Intel Celeron D: New, Improved & Exceeds Expectations
by Derek Wilson on June 24, 2004 3:01 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Introduction
When we first heard that Intel would be continuing the Celeron tradition with a Prescott based "D" line, we were a little skeptical. When we further heard that the Celeron D would only be getting a quarter of the cache its underperforming Pentium 4 parent has, our eyes widened with doubt. Sure, a bump up to a 533MHz FSB would help, but it couldn't possibly make up for the kind of performance issues that we saw with the Pentium 4 E; could it?Looking back over the past of couple months, we can almost imagine Intel knowing what everyone was thinking and going along quietly with a little smirk on its face. That's right, our first inclinations that Celeron D performance would be worse than Intel's already atrocious budget performance were utterly and completely wrong.
In fact, the new Celeron D is a big step up in performance over the Northwood-based Celeron.
We've gone from thinking that this would be a quick article on the hastening demise of the lowest value "value" chip on the market to an article about how Intel is taking a step in the right direction, while we are once again reminded that knowing the ins and outs of an architecture is no substitute for performance numbers. Of course, that was the point of requiring scaling graphs and analysis along with our simulators back in Microprocessor Architecture class.
Before getting to the numbers, we'll take a brief look back at what's inside the new Prescott based Celeron, and we'll try to understand exactly what makes Celeron D so special.
UPDATE: When this article was first published, the L2 cache size of Northwood based Celeron processors was incorrect. The information has been corrected, and the article updated accordingly. Thanks to everyone who pointed out our error. We appologize for any inconvenience we may have caused.
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mino - Thursday, June 24, 2004 - link
#21 I didn't intend to make me looka 'smart', nor is my opinion I am :).But actually every second to third sentence in this article hurt me. To clarify, I just didn't and doesn't understand how someone who is making such review could make such a mistake, unless he is incompetent. And this fact is NOT good, it is BAD.
Cheers.
glennpratt - Thursday, June 24, 2004 - link
The fastest AMD proc is 2600+/2500+ Kinda lame VS 2.8 ghzDennis Travis - Thursday, June 24, 2004 - link
mino, You better read it again, Anand did NOT write the review.Saist - Thursday, June 24, 2004 - link
Holy.... I just got finished reading the article, and I wonder how the Celeron D @2.6ghz would fare against a 2.6ghz P4, as I already know how an Athlon 2400+ fares against a 2.6ghz.Seriously... if these prices are right, I might not have such a big issue building Celeron boxes for people...
elec999 - Thursday, June 24, 2004 - link
Almost forgot sorry, hows is the celeron D at intell 2.8gig compare to Intel Pentium 4 -520 and 2.8-GHz. Is the extra cost of the intel p4 at 2.8gig worth it.elec999 - Thursday, June 24, 2004 - link
I would love to see Celeron D perform against a overclocked amd xp2500+m or better. Also I would like to see how well the celeron D overclocks. Lastly I would like to see some seti per work unit benchmark results. Intel is really showing competition against AMD, it really sucks that AMD is unable to win in the heart of many computer users who are not hardware friendly.Marlin1975 - Thursday, June 24, 2004 - link
Its still not thet GREAT of a improvemnet when you look at price compared to AthlonXPs for the SAME price, let alone the semprons.Could you please update it or do another look and see what the Temps are? Would be nice to see if heat is more from the L2 cache or just the design?
kmmatney - Thursday, June 24, 2004 - link
You can by the Athlon Mobile XP 2600+ for $95 at NewEgg, so it would be good to see a comparison between this and the celeron D, especially in regards to overclocking.nserra - Thursday, June 24, 2004 - link
%23 Sorry about the post, I was typing at the time so...It seams that the "future" celeron have 512kb cache when will be based on the 2MB P4. How soon is the P4 2MB cache is to come on the Intel roadmap?
nserra - Thursday, June 24, 2004 - link
What a bad review!Northwood Celeron has 128kb cache, not 256kb. How can it say the improvements came from L1 cache, FSB and core enhancements? Where are those improvements under prescott p4 vs northwood p4?
Willamette P4 is a better compare since it's also 256kb cache. (#10)
What about heat, and thermal dissipation, power requirements, ...
To notebook systems seam good, price is good.
For me with these performance improvements is a better buy then P4 systems for offices/corporations, since most of people have their computer to have a picture of their children on the desktop, and a stupid screen saver, and a type writer program, so that will do.
Really bad review must be offline as soon as possible, or as soon the mistakes are removed.....