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Intel Celeron 2.2GHz Reviewed 228
Detonator 3:16 writes "Black-Ash.net has posted a review of Intels Celeron 2.2GHz Budget CPU; interestingly they have compared it to a common older CPU (PIII-700MHz) to see whether it would be worth using this CPU as an upgrade." Celerons have usually a been a decent processor for the money, and this one looks to continue the trend. It's not the fastest chip ever, but for spending less than $100, it's a good bargain.
how about celeron vs athlon (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:how about celeron vs athlon (Score:4, Informative)
(Both retail with cooler)
Celeron 2Ghz $149.95 CDN
Athlon XP 2100+ $146.95 CDN
The Athlon will kill the Celeron too!
Re:how about celeron vs athlon (Score:3, Insightful)
Or is this like "Bad ATI drivers," just one of those convenient myths people spout anytime a certain trademark or company name is mentioned? Kind of like "Linux is hard to install and configure." In 1996 maybe.
I was an nVidia fan for years, but when 9700 Pro came out I gave one a try. Am I an ATI fan now?
Re:how about celeron vs athlon (Score:4, Funny)
Naturally. Half the people here still believe the pinnacle of Windows' stability is Windows 98.
Re:how about celeron vs athlon (Score:2)
"Hmm I would have laughed at that 3 years ago when I was having that problem...."
Re:how about celeron vs athlon (Score:2)
Re:how about celeron vs athlon (Score:3, Informative)
Via's AMD chipsets have been very good since the KT266A. Not quite on par with Intel or AMD, but more than good enough. Big thumbs up for a unified driver package, but I'm a little underwhelmed by the onboard IDE performance with Via chipsets. Still a great value for the money.
IMO the major problem with Abit motherboards is the "Abit" part. I have bunches of dead Abit boards that Abit
Re:how about celeron vs athlon (Score:2)
In gods name do not install netgrear nics or sound blaster lives. They will literally crash the board! It only happens on abits. I believe you can use a netgear but it just wont run. The power that feeds the agp slot is also defective as well as the capacitors. Certain high end geforce cards will cause the system to freeze up.
The KT7 is also the one known with defective capacitors on most of the builds. Your board
Re:how about celeron vs athlon (Score:2)
I've used Abit boards. They suck. Take the same Athlon chip to a non-toy motherboard and your problems go away.
Stick to Asus, or MSI. ECS can be OK on a budget too, and Tyan has nice dual processor boards for Athlons.
Re:how about celeron vs athlon (Score:2)
ATI's lack of driver support for their All-in-Wonder TV-out on Linux/BSD is quite a problem for me... In the future, I will stick with NVida.
Re:how about celeron vs athlon (Score:2)
I was only comparing their newer cards with TV-out on them.
Re:how about celeron vs athlon (Score:2)
The issue of how non nVidia cards work with the nforce worried me to. But i haven't heard of issues so far.
For your case all I can say is: You made the choice not to run windows. Having any support past that is going the extra mile for a company. When you decide to go down the road less traveled you can't expect to have all the same service stations. Be happy hardware companies support o
Re:how about celeron vs athlon (Score:2)
I will see if I have issues someday when i get a graphics card, for now the built in Gforce is fine with me. I tried the EVE beta last night and it looked just beautiful to me. Only reason for getting a card would be to gain capture card and to put a zalman heat pipe on it and remove my northbridge fan, 1 less fan always better.
Why do you NEED 400 fps in Q3? I just don't get the whole needing
Re:how about celeron vs athlon (Score:2)
AMD beside the point, I've never seen a reliability problem with any brand of processor. My Cyrix chip wo
Re:how about celeron vs athlon (Score:2)
Re:how about celeron vs athlon (Score:2, Interesting)
My own study of having put together my own systems for the past 14 years. Sorry but IMO the Athlons and the chipsets they are mated to are not in the same league stability wise as my Intel systems. Not to mention it takes a turbo-prop to get these things down to a respectable temperature. Well this time around
Re:Mod Parent UP! (Score:2)
I own an athlon and went through 2 motherboards. An abit and a chaintek. Both had VIA chipsets which blew. Some of them are good and some or not. My Asus also has a VIA and its fine and stable with my athlon. Also early AMD tunderbird chipsets have had known problems with geforce video cards. No i
Re:how about celeron vs athlon (Score:2)
Conclusions (Score:5, Informative)
Conclusion:
If you are looking to upgrade an older system, and you don't want to spend a lot of cash, then the Celeron 2.2GHz might just be the right processor for you. From my experience with a P4 1.6A processor, that is the first Northwood P4 with 400FSB and 512KB of L2 cache ,I would say that the Celeron 2.2GHz performs a little slower, maybe 5%.So, you are getting a 1.5GHz +
P4, at a price of 75-85 USD compared to the P4 1.5GHz costing from 99-127 USD. Combine that with an Asus P4B266 motherboard at 50 USD and a stick of DDR266 memory at 22 USD only, you are looking at a total renewal of your old system for as little as 157 USD which seems quite ok for me. Do note though that you will need an ATX case for the motherboard and a P4 power supply, as your older one will probably lack a special connector that P4 motherboards require to power the CPU.
