I saw this story about cheap x86 Sun machines being sold at Walmart over at THG. Here's what caught my eye:
It seems that nothing has changed since our article on this. Sigh.
I'm afraid that the Celeron will be even worse of a performer when it gets the Prescott core, as the small amount of cache it will be outfitted with won't be enough to keep that long pipe filled. The current Celeron already suffers a significant amount because of being cache starved, I'm scared to think of what the 90nm Celerons will be like.
The entry level machine houses a 1.6 GHz AMD Duron processor, a 40 GByte harddrive, 128 Mbyte RAM, an Ethernet card as well as a CD-Drive. Floppy and monitor go extra. Trade up to a $400 system and you'll get the floppy and a Celeron 2.6 GHz processor.
It seems that nothing has changed since our article on this. Sigh.
I'm afraid that the Celeron will be even worse of a performer when it gets the Prescott core, as the small amount of cache it will be outfitted with won't be enough to keep that long pipe filled. The current Celeron already suffers a significant amount because of being cache starved, I'm scared to think of what the 90nm Celerons will be like.
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wassup4u2 - Sunday, April 25, 2004 - link
Your average Joe Schmoe says, "I saw this really nice 2.6GHz computer at Wal-Mart." People don't know that 128MB RAM is nowhere near enough for WinXP to run smoothly. They also don't know that a 2.6GHz Celeron is MUCH slower than a Duron that's a gigahertz "slower." They think Intel > AMD, 2.6GHz > 1.6GHz. And there ya go. They buy the Intel crap.quasar - Saturday, April 24, 2004 - link
Actually, the new Prescott celeron appears to be a VAST improvement over the Northwood celeron, x86-secret did some benchies and it seems prescott isnt quite as cache dependant as expected, because it does CONSIDERABLY better clock-for-clock than the northwood one in almost everything.http://www.x86-secret.com/popups/articleswindow.ph...
dtravis - Friday, April 23, 2004 - link
The Celeron 300a was a great CPU. Read Anands test on those Mendicino core celerons. Kept right up with the P2s of the same clock unless the app would not fit in the 128K Cache. They went down hill a bit more with the P3 type celeron and to an all time low with the P4 Celeron.The Duron since the P3 Celeron was around has always been a much faster and better CPU at a even lower price. It just amazes me that the 1.6 Duron is that Ahead of even the faster P4 Celerons. Amazing.
Anonymous - Friday, April 23, 2004 - link
You mean the Duron fits the bill; it is *cheaper*However, and this is in contrast to consumers who buy cheaper, some people will buy based on percieved performance, and the Celeron fits *that* bill.
Brandon - Friday, April 23, 2004 - link
Some people will just buy the cheapest system they can get...and the Celeron fits that bill. Most consumers will assume that the processor with the higher number is faster.Ghandi... - Friday, April 23, 2004 - link
But yea now I read it and I get it. Celerons in my opinion have always been wasted manufacturing. Who buys them? I know of no one. Most people who can afford a computer can get a mid-good range one. The very few are so poor they need a celeron for their use.Ghandi... - Friday, April 23, 2004 - link
I meant, "The entry level machine houses a 1.6 GHz AMD Duron processor, a 40 GByte harddrive, 128 Mbyte RAM, an Ethernet card as well as a CD-Drive. Floppy and monitor go extra. Trade up to a $400 system and you'll get the floppy and a Celeron 2.6 GHz processor. "dtravis - Friday, April 23, 2004 - link
You don't get it? UPGRADE to a Celeron that is slower in almost every test and every way?Jimbo - Friday, April 23, 2004 - link
"It is very obvious from these tests which line of budget processors is worth the money. When we can find a 1.6GHz Duron for just over half the price of a 2.6GHz Celeron and get better performance consistently in almost every test we ran, the choice is clear."If you read the conclusion, you would know.
Ghandi... - Friday, April 23, 2004 - link
I don't get, what's wrong with that article?