Intel's marketing - No Celeron

[Whizzard9992]

Just a random note, and something interesting I realized but haven't read in any articles (though I'm SURE I'm not the first to think of it).

The Intel celeron has gotten a bum name, not because it's a crappy processor, but because it's often paired with crappy hardware. Cheap motherboards, cheap RAM, and cheap HDs. Not inexpensive: cheap. There's a difference. The celeron has actually been a great performer, especially with regards to overclocking.

To the point, though, it's interesting to note that Intel chose to brand the previous-generation processors the 'value-models' this time around, as opposed to marketing the processors that are half brain-dead as the value models (e.g. E6300, E6400). Being such a large deviation from their previous marketing, you know it had to be a concious and well-thought decision, with a touch of genius.


Consider this:

NetBurst flopped at the high-end. Intel expected a much higher return on their investment into NetBurst. Also consider that if Intel released their new line of processors at ~US$340 and ~US$540 for the E6600 and E6700, respectively, and released the E6300 and E6400 as Core 2 celerons, not only would it have hurt their sales, but I'm sure Intel would've been ridiculed for price gauging their new architecture. Not just that, but most enthusiasts avoid celerons like the plague (as opposed to AMD or a full-fledged proc), and the enthusiast sector was where Intel really needed to earn back some respect.

Drop all of these problems into the Intel Marketing Machine, and out comes the solution: Market the previous-generation processors as the new-age celeron, and remove the celeron brand from the Core 2 line completely. This way, enthusiasts can get a spiffy next-gen processor at ~US$200 without carrying forward the burdon of the celeron brand. Intel can actually generate some return from NetBurst, and most-of-all, saves some face in the process.

All and all, I think it's important to look at and appreciate how well Intel handled the marketing of their new Core 2 architecture. Had they carried forward the celeron brand, they would have diminished the value of the new architecure, continued to suffer from a failing NetBurst architecture, and been criticised for over-pricing their new product lineup.

Considering Intel's recent "WTF are they thinking" moves (if you think back to the new processor numbering and other such marketing follys), it's good to know Intel's head is now resting securely in a forward direction.

 

[Arrowyx]

Intel is phasing out it's old outdated NetBurst architecture as fast as it can produce new masks for lower grade C2D's. Pentium 4's will be all but gone by Q3 '07 and Pentium D 8xx series will be gone also. All the information I've seen is that Intel is going to carry its Core architecture over to a new line of Celeron processors.

 

[minim3]

Consider this:

NetBurst flopped at the high-end. Intel expected a much higher return on their investment into NetBurst. Also consider that if Intel released their new line of processors at ~US$340 and ~US$540 for the E6600 and E6700, respectively, and released the E6300 and E6400 as Core 2 celerons, not only would it have hurt their sales, but I'm sure Intel would've been ridiculed for price gauging their new architecture. Not just that, but most enthusiasts avoid celerons like the plague (as opposed to AMD or a full-fledged proc), and the enthusiast sector was where Intel really needed to earn back some respect.

I hardly think my E6400 equivalent to a Celeron. As far as I know all E6xxx series is actually the same cpu, same transistor count etc. Celeron was a very crippled cpu to begin with. My E6400 is comparable to AMD X2 5200 and FX-60. Baring in mind that it o/c like no other!

Sorry to burst your bubble, but your logic is flawed.

 

[heartview]

I thought Intel was just going to name their new Celeron line "AMD".




(Sorry, but I thought it was funny. 😛 )

 

[minim3]

I thought Intel was just going to name their new Celeron line "AMD".




(Sorry, but I thought it was funny. 😛 )

cheesy, but I thought it was funny 2!

 

[tool_462]

Somewhere in the "Intel to cut Core 2 prices 40%" thread there was a link showing that Intel has roadmapped for a new line of "Pentium and Celeron CPUs."

Didn't say if they were officially going to follow the naming scheme, but that (Celeron) segment of their market is quite large.

 

[JMecc]

I guess I don't know that much about the Celerons vs Pentiums since I was only watching AMD at that point, but isn't a Celeron just a Pentium with less cache? And isn't the E6400 just a slower E6600 with less cache?

Jo

 

[4745454b]

The Intel celeron has gotten a bum name, not because it's a crappy processor, but because it's often paired with crappy hardware.

No, the celeron is a crappy processor. Think about netburst arch. Long pipeline, no IMC, etc. The lack of IMC makes it rely on how amounts of L2 cache. This is what Intel removed to make the celeron. If you disable large amounts of L2 cache from a netburst CPU, then its going to run like crap...

