Fastest CPU from every platform
Posted by Divergent5623@reddit | retrobattlestations | View on Reddit | 31 comments
I was writing this out of my own curiosity and decided to share. I didn't go earlier than 486 (socket 3) because I don't have a lot of experience from that time period. This list extends through roughly 2007.
To the best of my knowledge this is correct. All additions / corrections welcome.
Socket 3 - Cyrix 5x86 133
Socket 7 (66 FSB) - AMD K6-2 400
Super Socket 7 (100 FSB) - AMD K6-3+ 550
Slot 1 (not including adapters to socket 370) - Intel Pentium III 1000EB (Coppermine) (I know technically the 1.13GHz existed, but it had issues and never had a public release)
Slot A - AMD Athlon 1000B (Thunderbird)
Socket 370 - Intel Pentium III 1400S (Tualatin)
Socket A - AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (Barton)
Socket 423 - Intel Pentium 4 2.0 (Willamette)
Socket 478 - Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.4 (Gallatin)
Socket 754 - AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (ClawHammer)
Socket 939 - AMD Athlon 64 FX-57 (San Diego) (single core), Athlon 64 X2 FX-60 (Toledo) (dual core)
LGA 775 - Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 (Wolfdale) (dual core), Core 2 Extreme QX9770 (Yorkfield XE) (quad core)
Socket AM2 - AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Black Edition (Windsor) (AM2+ and AM3 CPUs can be used in most AM2 motherboards)
Heavy-Judgment-3617@reddit
Hmmm... you really described by socket, rather than by platform, which seems kind of off to me. I may be the odd man out but I do not consider sockets platforms, I consider CPU not socket to be platforms. So... if we really were talking platforms... then skipping anything over Intel 80386 as it was covered already, I am aware of the following CPU platforms and top speeds:
- WDC 65816S (replaces 6502 and variants). Tops out at 14mhz (can be overclocked to 20mhz, and FPGA versions available that are faster). Used in systems like Apple IIgs, Atari 400-800-XL-XE, BBC Micro-Master, Commodore Pet-ViC-64-128.
- Zilog EZ80 (replaces Z80 and variants). Tops out at 50mhz. Used in systems like MSX, C/PM, Coleco Adam, and Tandy TRS-80.
- Motorola 6809/Hitachi 6309. Tops out at 5mhz (FPGA versions available that are faster). Used in systems like Tandy Color Computer and Tano Dragon computers.
- Intel 8080. Tops out at 3.125mhz. Used in some early C/PM systems.
- Intel 8085. Tops out at 6mhz. Used in some later C/PM systems.
- Intel 8086. Tops out at 10mhz (NEC's V30 drop in replacement was 16mhz). Used in some PC/XT clones.
- Intel 8088. Tops out at 16mhz (NEC's V20 drop in replacement was 16mhz). Used in some PC/XT clones.
- Intel 80186. Tops out at 25mhz. Be aware almost nothing uses this chip, it was not fully IBM PC compatible, it was mostly used in embedded systems. Tandy had one system I think that used it, as well as a handful of only partially compatible IBM PC/XT clone systems.
- Intel 80286. Tops out at 12.5mhz (AMD made versions up to 20mhz, and Harris made versions up to 25mhz).
- Intel 80386. Tops out at 33mhz (AMD and a number of others made versions up to 40mhz). This has TONS of drop in replacements made for the socket.
- Motorola 68060 (replaces 680x0 variants). Tops out at 75mhz. Supposedly this can be overclocked to 133mhz. Used by Amiga, Atari ST/TT/Falcon, and early Apple Macintosh.
- PowerPC 7448. Tops out at 2.0 Ghz. Used by Apple PowerPC Macintosh systems. Also used in some unofficial Amiga Systems (sort of depends on how you define official).
lordmogul@reddit
We probably could also look into Alpha, MIPS, IA-64 and POWER while at it.
And by architecture, the fastest P5 Pentium is the Quark X1000 with 400 MHz, twice of the fastest socket 7 P54CS and four times of the fastest socket 5 P54C
(and secretly what I wish they'd do with NetBurst at some point. On a modern node it should be interesting to see how it does.)
Heavy-Judgment-3617@reddit
While true, I was at the time thinking home platforms rather than high end pro workstation platforms. Those you listed were very rare indeed in the home, but they did sell a few to homeowners.