PROS:
Good All Round Performance
Price is very good, around 85 US dollars at most
Performs similarly to a fully fledged P4 2.2GHz in certain apps
CONS:
Not as good as a P4 2.2GHz in gaming
128Kb of L2 Cache
400Mhz FSB
Looks like a great CPU for granny!
Re:Conclusions (Score:2, Funny)
But how does the Celeron processor differ from a convectional P4 processor?
A pretty accurate slip of the tongue there =).
Decent review (Score:4, Informative)
My point of comparison was a Dell 2.0ghz Celeron system I purchased at Christmas for my parents. Good thing they don't play Quake III. Now I wish I would have gotten them the AMD system from someone else.
Re:Decent review (Score:2, Informative)
With only 128k L2 cache and a slow FSB, it is too easy to cache starve it and it simply does lots of NOPs at 2GHz+ whilst waiting for memory. Where the Penitum 3 P6 architecture wasn't
Re:Decent review (Score:2)
Availability in the channel is one difference. the number one computer seller won't sell AMD systems, Dell.
Re:Decent review (Score:2)
From my experience (with MPlayer/Mencoder), AMD processors kill Intel, at video encoding. Maybe it's because of MPlayer, but since that's what I use, that's what I've got to go on.
Re:Decent review (Score:3, Insightful)
Okey, I am confused. (Score:5, Funny)
The 2.2Ghz versus the 0.7Ghz. *drums in background*
Oh the excitement!
Re:Okey, I am confused. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Okey, I am confused. (Score:2)
approximately comparable in performance.
Reading the numbers, one suspects that a
P3-1.13GHz would have tromped the Celeron 2.2GHz
with a resounding *crunch*.
Yeah, it's not a scientific benchmark, just
a low-budget approximation of one. But it's
credible data. Marginally useful, but credible.
Re:Okey, I am confused. (Score:2)
Where to buy... (Score:1)
Nice Ad Link... Try Again (Score:2)
: I'll post a link to PCMall's product with my advertising link on Slashdot.
: ???
: Profit!
Oh!, wait! PC Mall doesn't even stock the product you were attempting to spam!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Duron (Score:1)
Re:Duron (Score:2)
Tbred 1700s also have the marvelous properties of being the coolest Athlons ever and also being magnificent overclockers. I've got one at 2600-equivalent speeds on a 166MHz bus.
Combine with a Shuttle AK32A or ECS (bleh) K7S5A motherboard, and you don't even have to upgrade RAM.
Total cost for the pair will be maybe $120, shipped, or around what the Celeron
Celeron is worthless, stick to AMD (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously - celeron = waste of time and money.
Re:Celeron is worthless, stick to AMD (Score:2)
The new 800Mhz FSB Intel rollout is tempting, though...
Re:Celeron is worthless, stick to AMD (Score:1)
Re:Celeron is worthless, stick to AMD (Score:2)
Re:Celeron is worthless, stick to AMD (Score:2)
PS> Who the f*ck invented the term "quad pumped?" Sounds like something a sports caster would say.
i agree (Score:2)
in other words: cheap, but horribly expensive when looking at the performance.
I'm done with AMD (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:I'm done with AMD (Score:2)
I think the problem is that intel requires certain motherboard makers to go through reliabilty tests to be licensed to use the pIV. This includes things like capacitors that do not blow up which you can read about from past slashdot stories. Asus is a reputable brand that goes through extra steps to make them reliable. However its n
Re:Celeron is worthless, stick to AMD (Score:2)
SMP or Bust (Score:2)
Re:SMP or Bust (Score:2)
Not to mention they kick the stuffing out of Intel's stuff at almost everything.
