New Dual-Celeron PC's Encourage Overclocking

Steve Nakhla writes "The same people responsible for the iMac-looking PC's are now shipping a dual-Celeron PC, that makes overclocking a breeze. " So the question is, Publicity Stunt, or a valuable feature that consumers want? A motherboard that makes 8x overclocking easy is certainly cool, but its definitely gonna void some warranties, and maybe even blow up some chips.

Comments

Clarification

[bgdarnel]

The 8X maximum multiplier in the article refers to the processor speed relative to the bus speed, not relative to the "official speed". Current Celerons use a 66mHz bus, so 8x would mean a maximum speed of 533mHz. These machines will default to 7x for a 466 mHz clock.

Overclocking is not for everyone, just those who

[Cptn Proton]

don't mind the smell of fresh semiconductor gone wrong. Some of you are recalling the smell as I write this now. This actually harkens back to the olden days of building your own tube radios to get the performance you knew you could have if you were persistant enough. Same thing.

Sure, semis don't spark as much, but that saves you the inconvenience of having to hide behind the couch when you switch things on. Even today if you were to put an electrolytic cap in wrong, that would pop like a firecracker.

Think of it as baptism by fire. Not for everyone, just those who want to push the envelope.

Re:Why still make PIII?

[Ed Avis]

What kind of advantage is Joe User going to see with a 600 MHz PIII that he won't with a 500 MHz Celeron?

No, you don't understand! The Pentium III (r) makes the Internet come alive! It gives you dancing Intel bunnymen and strange viking-type people to enrich your Web experience! If you're not using a Pentium III (r) processor to browse the Web, you're missing out!

http://www.intel. com/home/pentiumiii/surf.htm?iid={showroom=body}

Why still make PIII?

[Evro]

I mean, I know the Xeons have more cache, but with Celerons approaching 600 MHz, why doesn't Intel concentrate on the Celeron for consumers and leave the overpriced PIII to the highend / server market? What kind of advantage is Joe User going to see with a 600 MHz PIII that he won't with a 500 MHz Celeron?

What makes the PIII "better" than the celeron, anyway? All those useful extra instructions?

I have so many questions today!

Aww...

[Booker]

And here I was, all excited to crank my celeron 400 up to 3200 Mhz.... heh

Re:cache... and SMP cache hit rate implications

[Sun Tzu]

Yep, the Celeron 300A and above all have 128 K of L2 cache running at full core speed.

However, for SMP purposes, the cache size matters a lot. Since the two CPU's are sharing the memory bus, every cache miss means potential contention. Running large memory intensive programs on both CPU's simultaneously would almost certainly show significantly lower performance than same-clocked PII's with their 512K caches and much higher cache hit rate.

That is, in single CPU comparisons, the doubled speed of the Celeron almost makes up for the reduced cache hit rate relative to the PII. However, in dual-CPU configurations, the decreased cache hit rate of the Celerons carries the additional penalty of increased memory bus contention. ...But I'm still gonna make one! ;)