 

[Whizzard9992]

I thought Intel was just going to name their new Celeron line "AMD".




(Sorry, but I thought it was funny. 😛 )

lol. Fanbois rejoice

I hardly think my E6400 equivalent to a Celeron. As far as I know all E6xxx series is actually the same cpu, same transistor count etc. Celeron was a very crippled cpu to begin with. My E6400 is comparable to AMD X2 5200 and FX-60. Baring in mind that it o/c like no other!

Sorry to burst your bubble, but your logic is flawed.

And this is my point exactly. The celeron is not a 'crippled CPU'. Dating back to Celeron's inception, the celeron has mainly been a mainstream processor with less cache. From the P4 forward, the cache was the only difference.

Celeron computers always perform poorly because they have the poorest quality components, giving the processors themselves an undeserved bad reputation. Other than the cache, Celerons are the same beasts as their fully-cached counterparts. The lower FSB's and such are generally marketing improprieties; not hardware limitations.

I hate to burst your bubble, but your E6400 is the celeron-equivelant Core 2.

(link)

Somewhere in the "Intel to cut Core 2 prices 40%" thread there was a link showing that Intel has roadmapped for a new line of "Pentium and Celeron CPUs."

Thanks. I'll have to look that up. I wonder if they're keeping the celeron brand??

 

[Whizzard9992]

The Intel celeron has gotten a bum name, not because it's a crappy processor, but because it's often paired with crappy hardware.

No, the celeron is a crappy processor. Think about netburst arch. Long pipeline, no IMC, etc. The lack of IMC makes it rely on how amounts of L2 cache. This is what Intel removed to make the celeron. If you disable large amounts of L2 cache from a netburst CPU, then its going to run like crap...

This sounds more like a fanboy rant than a comment against the Celeron.

If you don't like the P4, that's all well-and-good, but the point I'm trying to make is that the Celeron chip itself is a quality part with a bad name. It's a "Half-retarded" P4

I should correct myself: the point I'm trying to make is that the E6300 and E6400 are the Core 2's 'unbranded' celeron. The IMC/NetBurst debate is totally out of scope.

 

[MadHacker]

I hate to burst your bubble, but your E6400 is the celeron-equivelant Core 2.

I disagree.. the E4400 series that intell will come out with next year is much closer to a celeron - equivelant Core 2.

 

[heartview]

I guess I don't know that much about the Celerons vs Pentiums since I was only watching AMD at that point, but isn't a Celeron just a Pentium with less cache? And isn't the E6400 just a slower E6600 with less cache?

Jo

This is where perspective comes in. You could also say that the E6600 is just an E6400 with more cache. This is where a test between the E6400 and the E6600 at equal MHz would come in handy. Then you could really start to understand how much affect the cache has on performance. It it isn't a very big jump in performance to the the greater cache then I think the way I just said it is most appropriate. Doubling the cache to get an extra 2% performance at the same clock speed doesn't exactly justify the extra cost.

 

[Whizzard9992]

Doubling the cache to get an extra 2% performance at the same clock speed doesn't exactly justify the extra cost

Actually, I believe the benches show around a 20% gain for the added cache at the same clock. a 3.2 GHz E6400's performance is very close to a stock E6700 (slightly more if I'm not mistaken).

I hate to burst your bubble, but your E6400 is the celeron-equivelant Core 2.

I disagree.. the E4400 series that intell will come out with next year is much closer to a celeron - equivelant Core 2.

I'm speaking with respect to Intel's changed marketing strategy.

A Celeron D 3GHz was a Pentium D 3GHz (or close) that failed 1/2 the cache check. The E6300/E6400 are E6600/E6700's that failed their cache checks, the same as the previous 3 generations of celerons. The celerons, like the E6300/E6400, are born AS E6600/E6700, and are made into the lower-grade chips by blowing a fuse and disabling 1/2 the cache.

This means that your E6400 may have been a X6800 that failed 1/2 the cache check. This method also means that your E6400 may have been an E6700 with NO problems, but Intel had a higher demand for the lower-branded chips and blew the fuse on good chips to meet demand. Other than the cache, the chips are identical.

Maybe not the point, but the main supporting argument remains the same: The Celeron isn't the kid who rides the little bus to school. The Celeron is Pete Rose, born with no legs. He might not make it to the big leagues, but he'll kick ass in the special olympics.

 

[kamel5547]

I hate to burst your bubble, but your E6400 is the celeron-equivelant Core 2.

