Discussion What's Your Favorite CPU?

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jnjnilson6

jnjnilson6

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Feb 19, 2012
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What would that be? A 386, a Pentium (Pro, II, III, 4 and etc.)? A Core 2 Duo (Quad, Extreme)? Basically what is your favorite CPU from all CPUs and eras, be that Intel or AMD or VIA or any other brand? That's a pretty tough question because even I, myself, cannot provide an easy answer. There's the beauty of the old generations mixed up with the diamondlike modernity and calculation richness which melts away the cycles on the newer CPUs. It's all a turn of the dice.

Give it a shot!
 
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USAFRet said:
4.77MHz 8088
Cyrix 6x86
i7-4790k
Whatever I'm using right now
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Remember having to decide, way back in 2012, between an i7-2600K/2700K and i5-3570K and i7-3770K and i7-3930K and finally going for the 3770K which afterward I'd managed to overclock to 5.0 GHz with Corsair H110 water cooling. At that speed it was a little faster than the 3930K (at stock) on Cinebench R11.5. It was a legendary CPU and despite the 2600K could overclock more, it supported PCIe 3.0 which the 2600K did not support.

Before that I had an i7-2630QM (4 cores / 8 threads / 2.0 - 2.9 GHz) (Lenovo IdeaPad Y570) but I don't really count it in because the laptop's chassis was a horror and the performance in games too (there was a 555M 1 GB GDDR5 inside which ran with huge frame drops and frame skips that the ATI Mobility 4530 512 MB DDR3 I had before on an HP Pavilion dv6 2010eq did not have - sure it got lower FPS, but it ran as smoothly as it could (in spite the slurring choppiness of the Nvidia) and there were no uncertain FPS variations; talking about Crysis). So afterward I decided to build a desktop and then I got a Celeron G530 and afterward in 2012: 16 GB RAM and the 3770K (before that PC had 2 GB RAM).

Believe it or not, the AMD M300 (2 cores, 2 GHz) of the HP Pavilion dv6 2010eq ran Crysis in a worse manner than did a Celeron 420 (1.6 GHz). For example, with the latter you could run the game and play music simultaneously without a hiccup, while with the former the music skipped in a deterring and ungracious manner. And it's true that the Celeron 420 performs slower than a P4 @ 2.8 GHz HT at default clock, although I was able to OC my 420 up to 3.0 GHz without a problem (the testing on Crysis occurred at 1.6 GHz).

What can I say? I am probably more of an Intel fan on the CPU side and an ATI / AMD fan in the GPU sector, despite my current machine harbors an Nvidia GPU which I don't even use.
 
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Q9500 is my favorite cpu. Upgrading to it from the e8400 give some life to my old pc. Paired with a GTX 1650 GDDR6. It allows the pc to run some fairly new games - King of Fighters XV (released Feb 2022) and DNF Duel (released June 2022). Of course, an lga 775 is weak by today's standards.. for DNF Duel to run smoothly on Ultra, no multitasking must be done while the game is running - youtube must not be active.

The Q9500 also gave no problems, just put it in, no bios updates needed. :)

no lag even at full screen on my 27 inch monitor. Ultra settings.

 
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Tac 25 said:
Q9500 is my favorite cpu. Upgrading to it from the e8400 give some life to my old pc. Paired with a GTX 1650 GDDR6. It allows the pc to run some fairly new games - King of Fighters XV (released Feb 2022) and DNF Duel (released June 2022). Of course, an lga 775 is weak by today's standards.. for DNF Duel to run smoothly on Ultra, no multitasking must be done while the game is running - youtube must not be active.

The Q9500 also gave no problems, just put it in, no bios updates needed. :)

no lag even at full screen on my 27 inch monitor. Ultra settings.

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Those CPUs used to be 'The Bomb' back in the day. Glad you're using one today and it proves a dependable companion even in these later times! :)
 
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@jnjnilson6

not sure if true. I heard the Q9500 is the final Core 2 Quad to be produced. Released when the first i3's are already in the market.

the pc is actually semi-retired already. It's mostly used as backup storage for important files like family photos, party photos, photos of pets. And also a backup storage for games I've gathered through the years.

But having no active games on the pc is sad. Have a handful of games still active on this rig... King of Fighters XV, DNF Duel, Genshin Impact, Granblue Fantasy. They run fairly well as long as I don't try to multitask.
 
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Eximo said:
Athlon X2 6000 when that was new, coupled with my first high end GPU (8800GTS) was a huge upgrade for me over the mid-range stuff I had been buying.

