AMD Duron vs. Intel Celeron

DeadBugs writes: "With all the hype surrounding the new Athlon XP and P4 2.2 GHz, the more affordable processors have been ignored. Tech-Report has a great article comparing the new AMD Duron and Intel Celeron. Both are now running at 1.2 GHz and have upgraded cache. The new Duron contains XP technology, while the Celeron is a PIII Tulatin with a 100MHz bus and built on the .13 micron process."

Comments

Just so you know...

[Daniel Wood]

Tom's Hardware already did a review of the Celeron 1300 vs the Duron 1200 (benchmarks included the Celeron 1200) where the Duron simply spanks the Celeron.

SIS has restored my faith in AMD. The ECS K75SA motherboard is only $64 after shipping and works with any Socketed Athlon/Duron cpu. It is fast and stable, accepts DDR and SDR, built in networking and sound(ok, AC'97 isn't that great), a real winner. You can build a 1GHz system and only pay $120 for the cpu, heatsink/fan, and mobo.

relative cost

[Anonymous Coward]

Do these low cost cpu's matter anymore? Celerons do not stand for value.

In the mid 90's sure it was a huge cost difference $100 for that celery 300a@450mhz vs p2-p3 450 at about $500.

As of right now celeron ghz is about $58
( http://www.pricewatch.com )
AMD XP 1500 $107

Thats the battle, now I'll give you 3 guesses which is a better value.

Re:Celerons are a better choice over PIII

[root2]

Hmm, to a non-physicist, that seems to make sense.

Think about it. A still image on the TV is actually 30 (29.97 for NTSC, actually) identical images being shown per second. When one says that the human eye can only see 30 FPS, what you're saying is that if the one of the images was different, we'd be able to see that.

Now, if that's the limit, then we can only detect an image if it lasts longer than 1/30 of a second. So if an image lasts for only 1/100000 of a second, we wouldn't be able to see it.

I'm sure this is wrong but would appreciate someone EXPLAINING why.

Software Optimization

[DarkEdgeX]

The P3 adds SSE (yeah, like that is used a lot) and brings the cache on-die with the Copper[less]mine processors.

Actually, this brings up an important issue-- compiler technology, and the run-time libraries (RTL's) they use (in the case of C/C++, the standard libraries, in the case of Pascal/Delphi, the RTL and possibly parts of Borland's VCL/CLX). The problem, it seems to me, is that compiler authors don't seem to take advantage of architecture specific improvements like they used to (and as they should). Sure, some libraries/RTL's take advantage of it (and the compiler may have switches to emit optimized code), but if the standard libraries/RTL's are re-compiled (or even re-written) to take advantage of it, then it's all for nothing.

It seems to me that Intel has the right idea (the FPU is really useless if you know HOW to use SSE and SSE2 properly), and that if anything, it's poor software authors and poor compiler writers that are to blame for the lackluster performance of code on Intel's CPUs. It's saddening to me to see the optimization skills software engineers *used* to have back in the day diminishing year by year as the ability to right crappy code is justified by ever-faster CPU's. (Why spend the weeks or months needed to engineer everything to run properly now, when Intel/AMD will have a 'fix' for our sloppy code out in a few months?)

I wish authors such as Michael Abrash still released optimization guides for assembly language (or even just updated versions for C/C++ and assembler).. his 'Zen of Code Optimization' (ISBN: 1-883577-03-9 *or* FatBrain.com's description (out of print)) was probably the best investment *I* ever made.

Re:Benchmark woes

[dbarclay10]

I would agree with you, if the review was actually a comparison of technologies.

Of course, if that were the case, then it wouldn't be a review - it would be a comparison of technologies :)

However, since it *is* a consumer-oriented review, the focus is obviously on performance vs. price and a number of other factors; all easily summed up in the term "value".

Since both the Duron and the Celeron have similar prices and are both targetted at the same market(at least in retail), then it's totally fair to compare them, despite the fact that they have some relatively different technologies.