In total there were IMHO 5 popular workstation manufacturers that were popular and resilient. All eventually fell.
Acorn(Castle Technology) ARM architecture starting in the 1980's.
DEC with the PDP-11 in the 80's, the VAX in the early 1990's, and the Alpha, mostly in the 1990's.
HP with PA-RISC architecture.
Silicon Graphics with the MIPS architecture (they actually began with their 68010 workstations and moved to MIPS).
SUN with the SparQ architecture (they actually began with their 68010 workstations and moved to SparQ).
While there were others (IBM for example), none I really considered prolific enough to take on the above 5.
What is an interesting if odd fact, AFAIK is if you count the above, plus the ones in my earlier post then in theory assuming you could get enough ram for the systems, except for the PDP-11 and Motorola 68000/68010, all could run either Fuzix, NetBSD, or Debian (up to 12.12 anyway, when they dropped a number of older platforms)...
- The PDP-11 never had any of those three run on it that I am aware of, it topped out on the old BSD 2.8 I believe.
- The Motorola 68000 lacked an official MMU of any kind that it could be paired with.
- The Motorola 68010 technically could run Linux and NetBSD, IF it was paired with an MMU. The offical MMU for the 68010 was almost never actually used with it so I do not think anyone bothered to support it. The old SUN workstations used a custom MMU and could run Linux/BSD, I believe this is referred to as the SUN2 platform.
Heavy-Judgment-3617@reddit
Add on to the above, I realized for completeness sake I probably should have better broken down the Motorola 68k processors like I did the Intel due to their numbers in the 80's and 90's making them the primary rival to Intel for the years they were made..., rather than just lump it all under the 68060 entry.
- Motorola 68000. Tops out at 20mhz. Used in Apple, Amiga and Atari, among others.
- Motorola 68010. Technically, almost nothing in the home computer market actually used this chip that I'm aware of. A handful of graphic workstations apparently did.
- Motorola 68020. Tops out at 33mhz. (I have heard it can be overclocked to 40mhz and beyond safely, never tried it myself). Used in Apple, Amiga and Atari, among others. (Note that some modern OS's like Unix/NetBSD/Linux need the Motorola 68851 MMU chip present to work on this processor).
- Motorola 68030. Tops out at 50mhz. Used in Apple, Amiga and Atari, among others. Last 68k systems by Atari were on this processor.
- Motorola 68040. Tops out at 40mhz. (this was at the end of the line for the 68k being mainstream, they cancelled a 50mhz version). Last 68k systems by Apple and Amiga were on this processor.
- Motorola 68060 (replaces 680x0 variants). Tops out at 75mhz. Supposedly this can be overclocked to 133mhz. Used by Amiga, Atari ST/TT/Falcon, and Apple Macintosh upgrade kits.
- Motorola 68080 aka Cold Fire. Technically never released by Motorola, but was planned. Some group apparently recreated it in FPGA form for a attempt at a somewhat modern Atari system (called FireBee) around 10-12 years ago. I've seen a lot of arguments over the years if this should actually count as a valid CPU... but regardless, it works,
Divergent5623@reddit (OP)
Wow, most of these I had never even heard of before. Thank you for sharing!
Glum-Effect1429@reddit
LGA 1366 - Intel Core i7 extreme 990
Shotz718@reddit
The X5690 has the same clockspeed and supports DDR3-1333 officially. 990x only supports 1066
(I know they're both more than capable of 1600+ but out of the box it's slower)
Also, see X5698 @ 4.4Ghz (but only on 2 cores)
Glum-Effect1429@reddit
my 990x did 4.6ghz on water prime stable and 5ghz on water bootable with all cores enabled.
Shotz718@reddit
Talking factory speeds. The X5690 and 990x are basically the same CPU but the Xeon has out of the box factory support for DDR3-1333 and multiprocessor support, while the 990x had an unlocked multiplier.
X5698 was a CPU that ran factory at 4.4GHz on LGA1366. Fastest single core performance on the platform from the factory, but ran with only 2 cores.
lordmogul@reddit
Yeah, with the later platforms "fastest" becomes a question of clock vs cores. And occasionally also architectural differences.
