Intel Celeron D: New, Improved & Exceeds Expectations

The Test

There are a few numbers that we are going to want to pay attention to in the following tests. First, obviously, will be the performance of the Celeron D compared to the Northwood based 2.6GHz and 2.0GHz parts and competing Athlon XP parts. Ideally, we would have dug up a multiplier unlocked Northwood Celeron and ran 2.8GHz, but the performance advantage of both the 330 and 325 over the 2.6 should be enough to show how a 2.8GHz Northwood based Celeron would perform versus the 335.

The second set of numbers that we want to look at are our FSB underclocked Celeron D numbers. We ran our Prescott Celeron at 20x100 for a direct comparison to the Northwood based core. With the same multiplier, FSB, and platform, we are able to take a focused look at the Celeron D performance difference due to architecture and L1/L2 size changes in the Prescott core. These numbers will be collected on the first page of benchmarks.

This time around, our D865PERL board could not be resurrected for testing the Celeron D. We had no choice but to retest our Celeron 2.0 and 2.6 on an ABit 865 board (which performs a little better than an Intel D875PBZ). The extra 5% or so performance improvement wasn't enough to help push the Northwood based Celerons out from under the bottom of the pile. Other than that difference, our testing set-up is the same as the one used in December.

Performance Test Configuration
Processor(s):	Intel Celeron D 335 (2.8GHz) Intel Celeron D 330 (2.66GHz) Intel Celeron D 325 (2.53GHz) Intel Celeron 2.6GHz Intel Celeron 2.0GHz AMD Athlon XP 2600+ AMD Athlon XP 2500+ AMD Athlon XP 2400+ AMD Athlon XP 2200+ AMD Athlon XP 1700+ AMD Duron 1.6GHz
RAM:	2 x 256MB DDR400 @ 2:3:3:6
Hard Drive(s):	2 x Western Digital Special Edition
Chipset Drivers:	Intel Chipset Driver 5.00.1009
Video Card(s):	ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256
Video Drivers:	ATI Catalyst 3.9
Operating System(s):	Windows XP Professional SP1
Motherboards:	ASUS A7N8X Deluxe ABit IS7 (Intel 865)