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To any PC hardware folks: Pentium or Celeron? What's the difference?

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drumwolf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-28-04 10:30 AM
Original message
To any PC hardware folks: Pentium or Celeron? What's the difference?
I'm looking around for a new PC laptop, and I know that Celerons are cheaper than Pentiums but deliver less performance in some way. My question to all you PC hardware folks is, how is a Pentium better than a Celeron? What can I do and not do with a Celeron? And will a new Celeron be significantly better than my current, four-year-old, 450MHz Pentium? (I've heard mixed answers to this question.)

(BTW, I plan to get a Mac eventually for music editing and software development, but it's not an option for the moment b/c of my $$$ situation. But the fact that I eventually plan to get a Mac is why I don't want to shell out the money for a top-of-the-line PC.)
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BigMcLargehuge Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-28-04 10:33 AM
Response to Original message
1. smaller memory cache on a celeron
slower bus speed too.

but waaaaaay cheaper. You WILL notice a performance difference between a 450mHz P2 and a 2 Gig Celeron, but you'll also notice a big performance difference between a 2Gig Celeron and a 2 Gig P4.

What are you planning to do with the computer.
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drumwolf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-28-04 10:36 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. what am i planning to do with my PC?
- surf the web
- listen to MP3's (and encode them off my CD collection)
- watch DVD's (and possibly the large video files that people have ripped off them)
- possibly play PC games (especially Half-Life II when it comes out)
- play with Photoshop

What I plan to save for the Mac:
- audio and/or video editing
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Ready4Change Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-28-04 10:43 AM
Response to Reply #2
5. Get the Pentium.
Celerons are a crippled Pentium. Half-Life II is going to demand a fast system, and the Celeron has bottlenecks that will hurt performance. Also, either get a VERY good video card, or get a really sheap on now, and plan to get a good one when you get Half-Life II.
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BigMcLargehuge Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-28-04 10:47 AM
Response to Reply #2
6. if you're going to game, I'd recommend a P4
higher throughput because of higher bus speeds.

Have you considered AMD? Their chips are on par with P4 and about 40% cheaper. You can usually find decent motherboard/chip combos at Comp USA and stuff. AMD uses a smaller bus speed too, but their architecture seems to handle processor intensive tasks better than the Celerons do.

Here's a quick price comparison -

http://www.compusa.com/products/products.asp?N=200136&Ne=200000&CusaNe=200454

2 Gig AMD XP2400 - $119
2.6 Gig P4 $249
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emulatorloo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-28-04 12:28 PM
Response to Reply #6
8. I am having a hard time figuring out AMD and Intel performance equivalency
i.e. XGhz AMD = Yghz P4

So far my googling is getting me nowhere. . .any tips?

Thanks
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LynneSin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-28-04 01:37 PM
Response to Reply #8
11. AMD4 Althon (sp?) got great reviews
and considered almost as powerful yet less expensive than the P4 equivelant
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sir_captain Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-28-04 05:26 PM
Response to Reply #8
15. There is no longer any real eqivalency
based on clock speeds. Clock speeds are a bad way of comparing processors anyway. Go to anandtech.com and read their processor reviews to see how the various chips perform in realworld situations.
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emulatorloo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-28-04 07:03 PM
Response to Reply #15
17. THNX - N/T
:toast:
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Kellanved Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-28-04 07:13 PM
Response to Reply #8
18. what performance?
Integer or Floating Point?
Games or Office?
...
What about the Mainboard and other hardware?
...

There is no easy comparison, least of all is the MHz -even Intel has proclaimed that the next generation of Intel CPUs will not be named by their frequency.


The Pentuims are a little faster than the Athlons with the same number to their name, especially so when the expensive Rambus RAM is used.
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emulatorloo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-28-04 11:34 PM
Response to Reply #18
19. I have an sound app and hardware w recommended system of P4 2.4
Edited on Fri May-28-04 11:36 PM by emulatorloo
or better. . . .so I am trying to match that. . . .

They list system reqs like this:

"Genuine Intel® Pentium® III or AMD® K6® class processor or higher operating at 1.5GHz or faster (Pentium® 4 at 2.4GHz or faster recommended)"

Here it is if you are interested:

http://www.emu.com/products/product.asp?maincategory=631&category=631&product=2212
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Guy Fawkes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-28-04 05:00 PM
Response to Reply #2
13. welll
here we go:
Surfing web: either
MP3s: Either
DVDs: pentium
GAMES!!!!: Pentium 4, or 64bit athlon (for HL2 or Doom III)
photoshop: either, but pentium is cooler. (not tempeture wise)

Personaly, I'd go for the alienware laptops... great machines..
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tjwash Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-28-04 10:37 AM
Response to Original message
3. Celeron=Pentium lite
Less pipeline burst cache, and the cpu bus clock is slower. They are a little cheaper, but PC's are so cheap nowadays, that I would go with the....AMD (am not an Intel fan)
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fknobbit Donating Member (479 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-28-04 10:42 AM
Response to Reply #3
4. Yup
Plus AMD is a faster graphics platform. Intell is not worth the price diff.
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rhino47 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-28-04 05:05 PM
Response to Reply #4
14. Fk is right Amd athlon thunderbird blows p4s away
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BootinUp Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-28-04 10:50 AM
Response to Original message
7. I also recommend AMD processors
But if you go Intel stay away from the celerons, the pentium IV family needs the full cache and high FSB speed for good all around performance.

If you want to read online reviews of processors try this, the best hardware site on the net, you can also post questions on their general discussion board:

http://www.aceshardware.com
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Deja Q Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-28-04 12:32 PM
Response to Original message
9. AMD Athlon, Centrino, Pentium 4, Pentium 4 with hyperthreading, celeron
Celerons are whittled down Pentium 4s and are WORTHLESS.


Pentium 4 with Hyperthreading is a like a virtual SMP system. This works great for some apps that use SMP but makes others run slower. And as the system "sees" the processor as two CPUs, you need to spend mucho money for a dual P4 w/HT system because WinXP thinks there's 4 CPUs... That's why I put the original P4 ahead of it. Unless you use Photoshop...

Centrino is for laptops but in some tests it OUTPERFORMS the P4. And the Centrino sells for 1GHz less than the P4.

AMD Athlon is the best and when 64 bit computing kicks in, I am moving to their 64 bt line. Itanium (Intel's 64-bit cpu) sucks.
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leftyandproud Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-28-04 01:34 PM
Response to Reply #9
10. CELERON'S ROCK!
I got a 2.7 that runs QUICK
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TexasMexican Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-28-04 04:51 PM
Response to Original message
12. Go AMD
Durons, Athlons, and Opterons are the bomb.

The more important question is what pricerange are you looking at?
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neverborn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-28-04 05:27 PM
Response to Original message
16. AMD!
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toddzilla Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-28-04 11:37 PM
Response to Original message
20. laptops suck for gaming..
i doubt anything you get will do doom3 or HL2 justice.
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henslee Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat May-29-04 12:35 AM
Response to Original message
21. I am on a celeron right now. Its a 5 yr old laptop. Just fine for
for me. A bit slow but I can deal. I use it all day -- internet/word processing. I paid a grand for this laptop when it was retailing for about 2 grand. Now its worth about 200.
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