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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.
An Athlon 2200 is $71.04 on Pricewatch right now. Pardon my feigned ignorance, but how exactly are you saving money while still buying an inferior CPU?
-theGreater Sarcasmic.
The tests used in the review are two Quake III based tests and 3d Mark 2001. Part of the reason for such a small increase (23-48%) with 300% of the processor is not just the difference between PIII and Celeron architectures, but because the 3D Card is a more important consideration then the processor in these types of tests. Some office benchmarks or video encoding speed would have been valuable metrics for comparing processors.
ok. So option one:
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!
Pardon my ignorance here but why the 3d tests? It says right in the article that this is not the CPU to get for gaming. Wouldn't it make more sense to compile some software or something of that nature and see the differences? Anyone know of a hardware review site that has useful benchmarks for those of us who don't care about pc gaming? I want to see kernel compile times or something. Something I can relate to.
Check out my life
Why do people insist on comparing a celeron to a P4 or athlon?
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.
What reliability? I mean, what do you base this on, exactly? Got a link? An impartial study conducted over a period of years (who keeps a desktop CPU that long anyway?). Really, I'd like to know.
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? Sure. But if NV40 blows away whatever ATI offers at the time, so be it. Times change. Products change.
Myths, apparently, never die.
I have a Duron running right now that has seen very little down time for over 3 years. It just keeps chugging away, overclocked and over-volted all to hell. It's outlived CPU fans, hard drives, video cards, a stick of RAM, even a motherboard.
This had to be one of the very worst reviews I've ever read. The lack of critical thinking is astounding.
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