Gaming computers are subjective depending on the year and game. As you found out the year of release versus the year of best gaming is a big difference.

Is this about the situation in the states, the worldwide situation or the individual countries ? Or is it more hypothetical ?

Or about the use in professional fields ? Laboratories, CAD/CAM, workstations, high-end file servers in companies etc ? 😀

Personally, I haven't even heard of the Pentium/586 in daily life before the late 90s.

And my games up until ~2000 asked for a Pentium 75, at the very worst, but also ran on fast 386/486es.
The shareware and freeware scene was different in terms of specs, I suppose.

I remember, 80386 systems with tiny Baby AT motherboards were still being sold up until 1995, at least, I believe.

And I am remembering 1992 for being the hey day of the 80286 (or rather, its last hurray!). That's when Windows 3.1 with thousands of new 16-Bit applications
blew new life into the PC/AT platform, also.

Starting with 1993 and DOS4GW, both the 386/486 appeared on the "minimum requirements" labels on more and more big boxes.

A Pentium 133 in 1995..? Amazing. That's when people in my neighborhood dreamed of acquiring a quick 486, still.
A first gen Pentium 60/66 would have been somewhat great back then, already.

Anyway, I must ask my dad. I was so young back then.
He sold and repaired such things back then.. 😃

Edit: Just checked, the Amstrad Mega PC, a "gaming PC" from 1993 had an" 32-bit Intel 80386SX @ 25 MHz" and a
"Motorola 68000 @ 7.14 MHz"..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_Mega_PC

Horun wrote on 2022-11-05, 03:37:

Gaming computers are subjective depending on the year and game. As you found out the year of release versus the year of best gaming is a big difference.

Sure, but that's why I'm asking the question. If a person was transported back to, say, 1986 and had to put together a sweet gaming rig, what would they use?

It's also valid that maybe a single system wouldn't cover all bases and one might need 2 or 3 different computers.

There's also a philosophical problem, I suppose. Does newer/faster always equal "better" ?
What if a high-end PC has compatibility issues or cannot play certain games as intended ?

Some games in the early 90s were coded with undocumented 486 instructions that didn't work on a 586 anymore.
Thus, patches were required.

Likewise, self-modifying code caused trouble with anything past the 80386.
That was a problem with demoscene productions, I assume.

Then, the 586 slowly introduced ATX specs and the APIC, including a new timer.
Which all in all changed the basic architecture of the AT platform.
Weitek co-processors were nolonger installable on 586 motherboards, also.

Jo22 wrote on 2022-11-05, 15:46:

Is this about the situation in the states, the worldwide situation or the individual countries ? Or is it more hypothetical ?

Hypothetical and general.

Imagine you were transported to a specific year in the past and had the task of putting together a gaming computer (or computers). What would you assemble for that particular given year?

A Pentium 133 in 1995..? Amazing. That's when people in my neighborhood dreamed of acquiring a quick 486, still.
A first gen Pentium 60/66 would have been somewhat great back then, already.

For 1993 onward I'm basing this on what was considered a high end gaming rig of the time. This was also around the time Falcon Northwest started advertising their gaming rigs, so I'm putting together specs based largely around those and other similar advertised systems.

Edit: Just checked, the Amstrad Mega PC, a "gaming PC" from 1993 had an" 32-bit Intel 80386SX @ 25 MHz" and a
"Motorola 68000 @ 7.14 MHz"..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_Mega_PC

Interesting that Wikipedia article notes it was outdated by the time of of its release. 1993 really needed a 486 era system, especially with Doom releasing in that year.

Attached is a Falcon Northwest ad from July 1993. Their fastest system was a 486DX2-66.

If I remember correctly, our family got a 486 system late 1993 or maybe early 1994. But I definitely remember running Doom at that time on our home computer. IIRC it was a 486 DX-40 with a Cyrix processor.

Jo22 wrote on 2022-11-05, 16:01:

There's also a philosophical problem, I suppose. Does newer/faster always equal "better" ?
What if a high-end PC has compatibility issues or cannot play certain games as intended ?

That's why I'm looking at this on a per year basis.

Issues with compatibility and especially backwards compatibility will always be there. For example if I'm buying a 386 gaming rig in 1990, I'm not expecting that will run speed limited games coded for an original XT 4.77 MHz processor.

