• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.
  • The forums have been upgraded with support for dark mode. By default it will follow the setting on your system/browser. You may override it by scrolling to the end of the page and clicking the gears icon.

Your favorite cpu

Ruru said:
Phenom II X2s were also dope. I had a 555BE which unlocked to quad and OC'd to 4.1 :)
Click to expand...
Are these processors still readily available like on eBay etc? I just might have to build a system...

ShrimpBrime said:
That was decent clocks, but a lot of people with them Phenom II duallies seem to clock that high. A 980BE from the box was so hot, 4ghz was pretty average. I managed to squeeze 6.3ghz on LN2.

AM2 through AM3+ is a spectacular platform. I recommend it for OC hobbiests. In fact the transition from s939 to AM2 was made very interesting by AsRock with AM2 Dual Sata II which you could get an AM2 Riser card and upgrade the Cpu and memory on the same s939 NB chipset. Which is probably one of the rare (est/er) pieces of hardware to find to date. I have long waited to see the board and riser card for sale, I feel I'll be dead long before I ever get a chance to experience that first hand. I did have the board, but blew up a FX-55 and the board with a failed volt mod. At the time, an expensive mistake. :shadedshu:
Click to expand...
If I'm getting a phenom II X2, what model do you recommend for best unlocking/overclocking?
 
jelloslug said:
Are these processors still readily available like on eBay etc? I just might have to build a system...


If I'm getting a phenom II X2, what model do you recommend for best unlocking/overclocking?
Click to expand...
555BE or 565BE parts would be the best 2.

Some Athlon II parts unlock as well.

Quick search, yes available e-bay at ridiculous prices. Ali-express like 15 bucks.

One thing to note, colder is better, there is no voltage limitation. Sometimes it takes additional v-core to get stable unlocked cores
 
john_ said:
All those 4 core Athlon IIs that could be unlocked to full 6 core Thubans and could hit over 3.8GHz with no more than 1.32V.

Edit
For anyone with a spare AM3/+ that can unlock cores, you are looking for GR
For example
View attachment 376045
Click to expand...
Good to know. I think I'm going to build a phenom II system because a lot of you guys are recommending it. Or at the very least start collecting parts. I remember AM3+ being awesome but never did it for max clock speed. I was buying OEM Phenom II 970 BE processors based on the zosma core. Which means these could unlock into a hexacore with a default speed of 3.5GHz, which was faster than the 1100T stock.
 
I remember my first AMD Athlon 1.67 OC to 1.93 with 2GB DDR 120GBHDD HDD WiNXp 32BiT Professional
 
lexluthermiester said:
THAT must have been a nice setup!
Click to expand...
It was very good, but that was also the era where things moved fast so that didn't last long for primary system. Getting around another 7 years out of it as a server box was pretty great though. I want to say the last configuration was 2GB DRAM with 2TB storage.

Original configuration: Iwill DVD266-R (I didn't keep this board long as it was very bad at handing any sort of overclocking), 512MB DDR with a GeForce4 Ti 4600 and was always running Windows Server 2003 (back when I was young and running betas before release).

Was fairly quickly upgraded to: MSI Pro266TD Master with 1GB DDR (I think it was running 300 so DDR2400)
 
ShrimpBrime said:
555BE or 565BE parts would be the best 2.

Some Athlon II parts unlock as well.

Quick search, yes available e-bay at ridiculous prices. Ali-express like 15 bucks.

One thing to note, colder is better, there is no voltage limitation. Sometimes it takes additional v-core to get stable unlocked cores
Click to expand...
jelloslug said:
Good to know. I think I'm going to build a phenom II system because a lot of you guys are recommending it. Or at the very least start collecting parts. I remember AM3+ being awesome but never did it for max clock speed. I was buying OEM Phenom II 970 BE processors based on the zosma core. Which means these could unlock into a hexacore with a default speed of 3.5GHz, which was faster than the 1100T stock.
Click to expand...
Another thing to know is that (at least some) Athlon II X3 CPUs have disabled L3 cache IIRC. :)

lexluthermiester said:
THAT must have been a nice setup!
Click to expand...
Tualatin was maybe even too good back in the time, since it totally wiped the floor with the slow Willamette P4s. Hell, even Celerons weren't that much cut-down in the Tualatin generation.
 
Celeron 266 @ 448, Celeron 300A @ 464/504, Duron 1200 was solid, P4 2.4C oc'ed to 2.4 ghz, P4 1.8A oced, etc etc

Opteron 148 Delidded oc'ed (had a air world record for a bit back in 05).

Tbred 2400+....Sandy Bridge.... just some throwing out there lots of others too.
 
Shuttlepro83 said:
Celeron 266 @ 448, Celeron 300A @ 464/504, Duron 1200 was solid, P4 2.4C oc'ed to 2.4 ghz, P4 1.8A oced, etc etc

Opteron 148 Delidded oc'ed (had a air world record for a bit back in 05).