Now, I would say it's unfair to compare, say, an Athlon XP 2000+ to a 386 used in "embedded" markets. This review, however, is more than fair :) Saying it's otherwise would be like saying it's unfair to compair the first- and second-place winners in the Olympic men's triathlon; yes, obviously one is faster than the other. Maybe they've got more endurance(greater memory bandwidth), maybe their muscles are bigger(stronger FP units), but if you're not going to compare those two, what else are you going to compare? The winning triathlon athlete vs. the winning 100m swimmer? :)

Thought so ;)

ECS == PCCHIPS

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize who ECS is, right? You can get started with some info from these scheisters here.

They are a distributor of PCChips, the same people who:

- Fake the speed of their motherboards
- Pirate their BIOSes
- Rewrote bioses to display fake cache amounts and glued black plastic squares to their board with bits of metal sticking out from them and etched SRAM looking part numbers onto em
- Create deceptively similar but not at all related to their brandname counterpart chipsets. VXpro, VX+, BXpro, etc. are all famous PCChips parts.
- Relabel chipsets that look/are too cheap with the above names
- Seem to be gaining a reputation on newsgroups for selling complete garbage motherboards (just look for "PCchips shit/junk/suck" on deja)
- Have an absolutely amazing number of aliases. Eurone, Houston Tech, ECS, Amptron, Protac, Aristo, Minstaple, Matsonic, Fugutech -- the list goes on and on.
- Don't label their boards properly
- Use huge jumper blocks to set memory type (no, not just 5 or 6, but jumper blocks the length of a DIMM slot!)

BTW: As a tech at a computer store I build systems with ECS motherboards (its what we sell -- no I won't say where I work :). They are unreliable garbage, IMHO.

But AMD approved power supplies are a good idea. I don't know how many times I've seen cheap power supplies with the ratings simply stuck on them with an extra sticker.

I'd really reccomend swapping the board, though. Just a reccomendation. But if it is performing alright for you right now, well, stick with it. Occasionally some are actually built ok! :)

BTW: If you are using the board I am thinking of, its also "made" by amptron in red. Or blue, I forget which colour was for which company sometimes. With their most popular boards, by selecting the manufacturer you can select the colour. F-U-N

When Tom's Hardware Guide gave a solid rating to a PCChips board (I think its the K7S5A) I decided I'd never trust one of his reccomendations again. If you are going to rate boards you should at least do some homework on the company first!

Re:Intel has gone totally mad

[RadioheadKid]

I know that there seems to be a lot of bashing of the Celeron and Intel's marketing, but in some ways I see it as a response to the market.

It used to be when you talked about a PC, you gave the specs of your hard drive, RAM, graphics adapter, whether or not it had a soundcard, and what number came before the 86 in the processor name 2,3, or 4.

Now having over 256 MB of RAM is not unreasonable. Hard drives size is mostly irrelevant, sound cards are standard, and except for the gamers, a graphics card is where you plug your monitor in and it works. So what's left to spec? MHz! It's a number, it sounds technical and the Wintel PC marketing machine has jumped right on it. So much to the point that AMD now puts 4 digit numbers in their processor model name that don't necessary represent the clock speed of the processor, but keep up with Intel's current MHz release.

Re:Talk about extending the timetable

[steveha]

I really want to make a dual Athlon system, but I am waiting for the 0.13 micron process Athlons. I'd like to have a system that doesn't need roaring loud fans, and two CPU chips that dissipate about 60 Watts each is a bit much heat!

I was wavering, almost considering breaking my "no Intel CPUs" rule, because the 0.13 micron version of the Pentium III is sweet. But Intel reminded me why I have that rule -- the 0.13 micron Pentium III was deliberately made incompatible with Socket 370 motherboards. I hate it when companies play those sort of stupid games.

When the 0.13 micron chips come out, they will crush the Pentium 4. Right now the best Athlon is neck and neck with the best Pentium 4, and the Pentium 4 has the benefit of a 0.13 micron process (i.e. a much higher clock rate).

steveha