Intel's P4-based Celeron

Intel released its first Celeron based on the Pentium 4 "Willamette" (Socket 478) pin design in May 2002, but performance is hurt by the chip's meagre 128K of on-chip cache memory. In  fact, PCWorld.com  finds that a 1.3GHz Celeron (based on the older Pentium 3 "Tualatin" architecture, with a 256K cache) delivers better performance in some tests. So, again, we have a case of marketing over engineering. In essence, Intel is advertising a higher clock speed, yet delivering a lower performing chip -- at least in some applications.

With that said, the performance of the new P4 Celeron isn't that much lower than the P4. A comparably clocked 1.7 GHz P4 system is only about 10 percent faster than a 1.7GHz Celeron system costing US$179 less. So, for price-conscious consumers (many of whom, we think, will find that either processor is plenty fast enough), the product may find a niche -- The new Celeron beats AMD's similarly priced 1.3 GHz Duron in almost every test. Just don't be fooled by the clock speed. In some applications, however, a Tualatin-based Celeron delivers better performance, despite its lower clock speed.

Aside from the obvious differences in required motherboards, the main difference in the new "Willamette" Celeron is its support of the newest SSE2 instruction set, which helps the Pentium 4 excel in audio and video encoding and related tasks.

At this writing, the 1.7GHz Celeron sells for about C$150 and works in Socket 478 mainboards capable of supporting a 400 MHz bus, including Intel's just-announced 845GL chip set.

More like this . . .

PowerPC 970

Introduction Even before their June 23rd announcement by Apple (following a widely reported leak the previous week!), it was well known that the next...

Intel CPU Upgrades

"Coppermine" Pentium 3 Abit mainboards are famous for their overclocking prowess, but many of the same feature that make them a tweaker's...

Intel Pentium 4

Price cuts, new models announced; more price cuts coming Pentium 4 price cuts, new models Intel really, really wants you to make your next processor...

IA64 CPU report: Itanium, McKinley, Clawhammer, Sledgehammer, etc.

AMD AMD's first 64-bit CPU effort was the server-oriented Opteron, which hit the market in early 2003. By Sept. 2003, a consumer-oriented 64-bit...

CPU Report - Q4/2000 to Q1/2001

Intel Intel, in late November, begins rolling out the Pentium 4, with initial chips shipping at speeds of 1.4 GHz and 1.5 GHz. Aggressively priced,...

CPUs - a Roadmap for 2000

Cyrix Cyrix may be down, but it's most definitely not out of the game. In the wake of its acquisition by VIA, after several money-losing quarters in...

Timna Canceled

New motherboards designed for a previously unseen Intel CPU were lurking in the shadows at the Computex 2000 tradeshow in Taipei, Taiwan. There, MSI...