1.) Motorola 68000. This CPU appeared in all sorts of great computers and gaming systems, from the Sega Genesis/Megadrive, to the Amiga, many of the early Macs, and even the Neo Geo and the Capcom CPS 1/2 arcade platforms. Considering it was originally developed in 1979, this CPU was amazingly powerful for its time, and many of the systems it powered delivered fast, fluid gaming action. It was so powerful, in fact that many arcade games continued using it nearly 20 years after it first launched! Another fun fact, this same CPU powered the Prophet VS synthesizer, which was used extensively on Nine Inch Nails' debut album "Pretty Hate Machine". It just so happens that this is one of my favorite albums of all time, and with both a Prophet VS and a Macintosh Plus being used extensively in its production, that's twice the 68000 goodness. 😁
2.) MOS 6502/65816. This humble little processor developed in 1976, along with its many variants powered such great systems as the Apple II line, the NES, the Atari 2600, and the Commodore 64. Its 16-bit variant, the 65816 powered the Apple IIGS and the SNES. Need I say more?
3.) 486DX2 66MHz. This was a classic CPU for DOS gaming, and it holds a lot of sentimental value to me as one of the first "retro" boxes I ever owned had one at its core. It ran Doom and Nesticle like a champ, and with some technical wizardry I even managed to play back some MP3s on this CPU.
4.) Celeron 300A. This was a kick-ass gaming CPU for the late 90s, and it actually delivered better performance than a "real" Pentium II running at the same clockspeed, thanks to its faster L2 cache. I never tried the famous trick of running one in a BX board and overclocking it to 450MHz, but the fact that this CPU became so well-known for its easy overclocking really says something. Even at stock speed though, it still seemed like a nice, zippy CPU.
5.) Pentium M. OK, I'm kind of cheating here since this CPU isn't exactly "vintage", but being released in 2003, it certainly isn't new either. Not only was this CPU extremely power-efficient and high-performance for its time, but it also helped pave the way for many of Intel's newer CPUs, such as the Core 2 and Core i3/i5/i7 series. For a long time, I used a 2004 Acer laptop powered by one of these chips as my main laptop, and even when I got my Core i5 Alienware, I still brought this thing out once in a while. It's a shame Intel relegated this CPU to the mobile market, instead of taking advantage of its killer performance and marketing it as a desktop CPU.