What I am expecting is that it should cover games available in 1990 and maybe at least a couple years prior, and run them more or less as intended.

This discussion brings up
what was the cutting edge to consumers in a given year?

Harris had 25mhz 286’s sampling in low volumes in 1987, but did anyone actually get one that year?

Likewise 6mhz 8088/8086 existed right in 1981, but did anyone use them?
8mhz existed in 1983 and an early not ibm compatible 286 was on the market , how common though?

You have the leading edge, test markets and mainstream low/high volume

I’m not sure how well those things were mapped out back then.

Using Ideal to mean running contemporary games well, not _the fastest_:

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-11-05, 03:12:

1983: 1984: 1985: 1986: […]
Show full quote

1983:
1984:
1985:
1986:

c64 or NES, second place 8bit Atari. Users of other platforms persevered with severe Stockholm syndrome thru color clash, beeps, boops and single digit fps animation updates.

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-11-05, 03:12:

1987: Amiga 500 (?)
1988:
1989:

yes, all the way to ~1990 Amiga was king, 3-5 times cheaper than PC, hardware scrolling, fantastic audio. Couldnt do 3D tho. Second place still C64/NES/8bit atari. PC was a CGA joke.

1990: 286 12-16 / 1MB ram / VGA finally got cheap enough for home / adlib
F29 Retaliator, Test Drive 3, Red Baron. We got true 3d 😀

1991: little more mhz and maybe 386sx / maybe 1MB more ram / VGA / adlib or maybe Sound Blaster
Very little SB support. Not much using more than 1MB ram. Not much needing faster CPU.
Second place Sega Genesis(Mega Drive) for 2D games. Amiga on life support.

1992: flood of cheap Am386DX, 486SX / 4 MB ram / VGA / Sound Blaster
Wolf 3d, Ultima Underworld, Dune 2, Stunt Island, Alone in the Dark
SNES joins Genesis as 2D console platform.

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-11-05, 03:12:

1993: 486 DX2-66 / 16 MB RAM / Tseng ET4000

1993: 486 DX2-66 / 8 MB RAM / VLB VGA

The Doom year. End of Amiga.
8MB ram, ~nothing used more until Win95 release. Graphic chip brand wasnt that important as long as you got VLB, even worst VLB cards did >10MB/s transfers making CPU the bottleneck.
Killer game of the year, as in killing all PCs with requirements, was Strike Commander demanding not yet manufactured CPUs 😀

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-11-05, 03:12:

1994: Pentium 100 / 16 MB RAM / ?

1994: DX2-80 DX4-100 P60 / 8MB ram / whatever PCI

First 3.3V Pentiums were ridiculously expensive. P60 on the other hand could be build for IntelDX4 money. P100 was only in reach of business customers for almost a ~year. VGA brand didnt matter much as long as PCI. No games optimized for FPU meant 486 was just fine.
DX2-66 was perfectly serviceable if you consider games up to December 1994:
Doom
Doom2
Heretic
System Shock
Quarantine
NASCAR Racing
IndyCar Racing
Network Q RAC Rally
CyberRace
Raptor
Beneath a Steel Sky
Under a Killing Moon
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Little Big Adventure
Ultima Underworld 1 and 2
The 7th Guest
Mortal Kombat
UFO: Enemy Unknown
Jagged Alliance
Warcraft
The Settlers
Syndicate
Transport Tycoon
SimCity 2000
Star Wars: TIE Fighter
Star Wars: X-Wing
Star Wars: Rebel Assault
Wing Commander III
TFX
NBA Live 95

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-11-05, 03:12:

1995: Pentium 133 / 16 MB RAM / S3 Trio 64 V+

yep

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-11-05, 03:12:

1996: Pentium 200 / 32 MB RAM / S3 Virge & 3DFX Voodoo

1996: Pentium 166 / 16 MB RAM / whatever PCI

Year of Quake. Death to all 486 and AMD/Cyrix clones. 166 MHz and 16MB was just fine. Too early for 3dfx, no glide games in 1996.
Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, Civilization II, Command & Conquer

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-11-05, 03:12:

1997: Pentium II-300 / 64 MB RAM / ?