Re:SMP or Bust (Score:2)
Re:SMP or Bust (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Celeron is worthless, stick to AMD (Score:3, Funny)
So... what does humorously + athlon equal?
Re:Celeron is worthless, stick to AMD (Score:2)
Last I heard, Mobile AMD processors still burn a hole in your lap... I'd rather burn the hole in my wallet, given the choice.
Re:Celeron is worthless, stick to AMD (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Celeron is worthless, stick to AMD (Score:4, Interesting)
This should silence all the people who think that Pentium 4 must be an improvement over PIII. Pentium-M aka Centrino aka Banias is living proof that the PIII architecture can indeed scale to faster speeds with a little help. And that the P4 architecture, frankly, blows goats.
I would like to see a comparison between the two machines they put head to head, plus an Athlon XP Thoroughbred. I know that when I compare speed between my 733MHz PIII and my 1.4GHz/PR1800+ Athlon systems, there is a DRAMATIC difference in speed. Like the kind of spread that you would expect between the PIII and the Celery if only MHz matters.
Maybe it's the faster RAM. (DDR vs. PC133 Cas=2) But kernel builds are more than twice as fast between the two machines. UT performance is night-and-day between the two, but I blame the aging Rage128 video card and the shitty Linux DRI driver for it for the vast gulf in performance. The Athlon system has a GeForce 4Ti4200 and the nvidia binary driver.
Getting back to the issue at hand, there would certainly have to be a board swap in upgrading a PIII to a P4 Celery. You can get a crappy not-so-Elitegroup mobo for that $54 price, and pray it doesn't blow its caps immediately upon stressing it. Or you can spend a little more than twice the money and get a true Intel board that's built like a tank. You would also have to swap out power supplies, too. The case is not the problem. It is the power supply.
Re:Celeron is worthless, stick to AMD (Score:2)
Personally, I am looking at the IBM970 (article posted two days ago) and hoping I can afford a couple 2x or 4x systems with these. Obviously, my server needs are not exactly the biggest, but still need the reliability.
Re:Celeron is worthless, stick to AMD (Score:2)
A link(s) would be nice. I would like more info on this. Probably still reluctant for a server, since its obviously an unsupported hack, but would make a killer workstation.
Re:Celeron is worthless, stick to AMD (Score:2)
As an aside, the next time you decide to shout RTFA! at someone, please try to know what you're talking about.
4. ???? (Score:1, Offtopic)
hehe
Yeah, GREAT savings... (Score:5, Insightful)
-theGreater Sarcasmic.
Re:Yeah, GREAT savings... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Yeah, GREAT savings... (Score:2)
Re:Yeah, GREAT savings... (Score:2)
All 3D tests? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:All 3D tests? (Score:2)
Re:All 3D tests? (Score:2)
Huh? I see no difference in speed in desktop apps (word processor, browser). Where I see the difference is MP3 encoding. As for games not being dependent on processor. Try playing Q3 on a 400MHz computer, then a 1GHz computer back to back.
Mud, meet Stick. Stick, Mud. (Score:5, Interesting)
Any frame rate that exceeds the refresh rate of your display is effectively wasted. You just won't see the extra frames. A 23% improvement just means that many more frames you won't see.
In all honesty, since he had to replace both the CPU and the Motherboard, the improvement provided by the combination will touch a few other things that should be presented. Since he chose to use the same video card, how much of the processing load was offloaded to the card? Is there a way to see comparable information wrt the hard drive?
For a closer to purer CPU comparison, I would like to know what kind of improvement to processing Seti@home blocks, or any of the other distributed computing projects.
-Rusty
Re:Mud, meet Stick. Stick, Mud. (Score:5, Informative)
That would only be true if the work required to draw a frame in a game was a constant. It's not. When these benchmarks show frame rates beyond a resonable display refresh rate it's a (crude) measure of the system's ability to hold a playable frame rate when there is a lot going on on-screen. It's also a measure of excess capacity that may not be used in the benchmark game, but might be used by, say, it's sequel.
Re:Mud, meet Stick. Stick, Mud. (Score:1, Insightful)
So what? Are you saying people should never buy video cards that can exceed their refresh rates? More fps give the experienced palyer the edge. I'd much rather have a card that plays rtcw from 80-120fps than one that can only do 60-90.
