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Commodore 64 Ultimate: One-minute review
The Commodore 64 Ultimate is a modern recreation of the classic home computer from the 1980s. It’s a tremendous achievement, taking me straight back to my childhood with glee, and also making me wonder how on earth seven-year-old me had the patience to truly figure it out. Using it is wondrous and occasionally frustrating and slow, but for fans of that era, it’s hard to resist (assuming money isn’t an issue).
It’s so much more than just an emulated machine like if you’ve Nintendo Classic Mini or the PlayStation Classic. It provides compatibility with most of your old Commodore 64 hardware if, like me, you’ve kept a huge box of cassettes, cartridges, and joysticks, but you can also go online to download some games too.
Capturing that nostalgia has some downsides that are only truly apparent now that we’ve moved forward. Loading times are slow, albeit not as slow as back in the day, while knowing what commands to hit on the keyboard isn’t as intuitive as it once felt. However, a comprehensive manual goes some way to helping you remember how you used to do things, and ensures newcomers aren’t left in the dark.
Think of this as like a project rather than a brief flirtation, and you should be delighted with the Commodore 64 Ultimate. I enjoyed rediscovering how to complete simple routines in BASIC, but also playing old favorites, even if they weren’t exactly games I’d still play for dozens of hours anymore.
It’s a fantastic love letter to the computer that sent me down a lifelong path of loving technology, but it also reminds me how far we’ve come. At times, you’ll find yourself a little frustrated by a system that doesn’t feel as logical as it once did, but if you were here back at the start, you’ll always return for more. Just be ready for a bit of a learning curve.
Commodore 64 Ultimate: Price and availability
- List price: $349.99 (around £260 / AU$524)
- Currently available for preorder for March / April 2026
- Beige and Starlight variants available
The Commodore 64 Ultimate is currently available for pre-order directly from Commodore. At the time of writing, it’s expected to ship in March or April 2026. The standard Beige variant is $349.99 (around £260 / AU$524) while the more futuristic-looking Starlight model is an extra $50, and the Founder’s Edition with 24K gold-plated badges is $549.99.
I went with the Beige version as it looks nearly identical to the one from my childhood (more on that in a moment), but even that model is pretty expensive compared to other retro games consoles and machines.
Of course, it’s far more than just an emulator, given it works with your original hardware, but this isn’t impulse buy territory. I’d think carefully about whether this is a novelty product for you or something that you truly plan on using for a long time to come.
Fortunately, if you’re like me and kept your old collection, you won’t have to worry about buying new games, joysticks, or a cassette deck. If you’re starting from scratch, there’s a USB stick full of games included, and an extra supply of games is available online via the computer’s storefront for free.
Commodore 64 Ultimate: Specs
| Row 0 – Cell 0 |
Commodore 64 Ultimate |
|
Price |
$349.99 (around £260 / AU$524) |
|
Weight |
5.6lb / 2.56kg |
|
Dimensions |
16 x 8 x 3in / 400 x 200 x 70mm |
|
Extras |
Integrated Ultimate-II+ functionality with tape emulation and DMA loader, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, USB, 2 x Game Controller Ports |
|
CPU |
AMD Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA |
|
RAM |
128MB DDR2 RAM |
|
Video |
HDMI 1080P at 50Hz PAL or 60Hz NTSC Analog via DIN-8: CVBS, S-Video, or RGB |
|
Compatibility |
Commodore 64 cassettes, disks, cartridges, ROMs |
|
Controllers |
Serial Port Joystick/DB9 controller |
Commodore 64 Ultimate: Design and features
- Matches the original aesthetic well
- Traditional interface paired with more modern menu system
- Works with original accessories and games
The Commodore 64 Ultimate is an instant nostalgia trip if you owned the original. Even the box design is similar. Open it up, and you’re presented with a USB drive disguised as a cassette tape along with a wire-bound User Guide which looks a lot like the one I gazed over in wonder as a kid. The computer itself also looks nearly identical to the original, right down to the power switch on the side and all the ports possible.
Such ports include the modern essentials like USB and HDMI, but also older connectors for adding your original cassette deck, your joysticks, or a disk drive. It also works with C64 cartridges if you have any of those lying around.
It’s all plug and play, which is great if you’ve got an old collection ready to try out again, tapping into a similar model as the Atari 2600+. It also even sounds like the Commodore 64 from what I remember, with a bit of a creak as anything loads coming from the sound chip.
The Commodore 64 Ultimate’s user interface is just like how you might remember, too, which is both good and bad. Back in the day, there was no drag-and-drop, and everything was done through a keyboard with arrow keys that needed the shift key to switch between directions. That’s replicated here, and it takes a hot minute to remember the old ways.