(link)

Well to use your own reference the e6400 is NOT the celron equivalent

"Conroe-L
Intel will offer a low-cost single-core version of Conroe, code-named "Conroe-L", starting from the second quarter 2007, according to an article on DailyTech[19]. The new Conroe-L processors will not carry the Core nomenclature. Instead Intel is resuscitating the Pentium and Celeron brands for Conroe-L based products
"

IIRC the single core models will be the budget chips, not lower end dual cores.

 

[vanka]

The Intel celeron has gotten a bum name, not because it's a crappy processor, but because it's often paired with crappy hardware.

No, the celeron is a crappy processor. Think about netburst arch. Long pipeline, no IMC, etc. The lack of IMC makes it rely on how amounts of L2 cache. This is what Intel removed to make the celeron. If you disable large amounts of L2 cache from a netburst CPU, then its going to run like crap...

This sounds more like a fanboy rant than a comment against the Celeron.

If you don't like the P4, that's all well-and-good, but the point I'm trying to make is that the Celeron chip itself is a quality part with a bad name. It's a "Half-retarded" P4

I should correct myself: the point I'm trying to make is that the E6300 and E6400 are the Core 2's 'unbranded' celeron. The IMC/NetBurst debate is totally out of scope.

Actually the Netburst debate isn't out of scope. 4745454b's whole point was that Netburst architecture relied on cache for performance; reduce the cache and you drastically cut performance. The Core 2 architecture is much less dependent on cache for performance; the overclocking benchmarks on the net show that the E6300 and E6400 at E6600 or E6700 clocks perform within a single percentage point of the E6600 or E6700. This was also true of the P-III generation Celerons, but the Celeron name was tarnished with the Netburst generation.

 

[4745454b]

Celeron computers always perform poorly because they have the poorest quality components, giving the processors themselves an undeserved bad reputation. Other than the cache, Celerons are the same beasts as their fully-cached counterparts. The lower FSB's and such are generally marketing improprieties; not hardware limitations.

NOT a hardware limitation??? I also love how you refute my argument with a personal attack.

This sounds more like a fanboy rant than a comment against the Celeron.

Please tell this fanboy then how he's wrong. By removing half the cache (or in some cases 75%), and putting it on a slower bus (pun intended), how is the celeron still a good chip? Once you do this, its now crap. The "advantage" of netburst was a fast frequency, with large amounts of L2 cache to hold info. Its the only way it could compete with Athlons. If you remove the area it could hold info, and limit the speed at which it could get new info, that large pipeline is going to be starved. Plain and simple. It moved slow because that 31 stage pipeline was always waiting for more info from the ram.

From a performance standpoint, the celeron was crap. It had nothing to do with crap motherboards or the like. The chip was flawed in its design. (before you jump all over me, I am well aware of what the celeron design is.)

 

[battousai831]

A Celeron D 3GHz was a Pentium D 3GHz (or close) that failed 1/2 the cache check. The E6300/E6400 are E6600/E6700's that failed their cache checks, the same as the previous 3 generations of celerons. The celerons, like the E6300/E6400, are born AS E6600/E6700, and are made into the lower-grade chips by blowing a fuse and disabling 1/2 the cache.

you SIR are an idiot, a celeron D and a Pent. D are completely diff.... ONE HAS AN ADDITIONAL CORE! theres a large difference between a crippled celeron and a Pent. D.... so please stop spreading misinformation. and yeah the lower 6000's have less cache but there not cache dependent like netburst.. they proform nearly the same! thats marketing!

 

[minim3]

gah...so many people to reply.
can't be bothered since I see it's already answered.

Whizzard9992 you clearly don't know what you're talking about.

 

[4745454b]

Thats kinda what I was hinting at, but I try not to make people feel bad. Perhaps he'll learn something as he tries to prove me wrong.

 

[minim3]

Well if my E6400 is a "CELERON" according to Whizzard9992.

Then it must be the BEST CELERON EVER (sorry for capitals) that intel has ever made!!!

 

[aximbigfan]

il bet that he is defending celerons like crazy is becouse he has one.


chris

 

[Whizzard9992]

Well if my E6400 is a "CELERON" according to Whizzard9992.

Then it must be the BEST CELERON EVER (sorry for capitals) that intel has ever made!!!

il bet that he is defending celerons like crazy is becouse he has one.

Wow. These forums have really gone to $hit lately.

First of all, the fact I was trying to make is simple: The same process Intel used to qualify a celeron in previous generations is now used to qualify an E6300/E6400.

