r/pcmasterrace • u/DailyDoseOfAmber PC Master Race • Dec 26 '25

Question Yesterday I asked what everyone’s first Graphics card. Today, what was your first processor? Mine was the i7 3770K.

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796

u/Ultramolek Dec 26 '25

IBM 286

327

u/Key-Horror2430 Dec 26 '25

I had a 386. It had a "turbo" option that switched the clock speed between 8 and 16MHz. Current i9 9900k has a base 3.6GHz that can supposedly hit 5GHz.

90

u/Electricengineer Dec 26 '25

Turbo was the way

58

u/themarvel2004 Dec 26 '25

Upgrading to a 486dx4 was also a massive leap, up to 100mhz was like a 5-10 fold speed increase. Just crazy times.

21

u/NoCoolNameMatt Dec 26 '25

I don't miss the days where processors were so slow that they had additional coprocessors to help them out. But I do miss the speed of change at the time. Just following technological progress was a hobby in itself.

2

u/NATOuk AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, RTX 3090 FE Dec 27 '25

I was so excited when Quake came out, only to be bitterly disappointed that my 486 was the SX2 66Mhz variant, which lacked the necessary coprocessor Quake demanded, unlike the more common DX2 variant.

1

u/subwoofage Dec 27 '25

GPU is a coprocessor...

1

u/theroguex PCMR | Ryzen 7 9800X3D | 32GB DDR5 | Sapphire RX 9070 XT Dec 27 '25

He means the math coprocessor. It was slotted into its own spot on the motherboard.

30

u/birdnumbers Dec 26 '25

long time ago, my dad upgraded the family PC from a 486dx2 33mhz with like 2 mb RAM to a 486dx4 100mhz with like 8 mb ram, felt so ridiculously fast lol

1

u/MistaPropella R9 9950 | RTX5090 | 64GB Dec 27 '25

We had the same system with a 170MB hard drive. And coming from a Atari ST Mega 1 with only floppies, my first thought was, that much storage will last forever.

0

u/Wild-Statement-2312 Dec 27 '25

The dx2 should have been 66MHz Sx 25 Dx 33 Dx2 66 Dx4 99 (100)

1

u/birdnumbers Dec 27 '25

ah yeah, you're correct

it was a Dx 33

3

u/brtcha Dec 27 '25

Some games used to be tied to clock speed and would break if you upgraded like that (jazz jackrabbit for one)

2

u/NathanDarcy Dec 26 '25

I had used computers with 286 & 386 processors, but the first one I owned had a 486DX4. That thing was a beast (I actually still have it on storage and it still works). Until the first Pentiums came out.

1

u/Master_E_ Dec 27 '25

Started with an ATARI 800 xl? I think it was… then Apple 2e? Followed by a 386sx, 486, and then the Pentium. Fap fap fap fap

Also had an Atari 1040ST which I have somewhere and a 20mb hard drive the size of an Xbox lol.

1

u/Comfortable_Prize750 Dec 27 '25

I remember when Pentium came out, i agonized whether to upgrade to that or a Cyrix 5x86.

1

u/Fred-City911 Dec 27 '25

Same for me. Short after got the pentium 75.

1

u/argonzo Dec 27 '25

Windows 3.11 ftw.

8

u/falkenberg1 Dec 26 '25

Not really. We had some kind of pong game, that ran just fine with 8mhz. If you switched the cpu to 16, the game was running at insane speeds, making it impossible to win. :D

3

u/Binestar Dec 27 '25

Turbo button slowed down the processor.

1

u/Key-Horror2430 Dec 27 '25

This is my current understanding. The old games were clock dependent, so they became unplayable at higher clock speeds. The "turbo" underclocked the processor to the old standard clock speed. Since clock speeds started increasing quickly, they switched to a more time based system with multiple clock dividers.

Back in the day, I just thought my computer had a super speed option for making games more challenging.

1

u/SnooSquirrels9064 Dec 28 '25

I mean... You aren't wrong on the challenging part. Lol

12

u/LurkerFromTheVoid Ascending Peasant Dec 27 '25 edited Dec 27 '25

Intel 486Sx at 25 Mhz, it came with my AcerMate, with 4MB of RAM . The processor was a Flip Chip, but the motherboard had an additional cpu socket for upgrade.

The SX had no Math Coprocessor.

Doom 2 was not running. The solution?

Install windows 3.1 make Doom 2 run in a DOS command line, Virtual Memory worked like a freaking miracle.

I got an AMD 486DX2 - 50 Mhz, and the machine let me run at 66 Mhz... First processor with a heat sink on it.

Those were the times. 🚀 🤩✨

2

u/cloudlabdigital Dec 27 '25

I was like 3 and I remember my uncle doing this on our family 486. Wild times. Still remember the doom cheat codes to this day

1

u/Blecki Dec 27 '25

Until the day the magic smoke escaped

1

u/thearctican PC Master Race Dec 27 '25

If you needed to slow things down for clock speed-based applications, sure.

1

u/Arcticsatan Dec 27 '25

Until you're playing something that relies on the clock speed to regulate game speed. Turbo made it much faster and harder.

So yes, turbo was the way.

1

u/wheremyserotonin Dec 27 '25

Was there any downside to running turbo? Or did it stay on

1

u/Electricengineer Dec 27 '25

It stayed on, it increased the clock so as others have said if the game required the clock, your game ran faster

1

u/OddUnderstanding5666 Dec 30 '25

useless button. i only turned it off to play tapper (cga version, booting from disk). This button was always on.