Top marks for my Celeron 450Mhz slocket adapter though. That thing was hilarious (it used to fall out while the computer was running, still can't believe it never broke)
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Have you tried running Crysis on the GTS 8800 and X2 6000? Those cards were so fast back then; at least they tried to provide a pretty good experience in the aforementioned game.

I still think about the Radeon HD 5850 (a friend had one) and people saying that it could only play games like Far Cry 2 and that it wasn't really meant for demanding stuff. Thing is though it was an enthusiast GPU back in the day and even hardcore games like Crysis ran very well on it even at 1080p. So I personally don't know why people don't really match it up to the performance it truly provided.
 
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I did run Crysis at the time. It was playable, but I didn't like the constant 90C+ temperature on the GPU so it was not a regular game for me.

The weirdest one was the first CoD Modern Warfare, it ran terribly for no particular reason. One day I was going through the settings and turned SLI mode on, for whatever reason that fixed it. I can only guess that the 640MB version of the card, vs the 320MB version made it mismanage the memory somehow?

I specifically upgraded for DX10 at the time since I knew the upcoming UT3 was a DX10 title and there were a few other DX10 games on the way. I think I had a Geforce 6600 before that, so it was quite the jump.
 
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Eximo said:
I did run Crysis at the time. It was playable, but I didn't like the constant 90C+ temperature on the GPU so it was not a regular game for me.

The weirdest one was the first CoD Modern Warfare, it ran terribly for no particular reason. One day I was going through the settings and turned SLI mode on, for whatever reason that fixed it. I can only guess that the 640MB version of the card, vs the 320MB version made it mismanage the memory somehow?

I specifically upgraded for DX10 at the time since I knew the upcoming UT3 was a DX10 title and there were a few other DX10 games on the way. I think I had a Geforce 6600 before that, so it was quite the jump.
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If it wouldn't be presumptuous, what CPU did you run the 6600 with?
 
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jnjnilson6 said:
Those CPUs used to be 'The Bomb' back in the day. Glad you're using one today and it proves a dependable companion even in these later times! :)
Click to expand...

sorry for late reply.

created a video to show my Q9500 in action on games. :)

View: https://youtu.be/X101Nn-y8aQ


0:00 - CPU-Z to show Q9500, GPU-Z to show the GTX 1650 GDDR6, and HWMonitor to show that temps are normal.
1:50 - Need for Speed
9:58 - King of Fighters XV
14:55 - Attacker-chan!
21:12 - DNF Duel
 
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I7-930. I got so much mileage and fun out of that CPU. Great overclocker and has now been respectfully retired away to its box in the attic with my trusty P6X58D-E.

The 2500 / 2600k processors were the better chips and I remember having buyers remorse due to grabbing the 930 not long before their launch. Didn't regret a thing in the end though and I doubt I will ever tinker or get as much life out of platform again.
 
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@jnjnilson6

a friend in discord wanted to see, so I made just one more video with Intel Q9500 cpu. :)

this pc only has 4 gb of ddr3 ram, which is really weak for today's games. I was surprised that Q9500 can still play Street Fighter V.

View: https://youtu.be/k2jMHaJggG4


0:00 - 0:19 CPU-Z to show Q9500, GPU-Z to show the 1650, and HWMonitor to show that temps are normal.
1:33 - Street Fighter V - playable at 900p
4:55 - Xenon Racer - playable at 1080p. Sorry for my horrible driving skills. lol
13:36 - Guilty Gear Strive - playable at 900p high
18:29 - Black Tail - barely playable at 720p medium
 
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jnjnilson6 said:
What would that be? A 386, a Pentium (Pro, II, III, 4 and etc.)? A Core 2 Duo (Quad, Extreme)? Basically what is your favorite CPU from all CPUs and eras, be that Intel or AMD or VIA or any other brand? That's a pretty tough question because even I, myself, cannot provide an easy answer. There's the beauty of the old generations mixed up with the diamondlike modernity and calculation richness which melts away the cycles on the newer CPUs. It's all a turn of the dice.

Give it a shot!
Click to expand...
Intel 4790k
AMD 5950x.
 
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MEMOFLEX said:
I7-930. I got so much mileage and fun out of that CPU. Great overclocker and has now been respectfully retired away to its box in the attic with my trusty P6X58D-E.

The 2500 / 2600k processors were the better chips and I remember having buyers remorse due to grabbing the 930 not long before their launch. Didn't regret a thing in the end though and I doubt I will ever tinker or get as much life out of platform again.
Click to expand...

Agreed, my good old i7-920 purchased in 2008, back when you could buy a cheaper cpu and overclock it to save a few bucks. Using a Gigabyte x58 UD3R motherboard and at long last about to be retired as the MAME arcade backup pc. Running for 14 years without issue.

ML4fsXj.jpg
 
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