Tbred 2400+....Sandy Bridge.... just some throwing out there lots of others too.
Click to expand...
A lot of classics there, brings back some memories.
 
Honestly, I would say my Opteron 165 when I still had it.
 
9950X3D as soon as I can get one. But Seriously Folks, the 5950X IS a jewel in spite of the fear mongering about heat at 120 Watts, SHE has performed magnificently in my configuration for about 4 years and yes air-cooled with Noctua Chromax black. And the 7950X isn't bad neither and a slight better than the 9800X3D. Real Happy with AMD myself for 20+ years.
 
We're setup for 170W processor so we're going to find out. This EXTREME board should handle a 9950X3D. If Flight Simulation falls into "Gaming" okay. Sometimes I think the 128GB Memory is the reason the 5950X runs the sim so well. 7950X even better on EXTREME board, DDR5, 4090 pretty much kicks butt in the sim. DCS is overwhelmingly awesome. Even my Captain buddy is amazed at the graphics considering he uses an airline level of simulators.
 
Probably have to be my 3570k. That thing lasted me 10 years. Now with intel I spend my time wondering how many hours I have have left (okay not really- but its clear the march of progress has forced durability to take a lesser role. Anyway that thing was with me for a decade. A decade! And when I sold it, it was still a decent gaming machine, I showed it off playing doom eternal at 1440p and won the customer over pretty fast. As far as I know its still being used today ( How long you think I can say that after point of purchase before its likely not true anymore? I think I sold it in 21 or 22 can't remember exactly). But it was a casual gamer at at 1080p but at the time I didn't quite see the train that was the ps5 coming towards us. So idk how much use it is now. I'm sure its still a great home workstation, multimedia machine and of course emulation machine (except for ps3 - actually that was the reason I upgraded).
 
My Sandy was bought Jan 2011 at release and lasted me until 2021. This was at 5 ghz on air.
 
iameatingjam said:
Probably have to be my 3570k. That thing lasted me 10 years. Now with intel I spend my time wondering how many hours I have have left (okay not really- but its clear the march of progress has forced durability to take a lesser role. Anyway that thing was with me for a decade. A decade! And when I sold it, it was still a decent gaming machine, I showed it off playing doom eternal at 1440p and won the customer over pretty fast. As far as I know its still being used today ( How long you think I can say that after point of purchase before its likely not true anymore? I think I sold it in 21 or 22 can't remember exactly). But it was a casual gamer at at 1080p but at the time I didn't quite see the train that was the ps5 coming towards us. So idk how much use it is now. I'm sure its still a great home workstation, multimedia machine and of course emulation machine (except for ps3 - actually that was the reason I upgraded).
Click to expand...

I've got a 3770K down the basement that's on a Z77 board dual booting Windows 7 and Windows 10 (both Pro, 64 bit), and boots a third time (via switching drives in BIOS) to a separate SSD running 32-bit XP. It's sort of a catch-all multi-purpose rig that runs older games, the application for my SDR, and a ZoomFloppy for managing Commodore 64 disk images. Took forever to get all of these things to play nice, but it was worth it. Great CPU.
 
For me it's the AMD Athlon FX 8350 and FX 6300.They were both inexpensive at the time they were both easy overclocked cpu's. Then it would be my current the Ryzen 5700x non 3D. This thing is so underrated and fast. Been considering getting the 5800X3D but now sold out. Then the 5700X3D but after much research I don't want or need it. I am so happy with this cpu.
 
Last edited:
my favorite CPU is my core i7 2600 why its because I've used it for a year or 2 maybe more its ran everything I've needed it to multiple VMs in modern VMbox and in sun xVM virtual box and in vmware player and in vmware workstation pro it runs basically every os I've ran Linux windows 7 windows server 2008r2 windows Vista windows 10 windows 11 windows server 2025 insider preview windows nt 3.51 and windows server 2003 data center x64 edition its all run fine 11 and server 2025 did need patches to run on the i7 since it was technically unsupported hardware but after the patches it ran fine 2003 2008r2 nt3.51 and 10 ran great with no patches but were not officially supported so it runs basically anything its run the games I play mainly Minecraft and leaf blower revolution and emulators to play older games and all around has been a good chip just don't touch the ihs while its running I've burned my self 1 too many times on a 95w i7.
 
Last edited:
Personally, the Q6600

Back in 2007 i could only watch some videos of it running Pro Street, Crysis and Half-life 2 without stuttering nearly as much as my P4 630.

Once i got hands in one after i replaced a Pentium Dual Core, Goddamn, that was water to wine transformation.
Ran really cold on a NZXT Havik 140 and i pushed that guy to around 3.8Ghz on all cores with little volt bump needed.

Just loved that CPU so much, sad i had to sell it a few years later
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top