Intel Celeron 600 "Coppermine128"

That’s a pretty bold statement don’t ya think?  ;)

The fact of the matter is that the 128KB L2 cache on the new Celerons is not like the 128KB of L2 cache that has been on the Celeron die since the 300A. 

If you remember back to our review of the Pentium III “Coppermine,” you will recall that one of the major improvements Intel made to the core was that the pathway to the on-die L2 cache was widened to 256-bits, which allowed for 11.7GB/s throughput when clocked at 733MHz. 

The width of the path to the off-die L2 cache of the Pentium II and the original Pentium III (Katmai) was 1/4 the size at 64-bits, and even the width of the L2 cache data bus on the Celerons was only 64-bits. 

Since the new Celerons are essentially 128KB variants of the newer Pentium IIIs, they also feature the same 256-bit L2 cache bus for 9.6GB/s of bandwidth at 600MHz on the Celeron to/from the L2 cache. 

Update: We have just recently been informed by Intel that the Processor Serial Number has been disabled on the new Celerons. Unlike turning the feature off in the BIOS, Intel physically disabled the feature in the hardware stating that it is more of a business level function and not intended for the entry-level market.

As we just mentioned, the new Celerons are essentially the same thing as the new Pentium IIIs with the exception that they are 66MHz FSB parts and feature 1/2 the L2 cache of the Pentium IIIs at 128KB. 

The new Celerons will also feature Intel’s Processor Serial Number, which is essentially a unique identifier hard-coded into your CPU that can be accessed via a software interface for a number of purposes. 

There was initially quite a bit of media hype surrounding the potential misuse of the Processor Serial Number, but most of that has since died down; there haven’t been any major, publicized uses for the feature. 

Most motherboard manufacturers now provide a method to turn off the Processor Serial Number from within the BIOS for those that aren’t comfortable with the feature being enabled.