1997: Pentium 200 MMX / 32 MB RAM / whatever PCI & 3DFX Voodoo or RIVA 128
Fallout, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, Blood, Age of Empires, Broken Sword II, Red Alert, Diablo

1998: Celeron 300@450 or 4-6 times more expensive full Pentium 2 / 32 MB RAM / whatever PCI & Voodoo2 or RIVA TNT
Quake 2, Half Life, Unreal, Starcraft

1999: Celeron 366@550 or 4-6 times more expensive full Pentium 3 / 32 MB RAM / Voodoo3 or RIVA TNT2
System Shock 2, Homeworld, Medal of Honor, Driver, Need for Speed 4, Thief

2000: ~1GHz overclocked Athlon/Duron/Celeron or P3 / 64 MB RAM / GeForce 256 or Voodoo5
Unreal Tournament, Quake 3, Colin McRae Rally 2

rmay635703 wrote on 2022-11-05, 18:50:

You have the leading edge, test markets and mainstream low/high volume

I’m not sure how well those things were mapped out back then.

Most of the performance computing stuff was aimed at business users. It's easy to find hardware reviews and performance comparisons in old issues of PC Magazine going to back the 1980s.

Conversely computer gaming magazines didn't talk about hardware much except for things like flight sticks and maybe sound cards.

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-11-05, 21:52:

rmay635703 wrote on 2022-11-05, 18:50:

You have the leading edge, test markets and mainstream low/high volume

I’m not sure how well those things were mapped out back then.

Most of the performance computing stuff was aimed at business users. It's easy to find hardware reviews and performance comparisons in old issues of PC Magazine going to back the 1980s.

Conversely computer gaming magazines didn't talk about hardware much except for things like flight sticks and maybe sound cards.

Sort of but not really.

The Harris 25mhz 286 was the ultimate soft launch and no big name brands used their CPUS

Finding a real launch date for it is difficult.

This is similar to the earlier 12.5mhz Intel 286 that launched alongside the 10mhz 286, it existed on paper but you couldn’t find them until years later when assumably they were cheap.

rmay635703 wrote on 2022-11-05, 23:11:

Sort of but not really.

The Harris 25mhz 286 was the ultimate soft launch and no big name brands used their CPUS

Finding a real launch date for it is difficult.

From what I can dig up from references in PC Magazine, it looks like it was in Q3 of 1989.

PC Magazine references Harris announcing were going to start producing said chips in 1989 in their June 1989 issue (page 176). And PC Magazine further makes reference to the availability of 25 MHz Harris 286 chips in their Aug '89 issue (page 104).

A lot of the faster 286 systems they tested back then seemed to use Harris chips (though possibly rebadged in some cases).

Reading these old article is kind of fascinating because it mirrors some of the types of discussions of processor speed, architecture, overclocking, etc., that we see from modern gaming sources. Except back then it was in business oriented magazines, not gaming ones.

Yeah, many home users did not get a 286 until 1991-1992 due to prices dropping and computers getting more into the home markets. A lady friend bought her 286-12 w/4Mb ram and VGA for herself as a late Christmas 1991 present in early 1992 but due to circumstances could not pick it up for a week due to the monitor being out of stock at purchase time (I remember well because I went with her to load up the stuff in her car and set it up at her home) and a 386SX-16 was near double the 286-12 at that time....
Release dates versus people having them at home for the 8088 thru 486 were sometimes years apart........just saying. With Pentium 200 and up pretty much release dates + a few to 6 months were becoming more normal for home users.
As an early adopter I built a P.Pro-200 in Feb 1996 (still have the invoice for parts) which was only a few months after release.

I guess for 1984 you could include the IBM PCjr with kings quest being the killer app?

I dont remember gaming on PCs to be really a thing in the 80s. Back then it was all about amigas and comodores and NES and like saga master system. We did have a Atari but didn't play it that much. Then early 90s PC gaming became a thing for me with games like Wolfenstien 3d. I played the hell out of red barron as a kid one summer. Then SNES came out and I was honestly playing that more than anything else at the time.

Warlord wrote on 2022-11-06, 06:41:

I dont remember gaming on PCs to be really a thing in the 80s. Back then it was all about amigas and comodores and NES and like saga master system. We did have a Atari but didn't play it that much. Then early 90s PC gaming became a thing for me with games like Wolfenstien 3d. I played the hell out of red barron as a kid one summer. Then SNES came out and I was honestly playing that more than anything else at the time.

That's how it was here in Europe, at least. But
the USA and USSR of the 80s were different, I suppose.
Commodore wasn't relevant over there, except for online services like PlayNet/Q-Link.