Also most gamers don't buy a card and then only play one game on it forever. So There i
Re:Mud, meet Stick. Stick, Mud. (Score:3, Insightful)
>>>>>>
This is a stupid arguement. If you're frame rate is exceeding your refresh rate then why not just turn the detail up? Or are you somehow running Unreal II at 1600x1200 with full detail on a 2GHz Celeron?
Re:Mud, meet Stick. Stick, Mud. (Score:2)
Visually speaking? Perhaps.
However, some games sample the user input in between drawing frames. More frames means less time between input sampling, so you have better responsiveness to user input (Which can be critical).
Re:Mud, meet Stick. Stick, Mud. (Score:2)
The video card that the reviewer used is a "Creative Geforce 3Ti200 64Mb Detonators v42.70". I had to go all the way down to "Geforce 3Ti200" to get a usable hit out of google. The hit that I found most interesting was at fadainc [fadainc.com] where the reviewer noted that when he updated the AGP drivers his system went from 2000 on 3DMark200
AMD? (Score:5, Insightful)
buy a 2.2 ghz celeron for $70 and get a computer that performs like a 1.5ghz p4
Option two:
buy an AMD for $70 and get a 1.8ghz chip that performs like a 2.2ghz p4
I think he should have mentioned this in his article. AMD affors excellent alternatives if price is an issue!
Why the 3d Tests (Score:5, Insightful)
whats up with the product comparisions (Score:3, Insightful)
These cpus are targeted to different markets. Thats like comparing a P4 to a Xeon.
A 2.2ghz celeron is definately a good thing, and the performance is quite good for the price. These are entry level economical chips. My experience is all celerons work on pentium boards of the same class. So if you burn out a P4, why bother spending more money on a P4 when you could cheaply limp your computer on a celeron till the P5 comes out? Then spend the money you saved and get a P5 board too.
The other thing to note here too is that I know for a lot of people who don't have much money, especially kids on student loans, or perhaps even low income families, without the celeron chips, they couldn't get into modern computing. I aplaud intel and amd for coming out with cheaper chips. So what it doesn't compare to a P4? who cares, the consumer is buying it for the price and performance of THAT chip, not because it is slower than a P4.
Re:whats up with the product comparisions (Score:2)
It is no longer possible to purchase anything close to the minimum processor required to "get into modern computing". Processors go off the market far before they're obsolete. And the only real thing driving processor upgrades is Windows bloat and video games. Windows bloat can be easily avoided using a real operating system. Hopefully someday the console manufacturers will get their act together and I can stop trying to play games on my workstation.
Transmeta and Apple have the right approach: increasing
Re:whats up with the product comparisions (Score:2)
Re:whats up with the product comparisions (Score:2)
You end: explaining why the P4 is in a different class.
My $0.02: Why not compare *similarly* priced AMDs to Celerons? The fact that the AMD is functionally in a different class shouldn't matter if one is first and foremost price conscious. Why pay the same price for less?
Re:whats up with the product comparisions (Score:2)
These cpus are targeted to different markets."
Not when an Athlon XP 2100+ is only $80. Same as a Celeron 2.0 ghz.
And the Athlon 2100+ wastes the Celeron 2.0 ghz.
Re:whats up with the product comparisions (Score:2)
The only case your argument makes sense would be you had an existing P4 motherboard without a decent P4 cpu - nonexisting, dead, crippled or really slow (what was the slowest P4? 1.4GHz?). Or you just don't want nonIntel or don't want AMD.
Would a motherboard old enough to have a 1.4GHz P4 support a 2.2GHz Celeron? Would the celeron be faster than a 1.4GHz P4? I suppose it might, but still, would the speed increase be worth forking out the extra cash?
My 2Ghz celery (Score:5, Informative)
My 1.6 GHz XP... (Score:2, Interesting)
Total computation time : 32.03 seconds
I paid $50 for this CPU several months ago. I don't use the retail fan for my 10% overclock, since I have much higher goals in time. This CPU is extremely cool at stock, I'm sure 10% on a retail sink would be fine.
Here is the meth
Re:My 2Ghz celery (Score:2, Funny)
Re:My 2Ghz celery (Score:2)
Terrible review (Score:5, Interesting)
A realistic graphics benchmark would be a program that drew more and more polygons until the frame rate started to drop. That would actually tell you something useful. That's what you care about, after all.
