Intel Celeron 2.2GHz Reviewed

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.

Comments

Conclusions

[Rooked_One]

I'm sure this will be /.'ed so heres the conclusions for ye scurvy dogs

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!

Decent review

[Pharmboy]

Short, straight to the point. Is it me, or is the gap between Celeron and P4s in performance getting larger? Seems this would make AMD a better choice, dollar per dollar, if the big resellers would use them.

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

[Wiz]

Yes, and it is Intel's fault entirely. The problem is the architecture of the Pentium 4, it is very bandwidth hungry and very cache hungry. A good reason why Intel bumped the L2 cache of the Pentium 4 from 256k to 512k very quickly after it's launch - it was getting killed by AthlonXPs still, just as the Pentium 3 before it.

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 so cache sensitive it didn't matter so much. Nor did it for the Athlons which is why the Durons are still good systems.

These Celerons are bad though. I'd never get one! Then again, I use AMD anyway which is cheap and runs well. And before anyone else says it, the newer Pentium 4s do run hotter than the latest Athlons.

Re:how about celeron vs athlon

[biggknifeparty]

For the same price here you can get an XP 2200+
(Both retail with cooler)
Celeron 2Ghz $149.95 CDN
Athlon XP 2100+ $146.95 CDN
The Athlon will kill the Celeron too!

Re:Mud, meet Stick. Stick, Mud.

[Russ Steffen]

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.

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:Celeron is worthless, stick to AMD

[Pharmboy]

not that i disagree with your main point, but you would have to buy a new motherboard to upgrade from a p3/700 to a Celeron 2.2 as well. He quoted a cheap board at $54 I think. He also states you might have to buy a new case/ps as well.

My 2Ghz celery

[Kegetys]

I have a 2 GHz Celeron here, overclocked to 2,6 GHz using the retail fan with 7 volts (12v default). Although its not the best numbercruncher out there, its definately worth the money I paid for it plus the heat generation is so low that it allows me to overclock it and still run the retail fan with a lower voltage than default to keep my system very silent. Comparing to my old 566 Mhz Celeron which I ran at 850 Mhz its fast; using a software called PiFast to calculate 4194304 digits of pi took about 85 seconds with the old CPU and now it takes about 39 seconds with this CPU, although the biggest difference in this benchmark propably comes from the increased memory bandwidth, thanks to the DDR memory. I do some gaming with it too, and im happy with it.

Re:Celery

[JuddN]

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 necessarily have outstanding number-crunching abilities. In other words, as long as things "open quickly", the users will be happy. They don't give a shit about 3dMark scores or Seti@home crunch times, because the machine will spend 99% of its life running Word or Internet Explorer. My approach has been to give the 2.2G boxes a very basic WinXP Pro setup, with plenty of RAM and a decent Harddrive. So far, the prototypes I have built have passed with flying colours in this regard. I have tested a few out on real users, and have got very positive feedback so far. So, I would say that the 2.2G Celerons are ideal for this situation, and probably more reliable than the AMDs.

Please people, there is no universal CPU. You need to choose the most appropriate processor for the role. Although this sounds really obvious, it is rarely put into practice, and lots of supposedly smart people get bogged-down in monotonous holy-wars about AMD vs Intel or whatever. AMD and Intel both make great chips - all you need to do is look at it objectively and choose the right one for the job.

Concerning the general critisism around

[Lfctony]

Since I'm not in the mood to get in a fight with you guys,I'll be short and to the point: 1.I don't want to be the next Anandtech.They are large,they have money they get samples.I do with what I have. 2.I'm not getting any money for this by the way,since I'm in the Mediterranean,and I'm writing for a site in the UK.I'm helping out a friend,I have a day-job. 3.Whoever said that you have to get SDRam for the Celeron?If you even bothered to read the whole review,I'm pointing readers to DDR ram prices and a DDR based motherboard! 4.Do read TOM's review as well.Unfortunately for me,I don't have 300 spare hours to spend on benchmarking nor the hardware for that many tests.And since you are aiming for a budget system,you'll probably end up with a GeforceMX,so don't call the Ti200 an old card,since its right on the spot as a value card! There you have it.I won't even bother with replying back,so feel free to bash away. Thank you. Antonis Spyrou

Re:how about celeron vs athlon

[slaker]

AMD's chipsets are very reilable. AMD 750/751/760/761 are some of the best ever made for Athlon. Easily on par with Intel.

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 won't take bacl, Intel and Via both. Try Gigabyte or Epox instead, for your AMD-based motherboard needs.