I was not insulting your processor, or making an attack against anyone, or saying that the E6300/E6400's should be labelled Celerons. I was not sasying that a celeron is better than an AMD, or that it's even better than a processor that has full cache (though that point could be argued).

If Intel continued how they qualified Celerons with Core 2's, then the E6300/E6400 would have been labelled Celerons, and based on those standards, the E6300/E6400 would be considered the Celerons of the Core 2 Lineup. That was the point. I could draw a picture if that's not entirely clear...

Anyway, not that it matters, but to reply...

4745454b's whole point was that Netburst architecture relied on cache for performance; reduce the cache and you drastically cut performance. The Core 2 architecture is much less dependent on cache for performance; the overclocking benchmarks on the net show that the E6300 and E6400 at E6600 or E6700 clocks perform within a single percentage point of the E6600 or E6700. This was also true of the P-III generation Celerons, but the Celeron name was tarnished with the Netburst generation.

*edit* misread

4745454b's point was not valid because NetBurst doesn't have anything to do with what I originally posted. Intel changed their branding and marketing, which has NOTHING to do with netBurst performance in Celerons (or versus AMD for that matter). Even tho they perform similarly, Intel changed their policy from "Failed Cache to Celeron" to "Failed Cache to Lower model."

From a performance standpoint, the celeron was crap.

Just because you know that a long pipeline performs better with more cache in no way validates your point. In fact, you can find a LOT of articles where the celeron performs very well against the P4/PD. Why don't you start here? Again, not that it has anything to do with my OP, the smaller cache of the Celeron 4/D was offset by the fact that it could be better overclocked (a similar trait of the E6300/E6400, though again, not to the extent of the C2D)

I also love how you refute my argument with a personal attack.

I wasn't attacking you; I was stating that the point you made has nothing to do with my OP about the changing qualifications for Celerons and how it affected Intel's marketing strategy. I said, "Intel stopped calling cache-failed processors Celerons," and your respose was, "NetBurst sucks, so celerons suck."

It's a personal opinion that Celerons have an unjust bad reputation, but that opinion is based on performance statistics from VARIOUS professional reviews and numerous posts from REAL overclockers.

you SIR are an idiot, a celeron D and a Pent. D are completely diff.... ONE HAS AN ADDITIONAL CORE

I didn't specify that the celeron D has a core disabled. If you really want to pick apart what I say, the Celerons often have a few features disabled, too. Back to the point (which, AGAIN, has NOTHING to do with my OP) it was still still a Pentium D when it was fabb'ed, and it's still a fair performer (in fact it performs very well when overclocked).

There's nothing like arguing with a bunch of bickering 12-year olds who can't understand a topic post. Instead they have to pick something out of the post that has NOTHING to do with the original topic and squabble over it. Ok. You don't like the Celeron, or NetBurst, or Intel. I get it.


Now i see why there are no serious overclockers left in these forums. :roll:

 

[bananabox]

i agree with whizzard its like the a64 and opty thing. the ones that test better are binned as opty's. no before someone wigs out there are a few other differences between the celeron and C2D such as cache and the disabled core. all in all though they are about half the the chip of a C2D thanks to the disabled parts.

 

[m25]

'Celeron' was almost born with the 'Pertium' brand name and has always been (architecturally) the same chip, so it's logical that with the disappearing of the latter, the celeron will also disappear.
In the multi core era we have entered, value CPUs are simply single core ones, so, with the prices dropping so much, multithreading blooming, it looks like there is always less need for another budget class within single cores. furthermore, if you haven't yet noticed it, both Sempron and Celeron prices are crossing wih those of their bigger brothers creating a nonsense situation.
Both Intel and AMD should start producing only single core CPUs with the minial cache configurations, because 1.both K8 and Core2 performances do not drop considerably with cache 2.They will definitely differentiate single cores from dual cores; single cores will perform abit worse even in singlethreaded apps.

 

[m25]

Just because you know that a long pipeline performs better with more cache in no way validates your point. In fact, you can find a LOT of articles where the celeron performs very well against the P4/PD. Why don't you start here? Again, not that it has anything to do with my OP, the smaller cache of the Celeron 4/D was offset by the fact that it could be better overclocked (a similar trait of the E6300/E6400, though again, not to the extent of the C2D)

Well, not exactly; While Celerons have always offered a decent office performance, most of the time, it's been just that. I ave tried it myself and it hurts like hell to OC a celeron to 2.67GHz and still have it perform like a 2.0GHz P4. The only great celerons ever (IMO) have been Tualatins.