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What was the best CPU for overclocking of all time?

I still have my i7 920 that did 4.2GHz with some ridiculously low voltage up in the loft. Sold the motherboard but nobody ever wanted the processor.
 
I'll suggest my old Athlon X2 5200+ (45nm version). Unlocked to Phenom FX 5200+ X4 (including unlocking L3 cache not usable as an Athlon) and then overclocked from 2.3 GHz to 3.3GHz for a rock solid overclock I kept in my main rig for about 9 years. Cost me about £30 something. This was basically a Phenom 2 with an easter egg for a name when unlocked (thanks AMD).

So unlocking a dual core to quad core, unlocking L3 cache and a big overclock. That's hard to beat for added value. It pushed a £30 ish budget CPU up to the performance of a £140 CPU (Phenom II 955 or 965 equivalent). That's hard to beat.

I did briefly push it up to 3.8 GHz for the odd benchmarking run but could never get it 100% stable up there.

My thread about it was here: https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/t...5nm-am3-may-unlock-to-phenom-fx5200.18225299/

I did also have an Athlon X2 5000+ I unlocked to a Phenom FX 5000+ but I needed to add a fair bit of voltage to keep the unlock stable and hence it ran hot. My 5200+ was a much better chip.
 
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Great to read all these experiences. Truly hefty OC is generally a thing of the past, sadly.

The standouts are the 2500K (I think I settled at around 4.5GHz) and Q9400 (I can't remember the specifics as it was over 15 years ago, but I think I got it from a base of 2.6GHz up to 3.4GHz or so).
 
That’s a tough one because “best overclocking CPU” can mean different things — raw headroom, ease of use, or how legendary it became in the community. But if I had to pick the standouts over the years, here’s how I’d break it down:


  • Intel Core i5-2500K / i7-2600K (Sandy Bridge) – Honestly the GOATs. These chips made overclocking mainstream again. 4.5GHz+ on air was easy, and they stayed competitive for nearly a decade. If you were building a gaming PC in 2011–2012, this was the CPU to tweak.
  • Intel Celeron 300A (1998) – The OG legend. You could take it from 300MHz to 450MHz just by bumping the FSB. It turned a bargain chip into something that rivaled high-end Pentiums. Pure overclocking history.
  • AMD Athlon XP 2500+ “Barton” – Early 2000s classic. Unlocked multipliers, BIOS-friendly, and almost guaranteed to hit 3200+ speeds. Every enthusiast forum back then had people squeezing more out of this chip.
  • Intel Q6600 (Core 2 Quad) – The budget quad-core king. 2.4GHz stock to 3.6GHz was common. If you wanted to mess with voltage and cooling, this chip was pure fun.
  • AMD FX-8350 / FX-9590 – Not efficient, but if you loved pushing silicon limits, these were ridiculous. They hit 8GHz+ under LN2 and became world record holders.
  • AMD Ryzen 5 1600 AF – The modern budget overclocker’s dream. Basically a rebranded 2600 for cheap, and hit 4.1–4.2GHz without much effort.
 
Found some old email receipts & thought of this thread.

I'm fairly sure the Intel E2140 LGA775 was the best % over standard I ever had. 1.6ghz out the box, IIRC 2.4ghz was trivial & I ran it at 3.2ghz for years.
Honourable mention to the Athlon XP mobile 2500+, 1.8ghz stock, 2.7ghz stable with unlocked multiplier on the legendary Abit NF7-s nforce2 motherboard. I kindof wish I still had this.
 
lepharaon33 said:
That’s a tough one because “best overclocking CPU” can mean different things — raw headroom, ease of use, or how legendary it became in the community. But if I had to pick the standouts over the years, here’s how I’d break it down:


  • Intel Core i5-2500K / i7-2600K (Sandy Bridge) – Honestly the GOATs. These chips made overclocking mainstream again. 4.5GHz+ on air was easy, and they stayed competitive for nearly a decade. If you were building a gaming PC in 2011–2012, this was the CPU to tweak.
  • Intel Celeron 300A (1998) – The OG legend. You could take it from 300MHz to 450MHz just by bumping the FSB. It turned a bargain chip into something that rivaled high-end Pentiums. Pure overclocking history.
  • AMD Athlon XP 2500+ “Barton” – Early 2000s classic. Unlocked multipliers, BIOS-friendly, and almost guaranteed to hit 3200+ speeds. Every enthusiast forum back then had people squeezing more out of this chip.
  • Intel Q6600 (Core 2 Quad) – The budget quad-core king. 2.4GHz stock to 3.6GHz was common. If you wanted to mess with voltage and cooling, this chip was pure fun.
  • AMD FX-8350 / FX-9590 – Not efficient, but if you loved pushing silicon limits, these were ridiculous. They hit 8GHz+ under LN2 and became world record holders.
  • AMD Ryzen 5 1600 AF – The modern budget overclocker’s dream. Basically a rebranded 2600 for cheap, and hit 4.1–4.2GHz without much effort.
Click to expand...

I had the 300A, Q6600 and the 3770k all clocked up and awesome!
 
Kirby Wurm said:
Great to read all these experiences. Truly hefty OC is generally a thing of the past, sadly.

The standouts are the 2500K (I think I settled at around 4.5GHz)
Click to expand...

Yeah 25 and 2600K for me. The gains were massive even without water cooling. You get get close to a 40% increase on air. The only other one I can think of was the Q6600 G0 Stepping. I'm sure there was a dual core intel that was an overclocking beast too but I can't think of the name.

As you say overclocking isn't comparable nowadays. But that's not a bad thing as I don't have the patience to be in and out of the bios and running stress tests anymore.

I'm good with undervolting and sticking with close to stock performance.

I don't even bother with ram nowadays either, I just buy as low latency as possible for AMD, or as high frequency as possible for intel, run XMP or EXPO and call it a day.
 
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