Intel released 3.4 GHz Prescott chips for socket 478, but they are obviously slower than Northwood at the same clock (unless something makes use of the bigger cache, in which case the opposite might be true) and Gallatin got both, the higher IPC ofNorthwood and the large cache of Prescott.
Or on Super 7, the K6-2+ 570 has a higher clock, but the K6-III+ 550 has more cache.
Or the i7 5960X has 8 cores, but comes with 3.0 GHz base and 3.5 GHz max turbo while the 4930X has only 6 cores, but runs them at 3.5 base and 3.7 turbo. And the same applies for later HEDT chips. More coes means less clock. And the same platform also supports some massive Xeons like the E5 4669 v3 with 18 cores that max out their boost at 3.6 GHz (which obviously won't be reached when all cores are working)
And the boost behaviour of more recent chips also changes stuff.
Dcas_pcs_381@reddit
From what i can tell first glance this is right on. I'd say "maybe" make a differation from the 370s regarding coppermine and Tualatin... maybe since not all 370s can use the later ones, As for the pre 486 stuff, there was so many variables like the chipset, math copros, even the ram itself was a major factor... 386 had a standard socket, but most were soldered on, plus there was a different from the sx and dx models, (sx being 16 bit, dx being 32 bit) and had the power "boost" from the math copro..but the most powerful was the amd 386 dx-40. 286 had various styles, but i believe there was a 20mhz 286 80186 was so rare to find in a consumer based pcs, the 8088 had the nec v30 as a direct replacement and could hit 12mhz... There was a slot A, that amd had to answer the slot 1 but I think it maxed at....850mhz?
Divergent5623@reddit (OP)
Thank you for the crash course on 386 and 286 speeds! I had no idea it was that complex. I have a lot to learn about those.
Yeah there are definitely some motherboard compatibility compelexities that I didn't call out, like you said with socket 370. And yes, AMD did have slot A that I mentioned above. They went all the way to 1GHz with it like Intel.
lordmogul@reddit
Socket 370 is similar to some other Intel chipsets in that regard.
The server platforms are obviously less interesting and LGA1151/2011 aren't quite retro yet, but at least the LGA775 stuff is important to know.
Something like a 845, 865, 875, 925 or 955X will be limited to a Pentium 4, a 945 and 965 can't run that fancy E8600 or Q9650. Meanwhile any 30 or40 series chip won't run the slower Pentium 4.
And that is just the Intel chipsets. SiS, VIA, ATi and nVidia also releasedchipsets with their own limitations. But generally a board that supports 133MHz/400 MT FSB doesn't support 333 MHz/1333 MT FSB and vice versa.
crazycraig6@reddit
I looked up the eBay price of a qx9770… holy shit.
lordmogul@reddit
That is why getting an LGA771 Xeon with that little adapter sticker is a good alternative. The sticker swaps two pins around. Everything else is completely compatible with LGA775.
They also run at 333 MHz/ 1333 MT FSB Like the Q9550 and Q9650 at a much lower price. So a lot of OC headroom.
I have a Xeon X5460 that runs stable at 4.1 GHz (9.0x456 or 9.5x432) from it's stock 3.16 GHz (9.5x333), which would is already faster than the Q9650 that runs at 3.0 GHz (9.0x333) and on par with the unreleased QX9750
And there are the X5470 (3.33 GHz, 10x333) Xeon X5482 (3.2 GHz, 8x400, same as QX9770) and Xeon X5492 (3.4 GHz, 8.5x400)
Sadly the six core Dunnington chips run on Socket 604 and aren't compatible. Otherwise it would be possible to run some interesting 6-core comparisons with K10.
Divergent5623@reddit (OP)
Yeah the fastest is always going to be rare and fetch a premium on the used market. I think all of these are very expensive (if you can even find one) these days except for maybe the K6-2 400 and the Core 2 Duo E8600.
LXC37@reddit
Not always, some of them are more common that others. I guess it depends on how expensive it was/how many were actually sold.
Any "X"/extreme edition from intel is going to be rare. On the other hand 3200+ athlonXP is relatively easy to get and not sure about now, but a few years ago i got E8600 for like $10 from aliexpress.
AmplifiedApthocarics@reddit
i might have a E8600 sitting up on the shelf above me not doing anything lmao.
