Intel Celeron 400A (Slot-1)

Using the same tests AnandTech conducts on all multiprocessor systems, the Celeron 400 was put to the test against the 300A, the 300 (with no L2 cache) and AMD's upcoming K6-3 to show how the performance standings change near the high end of the processing spectrum, with the only varying component being the amount of RAM used.

With 64MB of RAM, the 400A doesn't really distance itself from the competition all too much, however as anyone familiar with Windows NT already knows, the more RAM you equip a system withwell

the larger a performance increase you experience. The 400A slowly begins to break away from the competition (particularly the K6-3 400), a gap which grows even further in some cases with 256MB of SDRAM. The true performance differences seem to come out in Photoshop and image editing situations, while the performance under CAD/drafting and development environments between the Celeron 400A and the K6-3 400 is virtually identical. The bottom line seems to be that for image editing, the Celeron 400A is without comparison in terms of a price to performance ratio, even taking AMD's K6-3 into account and factoring in the fact that the K6-3, for Super7 users, won't require a motherboard upgrade. For all other high-end users, the K6-3 offers a similar value to the Celeron 400, so if you're currently a Super7 user, and not a graphics artist, the K6-3 is probably your best upgrade path. Otherwise, the Celeron 400A is looking pretty tempting with its sub $160 - $170 price tag, a quote which should drop to around the < $100 level within the next 3 months.