December 1998 $85 Celeron 300A handily beating June 97 $594 Pentium 233 MMX, not to mention overclocked one matching 1998 $621-824 Pentium 2s.
January 2002 $120 Duron 1300/Celeron 1300 beating 2000 $1000 Athlon 1000/Pentium 3 1000-1133
June 2007 $40 Celeron 420 overclockable out of the box from stock 1.6 to 3.2GHz beat best $1000 CPUs of year 2005 (FX-57, P4 EE).
Same goes for Graphic chips starting around 1998/9.