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Celeron 466 - Good Or Bad?
CitizenC asks: "My current system is a Pentium 166MMX, 64 Megs SD Ram. Video card is a Creative Labs Voodoo Blaster Banshee PCI, 16Meg. I'm thinking about upgrading to the Pentium 2-3 range, however, Im currently experiencing a money problem. (The problem being that I dont have enough.) When I asked around, I kept hearing good things about the newer generation of Celeron processors. Thus, my question is this: If I were to get an Intel Celeron 466, would it be a good choice, given that I do alot of 3D gaming? If not, why? And if so, what motherboard should I get?"
And remember: Geeks always love computer upgrades as Christmas presents.
Overall, I think the Celerons have a very good price/performance ratio. This ratio improves dramatically if you are willing to do some overclocking. The on-die cache of the celeron makes them much more stable for overclocking than their Pentium compadres. That being said, overclocking does have its drawbacks, especially if you don't really want to put in the effort required to do things right. For example, I have a Abit BP6 dual celeron 366 system overclocked to 550. I got the chips from a well known supplier (http://www.advanceddesignky.com/) who pre-tested the chips and guaranteed they'd work at 550. I spent a little extra to get some massive heatsinks and 2 case fans, but after a month or so, I'm quite confident that heat won't be a problem. One thing to consider (especially for a 3d gamer) is whether the PIII extensions will be heavily utilized in the next few years. Right now it's not much of an issue. Anyway, this is a rather long winded way of saying I think the celerons are a good deal, especially when OC'd. If you're going to overclock though, save yourself some headaches and get quality components. (PC100 RAM, reliable hard drive, good network/video/etc cards.) Get pretested and guaranteed chips from a respected vendor, and don't skimp on the cooling. (Use a good thermal grease, and apply it correctly.) Done properly, you'll have a powerful system at a very good price. (No way I could have afforded a dual pentium system...)
You couldn't ask for much more in terms of games. Megahertz for megahertz, the Celeron matches both the P2 and P3 in speed on non-SSE enabled games. It's extremely cheap (my Celeron was actually the cheapest component in my entire sytem except for the floppy drive) so you can overclock the hell out of em without worrying too much about electromigration. If you're looking for the most speed possible I would get a 400 which overclocks fine to 500. I haven't heard very many success stories about overclocking a 466, but hey, it could happen. So, as long as you don't plan on playing any SSE games (of which there aren't that many anyways), it's actually a waste of your money to buy a P3, and a P2 is essentially no more than a more expensive Celeron.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
celerons are hands down the best processors to buy if you're on a budget and don't let anyone tell you any different. you can pick up a 466 for less than US$70 right now and with some cooling it should overclock to 550 easy. if you go with a 366 celeron you should still be able to overclock it 500+ with cooling - intel's yields on celerons are very good, so a lot of the time there is little difference between the slower and faster models besides the 'official' clock rate. i've read about celeron 300As overclocked past 600mhz. performance is usually about the same as a p2/p3 at the same clock rate (though the celerons use a slower bus...)
i'll have to respectfully disagree with the last poster: you'd be crazy to upgrade the 16 meg banshee when you've got a 166 in there. your processor is much farther behind than your video card.
if visit this site on a regular basis you won't go wrong: www.anandtech.com
it's a slashdot-esque site dealing only with the x86 hardware industry (mainly the gaming side of it...). they link to stories/reviews/etc that other good hardware sites publish. there are many nice hardware sites out there, if you look at anandtech you will quickly find some good ones.
this page does a 'weekly cpu price guide' article in which they also recommend which cpus they think are the best to buy: www.sharkyextreme.com
if i were going to buy a computer right now it'd definitely have an abit bp6 mainboard with a pair of overclocked celerons.
I have 2 celeron 300A systems clocked at 464. I have 3 suggestions.
:) You didn't mention whether your 3D gaming is under windows or linux, and a dual processor setup is pretty much useless for win9x gaming, at least until the SMP win2K release is stable.
First, go get a celeron especially if you're a bit short on cash. The bang for the buck is waaay up there.
Second, make sure you get a good motherboard. I use ABIT motherboards almost exclusively because they make good overclocking boards and they are very easy to set up. I'm sure there are other, more stable boards out there but ABIT works for me. There is also a dual celeron processor capable ABIT board out there, I think it's the BP6.
Third, visit some web sites that offer celeron/motherboard/ram packages and see what you can get. There are places that will sell you a celeron 366 guaranteed to run at 550mhz for right around the price of a "real" celeron 466. Check out http://www.computernerd.com for examples of what I'm talking about. They're not the only site out there though.
If you get a dual processor mobo and eventuallly get 2 of those celeron 366's clocked at 550 each, you would be running a pretty darn fast linux box
Good luck!
I'm easily able to O/C up to 488 or so, and past 500 when I'm not doing anything graphic (which I suspect is the AGP vid card's fault.
I'm not sure how a 466 would affect your ability to OC, if that's your thing, but the 433 all on it's own is more than sufficient for current games. You're likely to hit another limit before your processor gets to be too slow, like not enough RAM, or a fast enough graphics board.
