Note: I'll try to document the best hardware for both scenarios:
- full official driver support
- no full official driver support; non-essential drivers missing, and/or modded drivers are used
The second scenario may not be covered here.
Also, I'm actually a hardware noob. My interest in retro computers forced me to start learning about hardware. So I don't guarantee the information here to be correct, but obviously I try my best.
How I gather information
- For AMD: Use TechPowerUp's CPU Database, view one year at a time
- For Intel: Use the list from Wikipedia
- Choose one or two CPUs per generation per socket per year
- Search on cpu-upgrade.com and check its compatible motherboards
- Choose one or two motherboards per chipset; usually the name of the motherboard would be derived from the name of the chipset
- Check driver downloads for it on the motherboard maker's site
- Check cpubenchmark.net for benchmark scores