Mmm , this is actually quiet a tough question . The problem is the wide range of competing hardware and the wildly different architectures . Really you need something to use as a benchmark to describe ' most powerful '. The Atari 8 bit range were very ahead of their time on release and the later XE series certainly would be worthy of consideration . The later Apple II ' s , before they moved the same 16 bit 6502 variant used in the SNES , must be contenders . Yep , maybe the MSX 2 , certainly up there with the best of them . Amstrad ' s CPC range were very , very good for the time . The short lived Plus upgrade of 1990 surely must be a contender with it ' s upgraded 4096 colour pallette . The Commodore 64 dominated the era , and rightly so . I remember the arguements at the time between C 64 and CPC and which was more powerful . As a old CPC alumni you can guess my feelings on this , but in truth I don ' t think the argument was ever settled . But then , I think , everyone agreed at the time that the BBC Master was vastly superior to just about anything else even if the only place it was ever really used was in UK primary schools . However , if we ' re going to try and find the ultimate 8 bit micro , regardless of popularity , then I ' ll have to submit something a little more obscure and in from the left field . The Sam Coupe . Famous for it ' s ZX Spectrum compatibility mode , this very short lived British micro from Miles Gordon Technologies was , much like the later Amstrad CPC Plus range , designed to compete against the 16 bit Amiga and ST but was based on the cheaper and more popular 8 bit Zilog Z 80 processor . My personal thoughts probably go . Sam Coupe Amstrad 6128 Plus MSX 2 Apple IIc BBC Master Commodore 128 Atari 65 XEBut in truth they were all pretty powerful and capable machines at the time totally overshadowed by the Atari ST and then later the Amiga 500 and Sega MegaDrive .