Difference Between Celeron and Pentium

jigglesone

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Can anyone truly answer what the difference is between a Celeron chip and a Pentium class chip? Reason is I already have a Celeron D and a friend wants to sell me his P4. Of course a no brainer..get the P4 but what classifies a celeron from a pentium if they have similar specs? (ie. each is 2.6ghz)
 

TRD-3SGTE

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Celeron has less Cache, be it L1, L2 or any cache.

When benched, Celeron will be slower compared to same-speed Pentium.
Thus, it costs less
 

jigglesone

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So does cache really make that big of a difference to be deemed a budget chip? Not denieing that less cache would make a chip slower but slow enough to cut the price in half? Is the architecture on the Celeron different from the P4 or is the Celeron in esence a wounded P4?
 

jigglesone

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So does cache really make that big of a difference to be deemed a budget chip? Not denieing that less cache would make a chip slower but slow enough to cut the price in half? Is the architecture on the Celeron different from the P4 or is the Celeron in esence a wounded P4?
 

m25

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CeleronDs have either 256 or 512K of L2 cache whle the last Pentium 4s have 1M (or even 2M on few models). A celeronD will roughly perform 20% worse than an equally clocked Pentium4, but I'd not advice you now to take a calculator and see what you get, because the pentium4 is not worth as an upgrade for a price superior to $30; just save that money fot the CPU of yout next system.
 

mpjesse

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yes, a celeron is a wounded P4. though I'm not sure if Intel just disables the cache or the chip has physically less cache. either way it doesn't matter. celeron is slower and is suited just fine for the average idiot who doesn't play games or encode audio/video.

if you aren't the average idiot, don't get one. simple.
 

dragonsprayer

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celrons do not have HT either.

I have benn build gaming systems and celrons work great until you multitask the HT and cache makes a big difference. I have not built any p4 systems or celeron systems for almost 2 years.

For a low end system Get an 805 @75

Waiting for the low price quad core Get a E6300 @180

Want the best price peformance today Get a E6600 or amd fx-60 at $320--$350

Wish list: wait for the Q6600 at $500 next fall????

I am running an e6300 waiting for a cheap q-series with a p5d-dh crossfire x1950xtx, i also run x2 4200+ mini pc, am2, a x6800 wtih a striker and fx-60 939 and my 2003 3.0c @3.5ghz.

My kids on 560j running 4ghz he can im, game and play music all day on both monitors including no lag with oblivian. If you can find an older board cheap the 560-661 chips are great bargin at $90-$100 on ebay - i just sold one for $90
 

dragonsprayer

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I agree with you partially ---well for some people they say that ht sqrews them up --- and some apps do run slower - but in real world multitasking ht works for normal people doing normal things like gaming music and im simultaneously

thats based on build systems with and with out it - i have never seen good data on the subject
 

1Tanker

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Can anyone truly answer what the difference is between a Celeron chip and a Pentium class chip? Reason is I already have a Celeron D and a friend wants to sell me his P4. Of course a no brainer..get the P4 but what classifies a celeron from a pentium if they have similar specs? (ie. each is 2.6ghz)
Probably the biggest factor differentiating the performance of the 2 is the slower FSB. Newer P4's run on an 800FSB vs 533FSB for Celeron. That, combined with a smaller L2 cache makes for a big difference.
 

m25

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yes, a celeron is a wounded P4. though I'm not sure if Intel just disables the cache or the chip has physically less cache. either way it doesn't matter. celeron is slower and is suited just fine for the average idiot who doesn't play games or encode audio/video.
if you aren't the average idiot, don't get one. simple.
I think they just disable it; the old P3s and celerons had no heatspreader on the core and it was identical in size.
 

Arrowyx

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From what I've read, the cache is still there but Intel has physically cut the traces to the extra bits, typically a Pentium will be cut down to a Celeron if it's cache area has too many defects to work around. Processors have slightly more physical cache than they need so that they can disable small blocks that dont pass but if there is a large defect that effects more than the allowed area they cut it down. At least that's my understanding of it.