Deksor@reddit
you can run a K6-III at 400MHz on socket 7@66Mhz, also there's the pentium mmx 266 that's a great contender too
For socket 775 you should also consider that not all 775 boards support core 2 (and even those that do may not support all core 2s either)
Divergent5623@reddit (OP)
Good callout on the LGA 775 boards. Yeah, some of them only support Netburst based CPUs.
And I forgot about that embedded Pentium MMX 266! You think that it's strong enough to make up for clock speed deficit versus the K6-2 400?
Shotz718@reddit
There's reasonable debate on that choice. Unobtanium status aside, there's reasonable suspicion that it would be the de-facto fastest Socket 3 CPU. It was the most advanced (aside from maybe the Pentium OD), but the easier to find AMD 5x86-150 and especially the 160 would probably run quicker. The ALU was a little faster on these (at the expense of FPU, cache intelligence, and core design), and the higher stock bus speed means communication with system RAM would also improve.
Also shoutout to LGA1366. Fastest CPU is another tough one. The Xeon X5698 had the fastest clock, but had 4 cores disabled. The X5690 and i7-990X had the same clock speed with all 6 cores enabled. The 990X however, only officially supported DDR3-1066, while the X5690 supported DDR3-1333 officially. So my money would say the X5690 was the fastest CPU overall on 1366. Buy them now as they're already priced too high but at least they're still affordable.
Divergent5623@reddit (OP)
Thank you for reminding me about the X5-150 and X5-160! Noted above. I had forgotten that AMD made 5x86 faster than 133. Although I have never seen one of those on the used market. (I have seen one Cyrix 5x86 133 up for sale a while back.)
Deksor@reddit
The 5x86 160 was never really released, it was planned, and BIOSes show support for them, and they even got manufactured afaik, but all of them got sold as 133mhz chips instead, so it's also debatable if they count or not
Divergent5623@reddit (OP)
Noted. Thank you!
Shotz718@reddit
I'm reasonably sure I've seen 150s in the wild but can't say that I've seen a 160 off the top of my head
Deksor@reddit
yes 150 does exist afaik, but not the 160
nmdt@reddit
IMO if we‘re counting Cyrix 5x86, POD@83 is fair game and should have significantly better FPU than either
Shotz718@reddit
The 5x86 120 beats the POD83 at stock speeds. The Cx5x86 100 runs it really close. VS the 133 it's no contest. The POD does have a stronger FPU than the Cx5x86 but it's maximum clockspeed lets it down. The 100 is probably more common than the POD (since it was like half the price) and runs it pretty close.
The AMD X5 benefits from running the bus at 40 or 50MHz instead, and still can't keep up with either one.
thelargeoneplease@reddit
Everything I see is right (which is kinda awesome as i’m just finishing up now this project i’ve been doing since last Fall where i built 5x retro desktops- each covering the ‘flagship’ CPU’s and including new tech like DDR, DDR2, DDR3, or AGP to PCIe, IDE to SATA, etc. and the CPU’s you listed are exactly the same ones in each of my relevant rigs)- except Socket A had Thunderbirds up to 1.4GHz. I even have a garbage mobo in my collection from an old Compaq 5000 that has a mediocre-even-at-the-time 1.1GHz thunderbird.
Divergent5623@reddit (OP)
Very cool. Yeah a few of these platforms spanned multiple generations of CPUs like the original Athlons and then the Athlon XPs on Socket A.
thelargeoneplease@reddit
Yep exactly. But Socket A went SDRAM to DDR- and Thunderbird to XP, so the mobo’s weren’t technically inter-compatible in some cases. So the fastest Tbird ever (that I believe also supported SDRAM, so still legacy) was that 1.4GHz model. Only reason I didn’t build a Thunderbird desktop- which was ironically the entire reason I started the project; to rebuild all my childhood PC’s with flagship-era specs, my very first PC I ever built was a Thunderbird. But between how impossible it is to find a 1.4ghz anywhere, and because I really didn’t wanna build an SDRAM rig if I didn’t need to, I decided to go with the XP 3200+ on a DDR (and Nforce) motherboard, as I also really wanted an Nforce-in-its-heyday build, and the 2nd PC I ever built was an Athlon XP, so i just went with that as 3200+’s are more common to source and I didn’t want two Socket A builds