700
Intel i9 9900k

I returned last year to computing after an 8-9 year gap. More expensive now but improvements to graphics are quite substantial.
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Mar 2015
Posts
4,549
Location
Earth
That's a beast of a chip, what did you buy it for in the first place?

mostly simulation modelling at the time, benefit was that I could also shove in multiple GPUs for instances when tasks I was doing could work on 3/4 GPUs at once.

Now days just general more purpose use and gaming on occasions for which it’s still more then capable.
 
Associate
Joined
4 Nov 2007
Posts
2,376
Location
Scotland
Pentium 2
Celeron D 2.93ghz (in pre built pc - it was awful!)
Athlon x2 4200
Core 2 Duo E6420 @ 3.2Ghz
Phenom X2 550 unlocked to 4 core @3.2ghz (this was amazing - imagine a 6 core ryzen with the possibility of unlocking to 8 or 12 core!!!)
2500k (then 2600k)
Ryzen 2600
 
Soldato
Joined
14 Apr 2014
Posts
2,586
Location
East Sussex
  1. Cheap 286 clone (remember Intertan?!)
  2. 120mhz Pentium
  3. 800mhz Pentium 3
  4. Athlon XP 1700
  5. Dual Athlon MP 1200
  6. Athlon XP M 2500?
  7. Core2Duo something
  8. i5 something (skt 775?)
  9. Dual Xeon x5660s
  10. Threadripper 1950x (still running in my desktop)
  11. Ryzen 1700 (still running in my server)
  12. Ryzen 2600 (still running in my NAS)
Probably missed a couple and got some of the names wrong. Threadripper has been the most impressive.
 
Caporegime
Joined
17 Mar 2012
Posts
47,559
Location
ARC-L1, Stanton System
Amega 500+ (Loved it)

Intel Pentium 2 (Loved it)
Intel Pentium 4, 3.2Ghz HT. (Hated it)
AMD Athlon XP 3800+ (Loved it)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ (Loved it)
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T (Married it)
AMD FX 8350 (Meh)
AMD FX 9590 (Hated it)
Intel Core i7 930 (Liked it)
Intel Core i5 4690K (it was ok)
AMD Ryzen R5 1600 (Liked it)
AMD Ryzen R5 3600 (Love it)
 
Last edited:
Associate
Joined
25 Jan 2007
Posts
97
Main rigs:

Duron 800
Athlon XP 1800+
Athlon 64 3200+
Athlon X2 3800+
Core 2 Quad Q6600
Core i7 920
Xeon 5650
Ryzen 1700
Ryzen 2700
 
Commissario
Joined
16 Oct 2002
Posts
2,773
Location
In the radio shack
The first computer I owned had a 6502 microprocessor running at 1MHz. It was an Acorn Atom that I was able to run at 2MHz. Overclocking was in existence back in 1980! It was a hardware modification which was triggered by a physical toggle switch I had mounted on the back.

Here's the Atom itself and the switch.

SpPvRyW.jpeg

NFNHu0n.jpeg

Is that the earliest instance of overclocking on here? I suspect it is.

Also, for anyone who cares, here's a 24k memory expansion board that I built.

g039P7G.jpeg

I had two of them which I sold in 2011 and I really wish I hadn't.

I have no idea what other ones I've owned since then or what I'd have had directly after that. Genuinely not a clue what my CPU history is.
 
Caporegime
Joined
17 Mar 2012
Posts
47,559
Location
ARC-L1, Stanton System
The first computer I owned had a 6502 microprocessor running at 1MHz. It was an Acorn Atom that I was able to run at 2MHz. Overclocking was in existence back in 1980! It was a hardware modification which was triggered by a physical toggle switch I had mounted on the back.

Here's the Atom itself and the switch.

SpPvRyW.jpeg

NFNHu0n.jpeg

Is that the earliest instance of overclocking on here? I suspect it is.

Also, for anyone who cares, here's a 24k memory expansion board that I built.

g039P7G.jpeg

I had two of them which I sold in 2011 and I really wish I hadn't.

I have no idea what other ones I've owned since then or what I'd have had directly after that. Genuinely not a clue what my CPU history is.

That's awesome.
 
Soldato
Joined
22 Nov 2007
Posts
3,757
Location
Ayr, Scotland
Commodore 64
Amiga 500 and 1200 (1990/92)
Intel Pentium P60 (1993)
Amd K5 100 (1996)
AMD Athlon K7 (1999)
Athlon 64 (2000)
Athlon 64x2 (2005)
Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 (2007)
AMD Phenom 2 X6 (still have 2009)
Intel Sandy Bridge I5 2500K (2011)
Intel I5 4690/K still got both.(2014)
Ryzen 7 1700 (2017)
Ryzen 5 2600 (2018)
Ryzen 5 3600 (current).

Have an old AMD K6 add on thing which I still have brand new, never used, will try and find it.
 
Associate
Joined
20 Aug 2020
Posts
2,037
Location
South Wales
Had a few over the years. Thankfully some of my old chips are on 3DMark to help me remember in order :)

Cyrix MII-300 (what a slow piece of crap even then :D)
Pentium 2 @ 267mhz
AMD Duron @ 800Mhz
AMD Duron @ 1.3Ghz
Athlon XP 2100+ @ 1.7Ghz (Palomino)
Athlon XP 3200+ @ 2.2Ghz
Athlon 64 3200+ @ 2Ghz (ClawHammer)
Athlon 64 X2 4800+ 2.4Ghz (Toledo)
Intel Q6600 @ 2.4Ghz (ran at 2.4Ghz for most of it's life then upped it to 3Ghz I think before upgrading)
Intel 2700K @ 3.5Ghz (kept at stock settings)
Intel 3770K @ 3.9Ghz (kept at stock settings)
Intel 4790K @ 4Ghz (kept at stock settings)
AMD 1800X (had this a week and returned it, terrible gaming chip even at 4K, held my GPU's back)
Intel 7700K @ 4.5Ghz (kept at stock settings)
Intel 8700K @ (ran it at 4.7Ghz ghz all core)
Intel 9900K (ran it at 5ghz all core)
AMD Ryzen 5950X with PBO Enabled (my current and I absolutely love it :D)
 
Back
Top Bottom