To offset that aged way of doing things, there are menus to navigate. It’s still a little awkward, but it opens up more functionality, such as being able to go online to download community-made games or access bulletin board forums.
There’s a ton of depth to these menus, so if you like to tweak and adjust settings, you’re in luck. This is a far more feature-rich model than the original it’s taking after. How far you want to go mostly depends on your enthusiasm. It can still be a relatively plug-and-play device if you just want to download games.
Commodore 64 Ultimate: Performance
- Loading times are faster than the OG but still slow
- Overclocking options
- BASIC is just how you remember it
Remember when the Commodore 64 would take 10 minutes or more to load a cassette, then sometimes simply fail? Those days are gone with the Ultimate! That doesn’t mean it’s fast, though. The processing power is there, but presumably, waiting around for a game to load is there to remind you of the simpler times.
That goes for whether you’re loading a tape image from USB or online, so this isn’t an old media issue. In the long term, I plan on adding a Tapuino to make it easier to load my original cassettes, but you don’t actually need anything extra besides what’s in the box.
Going online is as simple as connecting any other device to your network, and in no time, you can search for games or browse bulletin boards. While I never found my new favorite game through these methods, it was fun to take a look.
Curiously, you can dive into a menu and activate turbo boost to improve performance from 1MHz to 64MHz with a RAM expansion unit, increasing RAM to 16MB, which feels mind-boggling for a Commodore 64 machine.
My favorite part about using the Commodore 64 Ultimate actually has nothing to do with gaming performance, though. I loved coding in BASIC again. It was my first time programming anything, and also arguably when my programming knowledge peaked. The wire-bound manual guides you through the early stages of BASIC, and digging out a few old books and magazines with programs was a ton of fun.
Variety is where much of the joy comes from with the Commodore 64 Ultimate. It’s truly a whole home computer rather than a restrictive games emulator. Being able to switch between playing some old games and discovering new ones online, or simply coding something, gives it tremendous depth compared to something like the C64 Mini that came before it.
Should I buy the Commodore 64 Ultimate?
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
Also consider…
Not sure if the Commodore 64 Ultimate is the retro hardware for you? Here’s how it compares to two similar products.
| Row 0 – Cell 0 |
Commodore 64 Ultimate |
Atari 2600+ |
Commodore 64 Mini |
|
Price |
$349.99 (around £260 / AU$524) |
$129.99 / £129.99 / AU$269.95 |
$79.99 / £69.99 / AU$149.95 |
|
Weight |
5.6lb / 2.56kg |
1.3lb / 0.59kg |
0.82lb / 0.38kg |
|
Dimensions |
16 x 8 x 3in / 400 x 200 x 70mm |
10.6 x 7 x 2.8in / 269 x 178 x 71mm |
9.8 x 7.9 x 2in / 250 x 200 x 50mm |
|
Extras |
Integrated Ultimate-II+ functionality with tape emulation and DMA loader, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, USB, 2 x Game Controller Ports |
CX40+ Joystick with DB9 connector, USB-C, Light-up Atari logo |
USB flash drive with disc, cartridge, and casette ROM file compatibility, Dual USB-A ports, THE Joystick (microswitch joystick) |
|
CPU |
AMD Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA |
Rockchip 3128 SOC |
ARM A20 SoC |
|
RAM |
128MB DDR2 RAM |
256MB DDR3 RAM |
64KB |
|
Video |
HDMI 1080P at 50Hz PAL or 60Hz NTSC Analog via DIN-8: CVBS, S-Video, or RGB |
HDMI (widescreen support) |
HDMI (720p 60Hz output; full width/4:3/CRT filter options) |
|
Compatibility |
Commodore 64 cassettes, disks, cartridges, ROMs |
Atari 2600 and 7800 game cartridges |
Games on board, plus games via USB port |
|
Controllers |
Serial Port Joystick/DB9 controller |
CX40+ JoystickS |
THEJoystick |
How I tested the Commodore 64 Ultimate
- Tested for about 20 hours
- I used it solely out of the box, and I also added my own original joystick and cassette deck to play games
- I also spent time using it to code simple programs in BASIC
I used the Commodore 64 Ultimate after digging out my old collection of C64 games and hardware. Unfortunately for me, not all the cassettes survived their time untouched, and one joystick was temperamental at best, but it gave me an opportunity to see how well the new and old hardware worked together.
I also went online with the Commodore 64 and browsed through seemingly every menu within the original user interface. I downloaded new games to play to see how well that experience worked, and I spent substantial time typing out BASIC programs and reveling at how easy it was, and feeling some lovely nostalgia to child me who thought they could rule the world because they knew a little BASIC.
The Commodore 64 Ultimate is very different from other retro machine comebacks, so I mostly focused on comparing it to the original machine.
First reviewed January 2026
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