It's amusing how much weight people give to those "refreshes faster than the framerate" benchmarks. NVidia drivers used to spinlock when waiting for vertical sync, instead of blocking. That didn't affect game benchmarks, but that CPU hogging forced OpenGL programs to 100% CPU utilization. I spent some time convincing NVidia's developers that they should block when waiting for vertical sync. The convincing argument was that benchmarkers turned off wait-for-sync, so it wouldn't affect benchmarks. NVidia then fixed it.
Multithreaded game programs speeded up, too.
As for the review, do the grey letters on a black background indicate that it's addressed to an audience that likes "shades of black" games?
Re:the correct spelling (Score:2)
Athlon XP 2100+ is a better deal (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Athlon XP 2100+ is a better deal (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Athlon XP 2100+ is a better deal (Score:2)
Re:Athlon XP 2100+ is a better deal (Score:3, Insightful)
At full CPU load, it only reaches 115 degrees F. When I am doing something thats not CPU intensive (such as replying to your troll), it stays at 108-109 deg. F.
If I keep it at 1800 speeds, it stays in the mid 90's.
Re:Athlon XP 2100+ is a better deal (Score:2)
Meanwhile, here in the desert, where the temperature in the shade is near 120F 6 months of the year, I would probably kill a processor if it runs 115F when room temp is 70F.
It's silly to compare cpu speeds (Score:2, Informative)
Re:It's silly to compare cpu speeds (Score:2, Interesting)
obviously you meant a 1.7GHz P4 and a 3GHz Celeron, right?
theres a huge difference in processors...i've never gone anywhere near a celeron.
Re:It's silly to compare cpu speeds (Score:2, Insightful)
Games are simply getting more advanced. The more CPU power we've got, the more complicated games will become. Better AI, better graphics, better sound, larger levels, etc etc.
Another reason to choose AMD instead ... (Score:1)
You don't need a new power supply (Score:3, Informative)
What about a faster P3? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course I think shelling out a couple hundred bucks for a 1/3 performance boost in Quake is asinine, but then I also just retired my P120 after seven years of regular use.
Retarded Review (Score:4, Insightful)
First, if you're going to have to replace the motherboard to use a Celeron, you're going to have to replace the memory to avoid regressing in performance. Run that Celeron on the same SDRAM that you had from the P3, if you can even find a motherboard to do that, will result in a substantial performance DOWNGRADE.
But since the author is presenting the idiotic scenario of upgrading by getting a $100 budget processor, along with $200-$300 in new motherboard and new PC133 memory (since PC133 costs more than DDR these days), why not consider other alternatives?
As many others have pointed out, if you're going through the trouble of replacing a motherboard, and therefore, the memory, too, why not just go AMD? Clearly a much better value.
Even better yet - why not just get a faster P3 off of eBay or a clearance outfit, and get a speed boost past the Celeron without the expense and difficulty of pulling the motherboard, reinstalling operating system and/or drivers, etc?
And hey, you'd have enough left over to buy a really hot video card, too.
Bad enough that you have these sites that are trying to be the next Anandtech without the brains. Worse that Slashdot would link to this drek and therefore help support it.
jonathan
I can bring my BP Mobo back! (Score:2)
That thing ran circles around my 2 GHZ P4M with just dual 650 celerons!
Woot!
http://bp6.com
Concerning the general critisism around (Score:2, Informative)
I love my celie based laptop... (Score:2)
Tom's Hardware big CPU challenge (Score:2)
Re:Interesting??? (Score:2)
Re:Celeron Review? (Score:2)
Yea, that doesn't sound elitest at all.
Not everyone needs the newest cpu around. Some just need Office to run really fast. Some don't even need that. The review is a comparison, upgrading an older p3/700. Try RTFA next time.
Re:Celery (Score:2, Informative)
I have recently been testing prototype Celeron 2.2Ghz systems for use in an office environment, using ASUS Terminator P4 Barebones boxes with 512MB RAM and Windows XP / Office XP. I have basically been trying to come up with a simple, cheap desktop machine to run office apps, web browsing and Citrix ICA Client, for a rollout of 100 or so machines for our Company.
As user perception is EVERYTHING, what I have been looking for is simply a machine whose user interface FEELS fast to the user, and not necessar