Check my Go-related blog for beginners: DGD
Well, I've been doing a ton of research on the mobo/c466 combo I hope to be recieving for xmas. I've heard good things about the c466, except for the fact that they dont overclock as well as the others. The c466's multiplier is locked at 7, so you can only modify the fsb speed to oc it. It defaults at 7.0x66mhz, which gets you 464mhz. Most people I've talked to can get it up to 7.0x75mhz at 525mhz with no problem, and a few say they've got it up to 7.0x83mhz, or 581mhz with good cooling. As for mobos, if your running linux or another SMP supporting OS, I would definitely reccommend the Abit BP6. This mobo kicks some serious ass and its the only dual celeron board out right now. It also is great for OCing. I have talked to a few people who are currently using dual c366s oc'd to 525 with a TNT2 Ultra vid card and they say it kicks serious gaming ass. If your looking for a cheap kickass gaming machine, this is definitely the way to go.
- clowns are evil
I also have the BP6. I'm using two 400A (Mendocino) CPUs. They're not overclocked at the moment because of cooling issues - they run at 55 degress C cracking RC5. However, I was able to overclock them to 572 running stable, if way too hot.
The ATA/66 support works great under Linux. You need to get the HPT366 patch (available from here or any other kernel.org mirror). The README says it won't boot from the ATA/66 bus, but it works fine for me.
The Win9x and NT support is fine, but get the newest drivers from here. After applying the newest BIOS flash I was unable to install Win2k, but with the earlier BIOS it worked fine.
Also, the BP6 website has some useful information.
--- Bigger bits, softer blocks, tighter ASCII.
``Hi, my name is Joe Slashdotuser, and like all geeks out there who read Firingsquad, Anandtech, MaximumPC or the completely-dead-for-two-years Tom's Hardware Guide, I have to say that you should use a celeron 8Mhz and overclock it to 1.21Ghz (after all that's what I do in my system). Yes, I spent $400 on cooling supplies to get it there, and have to reinstall Windows NT every three days, but to get a CPU for $10 less than the next properly tested CPU was worth it.''
``Screw you, Joe! I'm Jane Slashdotfiend, and I think your brainwashed ways are corrupting the youth of our society as well as all the other posters here. The only REAL chips that gamerz use come from AMD. Sure, once overclocked to 1.3Ghz (which is faster than your cpu), they burn holes in the side of my case such that I have no need for a microwave, but I save $40 off a comparable Intax chip and don't support the Evil Empire.''
I don't understand WHAT is with this elitist viewpoint of overclocking and being flat out *cheap* on CPU purchases. Granted, I'll be the first one in line to say it's silly to spend double the price for 50MHz more from a PIII (according to Intel's tests, anyway), but when you dump all this money into a motherboard and six billion megahertz SDRAM, why are you skimping on the CPU?
Now, for `normal' PCs, I'd get a Celeron in a heartbeat. They're cheap. They're fast. They're from a company that's in bed with Microsoft, so it'll definately work with their operating systems for at least a few more years. (Note: I'm talking about a Mom-worthy system in this paragraph, not a geek system.) Around the office, they're perfect, too. Save a few hundred bucks... you don't need that extra 128K of cache anyway.
If you're building a box for a game system, sure, get the celeron... you can always upgrade to something else later. Or, hey, spend the $50-$100 extra to get a PIII. Those SIMD instructions are spiffy. And they're not THAT much more expensive. It's your choice. There's NOT THAT MUCH difference in performance OR price (pricewatch says ~$100... in an thousand dollar system, that's less than 10% of the price. Considering you're Internet ordering, that probably covers the sales tax you're saving; I assume, of course, you're ordering all your components from ONE vendor, right? Otherwise you'll pay more than $100 in shipping all the stuff just to save $8 on that motherboard you want).
Now, what I don't understand is the militant support of ``overclocking.'' Yeah, I've heard a billion times that the chips are the exact same core blah blah blah, but I enjoy paying extra for a chip that Intel will guarantee for that speed. I don't want to skimp and then realize ``oh, gee, it DOESN'T actually go that fast.'' Of course, I'm also the freak who actually gets the retail processors, since you get a fan and heatsink included, and oh yeah a three year almost-no-questions-asked warranty from one of the few tech companies that probably WILL be around in three years. (Them and Cisco, but that's one of my other rants.)
There's a difference between being economical and being CHEAP. And most of these gamers who are recommending hardware out there (and buying it, for that matter) are in the second category. Get over it. Stop preaching and go support the economy.
-Chris
If you have a choice between buying a 80 horse power car and the exact same model but then with a 120 horse power engine, for exactly the same price, wouldn't you want to go with the 120 horse power version ? Or would that be too cheap, and would you voluntarily pay more money, if only to support the economy ?
Granted, it's not exactly the same as the situation. Suppose you'd buy a car with 80 horse power, and get the extra hardware to chip tune your car upto 120 horse power. By chip tuning it, you'd void your warrenty on the engine of the car, but you know that 99 % of the people who have done the procedure never had any trouble with their engine. You know that on average, your engine will last shorter. On the other hand, it's also a well known fact that the life expectancy of the rest of the car is still lower then that of a chip tuned engine.
Now you have to make a choice ....
Did you notice that word? I'll repeat it: choice. That is the key thing here, since it is up to you. If you ask others for advice, gather the real information and ignore the subjective oppinions.
So what if somebody thinks it's cheap? If you feel confortable with taking a short cut, then go for it.
On the other hand, so what if somebody thinks you're being stupid by choosing the safest path? If that is what you think is best, then ignore any comments on that.
Some last info: I run a Pentium 75 on 90 MHz for years now without a glitch. I did invest in solid hardware though, so in the end, the price was about the same, but I feel more confident about having name brand components with good support.
The Celeron is both in normal as in overclocked situations a good chip in price/performance. If you cannot afford the fastest CPU on the block but still want solid hardware and a clear upgrade path, this is your best choice, both overclocked as at the normal clock speed.
BLaH(c)