CPUs I Built PCs With In The Past - What Should I Build My Next PC With? 28 July 2024
3Been building and flipping computers since college. These are the CPUs I used.
💾486-Pentium Overdrive:
The computer I wrote my paper / thesis on went through these processors during writing it - got quite savvy building computers and selling them on during the second part of university getting my medical degree.
It was the database and spss/pc+ stuff that made me go the upgrade route 🥸🤓😎😁
💾Cyrix-PentiumMMX:
The next batch of CPUs I had in my systems, ended up with two systems and one build on the way to sell off that continuously kept me supplied with a newer system. Back then, the late 90s it was hard keeping up as CPUs kept getting faster quite quickly.
💾AMD K6-2/3: I frowned at the slot 1 pentium II and III CPUs which sort of felt like a step backwards. A lot of folk had systems that could be upgraded by the AMD-K6 II & III CPUs which were quite good value. Jumped from Intel to AMD 🫣😎
💾SLOT1: Eventually I caved and had Slot 1 CPUs. A 350Mhz Pentium II and a 650Mhz Pentium III. On the venerable 440BX Chipset on an !Abit and an Asus board.
💾Pentium III: Then the Pentium III Tualatin at 1.4Ghz on a socket 370 motherboard. I've had a few other lower and models comparable to the Slot 1 CPUs on the 370 socket as well. This was a beast to behold. I believe something quite similar at 750Mhz can be found in the original Xbox.
I remember that the Celeron version of the fast 133FSB Pentium III actually was the better CPU to get at some point.
💾Pentium IV: And I built a Pentium IV machine, actually got a Dell Optiplex Pentium IV HT that I turned into a hackintosh. The Pentium IV with its Netburst architecture was not as efficient and ran quite hot. I moved over to Core2Duo. Never had the QuadCore CPU - which I would have loved to own but at that time Windows XP 32bit (which had the best driver compatibility) only supported 2 cores at most. So no need for that for me.
💾Core2Duo-i5/i7: After and with Core2duo I actually had a few factory built machines, including Dell Inspirons and Optiplexes. Found the Intel offerings meh, there wasn’t much difference between the generations. The overclockable K variants made self building interesting again if only to upgrade my self built PIV rig at some point.
💾Opteron-Bulldozer-FX AMD: Then I got an AcerMiniPC with an Opteron, when it died I tried rebuilding a PC with that chip and got curious after the FX Range and so I built a few machines with that. including the FX8350. Recently got a ThinkCentre with an A12 AM4 chip.
The AMD although somewhat of an underdog was more interesting than Intel and that usually gets me. And there was something AMD looming on the horizon. GPUs and possibly CPUs.
💾AM4 AMD CPUs: Then Ryzen came around excelling price performance - the excellent socket AM4/AM4 plus upgrade path. Built a ton of these. Kept a fair few as dedicated rigs.
Much more interesting than Intel’s offerings and the CPU had pins. The Intel socket is the other way around and I have had a hard time not damaging that socket.
💾Ryzen and the Future: Then there are the builds I did with Ryzen & non-Ryzen AM4+ APUs which make for excellent little mini PCs with either desktop chips or the likes of the R 52500U mobile variants in pre built mini PCs
❓Not sure when to upgrade from the 3000/5000 CPU desktop series I currently use. It would mean a new motherboard but I need a significant jump for it to be worth it.