Hello to the Red Team and all fellow AMD fans!
I'm pretty new here, and after doing some digging around the site, I didn’t quite find what I was imagining — a place to celebrate the history of AMD and the awesome gear they’ve given us over the years. So, I figured I’d start something myself.
The idea is kind of like a "hall of fame" for AMD, a space to look back on how far we’ve come, and the cool tools and tech they've brought us. I was feeling nostalgic, thinking back to my very first PC experiences, probably around the i386/i486 era back in the '90s.
So I went rummaging through my old boxes and dug up some of my very own ( and very shiny 😁 ) AMD hardware. Still in great shape too! Would love to see what others have kept over the years, share your classic AMD parts before they become forgotten treasures!
AMD K5 75Mhz - i586 STD
AMD K6 200Mhz - i686 STD
AMD AthlonXP 2000 - 2core 1,67Ghz CPU - totally unrated on time realse - they work fine at users reading ability to get what/where/how to set in hardware make stabilty.
I haven’t been able to find my oldest ones, like the i386-DX or i486-DX2 from AMD, they were basically 1:1 compatible with the classic Intel motherboards (PGA370, unless my memory’s playing tricks on me).
I’ve spent a good chunk of my life around this kind of hardware and software, got into it back when PCs were just taking off. I taught myself how it all works. Language was a bit of a barrier, but the bigger issue back then was the lack of access to information, no internet like we have today. 😁 Burned out a few good machines before I really understood overclocking!
This August, I treated myself to a birthday upgrade, jumped from the AM3+ era all the way to AM5 with a Ryzen 9 7950X. And wow... seeing that thing in action is just mind-blowing! If anyone else wants to share photos or stories of their AMD gear from over the years, I’d love to see it. It’s cool to see proof that we’ve been riding with AMD for the long haul.
I do have some around, but a bunch of them are still together in their system, not feeling like taking it out.
One of the AthlonXP's is out and so are some Phenoms. I'll try and take a picture of the things. Not sure where I stashed my thunderbird, that was a something back then.
However, the most iconic is the one on my avatar.
@AndewCarsten wrote:AMD AthlonXP 2000 - 2core 1,67Ghz CPU
There were no dual-core AXP chips - the X2 did not come out until A64.
Like @BigAl01 my first DIY built PC with AMD processor was a Slot-A Thunderbird 900. However I did not have that system long before hanging around some enthusiast boards and getting the itch to try overclocking (which required a supporting MB/BIOS and Golden Finger Device) so I decided to upgrade to Socket-A.
I built many, many other AXP, A64, Phenom and Phenom II, even some Opti, Athlon and Sempron systems. Ran a F@H farm for awhile, would have 4-5 systems running at once. I tried the A series Kaveri APU and was not impressed with Bulldozer, I ran my X6 1090T Thuban for several years before switching to Intel and did not return to AMD until Ryzen.
Yes sir, Tt Volcano 7 and Abit KX7 - the system specs are captioned on the pic. The Palomino cores weren't great overclockers, only got around 200MHz extra out of it, however best performance was attained with higher bus speed 1:1 with faster memory.
The later Thoroughbreds were much better overclockers, particularly the revision B chips. Got 700MHz OC out of a 2100+ Tbred-B on a volt-modded Abit KX7 (note the 2.03V CPU)
Later picked up a 2400+ Barton (which had twice the L2 cache) and got even higher. Check the memory timings. 😀
This was all before modular power supplies and sleeved cables, case cooling involved dremelling holes for extra fans and motherboards had lots of PCI slots which you needed for NIC, Sound, Modem, etc. cause nothing was built onboard.