Users over the big pond had their PET, TRS-80, Apple II, Macintoshs and Osborne's.. 😉 And IBM PCs, of course.

With the exception of the NES (and old 2600 consoles), no real console or home computer market existed after 1983 anymore (big video game crash).

But PC were still life and sound in the business fields.
That's why the IBM platform was so big over there. The Tandy 1000, a PC compatible with homr computer features, was available.
People in the US could simply use the same software from work at home.
Here in Europe, that wasn't common.

At home, we played games on C64, did business on a cheap PC clone without a hard disk.
Because, that's what we grew up with, after all: playing disk jockey all the time - thanks Commodore!
Only a small percentage of our Amiga users had invested in a HDD by 1990, also.
Whereas overseas a HDD was a standard component, even in very low-end PCs.

Like the TRS-80, the Tandy 1000, 2000 etc were available in many of the ubiquitous Radio Shacks (TRS= Tandy Radio Shack).
Radio Shack was a series of radio/TV repair shops with its own line of products.
They sold electronics parts, batteries, screws and other products of daily life.

The Amiga was irrelevant over there, I think. Except for TV studios, maybe.
The famous Video Toaster was an NTSC device, no PAL support.
Here in old Europe (Commodore land) it was perhaps rarely seen, if at all.
If it was, it had to be used with a transcoder device (NTSC-PAL, PAL-NTSC), I assume.

Okay, later on in the states ('89) there also was the TurboGrafx 16, technically.
That was an 8/16 Bit console, better known as PC Engine in Japan.

But the NES really was the number one of many years to come.
In the mid 90s, Russia got a clone fleet of NES consoles named Dendy. Its mascot was a white elephant.

By ~1990, both the Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo rivaled each others for many years to come.
That's when things slowly normalized among different places around the globe.

Edit: The UK was also a special case. The little island had their BBC Mircos. Acorn Archimedes, Acorn RISC PCs, ZX81, Sinclair QL, ZX Spectrum etc.
The company Amstrad also made the famous PC compatibles PC-1512 and PC-1640,
also sold in Germany via Schneider.
Those PCs were what comes closest to the Tandy 1000, maybe.
The 1640 had an EGA like graphics chip, making it a good games computer for ~1986.

Edited.

Edit: Another special case, here in old Germany, maybe.
Tele game consoles (pong consoles) from the 1970s.
Like Interton VC4000 ('77) or MBO Teleball
('77).
These were very primitive game consoles with cartridges.

The ancient term "Telespiel" (tele game) was often used instead of video game.
A tele game differenciated somewhat from a regular video game insofar,
that it was played on TV on a simplistic game console.
In online services such as BTX (Bildschirmtext in Germany/Austria, Videotex in Swiss), the term "Telesoftware" existed.
That was software that could be downloaded via telephone line.
So if you ever want to confuse your friends, talk about "tele software" if you mean to download something. 😉

..
Unfortunately, these primitive TV consoles were still sold and praised as being fun in the 1980s. Such a shame.
Germany had so much creative minds, but the mindset of business life didn't allow for bigger investments.
Everything had to be economized, not make loss - not even in the testing phase. *sigh*

Resurrecting this thread as I've been pouring through old mags and trying to update ongoing list of optimal gaming PC specs per year. Made some changes based on my own research and/or suggestions from others.

I've extended the list up to 2006 and filled in gaps where I could.

There are some odd years. 2001 technically I suppose the P4 2.0 was the fastest processor of the time, though the RDRAM platform was short-lived.

Trying to fill in the early 90s is also a challenge. For 1992, I used the 486 DX-33 using Ultima VII as a benchmark. For 1990, I chose the 386 DX-33 using Wing Commander as a benchmark. That leaves a gap for 1991, not sure if it would have been better to have a 386 or 486 for that year.

For 1987 to 1989 an Amiga 500 or 2000 would have been ideal. Don't think a 386 would have had much use pre-1990?

I'm also not sure about the Tandy's longevity or even general availability. The earliest catalog advertising I can find is from 1986, even though the Tandy 1000 reportedly came out in 1984.

Regarding RAM specs, Links 386 Pro (1992) could use up to 8MB while Under a Killing Moon (1994) could use 16 MB. Not sure if there is any earlier games that could make use of that much memory.

As always, any feedback is appreciated.