Pentium 4 or Celeron...? (Advice Please)

[a745]

I just need a little advice. My dad's finally getting me my own PC (Finally~!), but I'm not that familiar with the processors and stuff. There's his friend who's selling us his PC, and he says it has a Celeron processor, which he claims is almost the same level as Pentium 4. Is this true...?

I don't want to spend money on a slow PC T_T.

[WanderingKnight]

Celeron is Intel's bargain line. They're cheaper than Pentium processors, and even when they come from the same manufacturer, they're supposed to be crappier. If you can, get a Pentium processor. I don't really know about Celeron's specs, but it's almost given you won't get as good as a Pentium of the same series.

[theDarkHorse]

Definitely the Pentium 4 over the Celeron. Though now, if you look around, there are a multitude of various processors (Celeron, Pentium 4, Pentium D, Core 2 Duo) that one's bound to get confused.

[a745]

A friend did say that Pentium D is good... But I'm still not sure, 'cause people over at another forum I go to says to stick to Celeron 3100+ or something

[Ending]

My first computer had a Celeron and I can honestly recommend that you AVOID them like plague. When compared to Pentiums and Athlons, they're far slower than their MHz ratings would indicate. Divide it by half if you want some reference.

[theDarkHorse]

Yeah, half sounds like a fairly good reference.

Hmm...depends on how much you can spend.

These are the price comparisons for a bunch of Intel processors at my local computer store. I live in Australia, so this is a guide only to the relative costs of each processor compared to each other:

Intel Celeron D 347 3.0Ghz - $67 AUD
Intel Pentium 4 631 3.0Ghz - $87 AUD
Intel Pentiun D D925 3.0Ghz - $115 AUD
Intel Core 2 Duo E6320 (1.86Ghz)* - $228 AUD

*The speed of a processor (as in gigahertz) is no longer a good indicator of performance, because of changes in processor architechture.

Anyway, the Celeron D costs roughly half as much as the same-frequency Pentium D. And since performance is roughly halved anyway...well you get what you pay for.

[killmoms]

If you buy anything from Intel that isn't a Core 2 Duo (or other Core-based chip), you're wasting your money buying yesterday's tech. Save more.

[demonix]

Originally Posted by Wordplay

I can honestly recommend that you AVOID them like plague. When compared to Pentiums and Athlons, they're far slower than their MHz ratings would indicate. Divide it by half if you want some reference.

Quoted for truth since my current system has a celeron processor and that isn't good for much as I'm not gutting the whole system and putting in a more modern motherboard and an intel pentium D processor

[ImClueless]

Celerons in general are crappy. The area where they are lacking is L2 cache. However, it also depends on which Pentium 4 and Celerons you are talking about. Intel went through several revision of the Pentium 4 and Celeron afterall. If comparing within the same generation then Athlon>Pentium>Celeron. However, the new Celerons are pretty much the same if not better than the first generation Pentium 4s. To be safe just don't get one (Like everyone already said)

[Vexx]

well... "crappy" isn't the right word... they are very reliable. But if you want a low-end solution (like a basic workstation, a router, a server) and not a "w00t gaming machine", Celerons are much more cost effective. They're also less prone to excessive heat - (though the mobile and low energy class Pentiums are better at that).

For a general purpose computer that you game on though.... it has to be at least a Pentium 4 .... the core duo2 isn't really used by much software *yet* so don't worry so much about that. If you're doing anything that requires excessive number crunching or floatingpoint work (like games or intensive computations), the Celerons are a poor choice.

You might also consider a high-end AMD 64 bit chip .... they're much cheaper than the equivalent Pentium but tend to run hotter (and though they're great for overclocking, I generally don't because it can shorten their lifespan).

[Sephi]

Originally Posted by killmoms

If you buy anything from Intel that isn't a Core 2 Duo (or other Core-based chip), you're wasting your money buying yesterday's tech. Save more.

I agree. Don't buy a Pentium D or Celeron. These days the Core 2 Duo isn't even that expensive. Intel has lowered it's price several times. Just save some extra money and go for a E4300(110$)

Quad cores will be coming to shortly. Though that's still a bit of a overkill especially considering most programs aren't multi treat.

And btw what are you gone use your pc for? If your gone use it just for office and surfing the web a bit a celeron is more than sufficient.

[ImClueless]

Well in the context of this thread they are crappy since the thread starter was comparing them to Pentium 4s... . But you are right they are reliable and fine for certain applications. As for the for price advantage, with cpu prices so low right now you really don't save that much except if you are buying in bulk. For a single personal computer the savings of a few dollars really isn't worth the massive performace sacrifice you will have to make.

[killmoms]

Originally Posted by Vexx

.... the core duo2 isn't really used by much software *yet* so don't worry so much about that.

...What? The Core 2 Duo's are demonstrably faster than Pentium 4s in pretty much every benchmark, even single-threaded ones.

[Ledgem]

As was stated before, anything before Intel's "Core" processors are junk. The Celeron's worth depends on what specific model it is; if it's an earlier Celeron, it's probably terrible, but if it's a more recent Celeron, it could be decent.

The Pentium 4 and Pentium D processors are not recommended. They're much less effective than their AMD counterparts (Athlon and Athlon X2 lines).

But before we go into that, the important basics are: what do you want to use your computer for, and what's your budget? If you're discussing your dad's friend's computer, then tell us as much as you know about it (RAM, graphics, processor, hard drives, how old it is, how heavily he used it, etc.) and how much he's selling it for. There's a chance that you could build your own, better computer for the same price. If you're afraid of building your own, there may be a similar deal from a company like Dell or HP for a better system.

[SeijiSensei]

I have an older Dell Dimension with a Celeron with these specs:

model name : Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.60GHz
cpu MHz : 2591.718
cache size : 128 KB

This machine cannot decode widescreen (1280x720) H.264-encoded animes. It's fine for pretty much everything else I do and has no problem with XVid encodes or H.264 encodes at lower resolutions like 704x400. As more and more releases appear in widescreen, H.264 versions, I've started to look into buying a new machine, though spending money just to be able to watch certain anime shows seems a needless expense. (For the time being, I just re-encode them to XVid which my machine handles fine, even at 1280x720, as long as there aren't many other tasks running in the background.)

Looking at the specs there makes me wonder if the small cache size (128 KB) might be as big an impediment to fluid H.264 decoding as the processor speed itself. I wonder if the same native processor speed with a 512 KB or 1 MB cache would have fewer problems keeping up with H.264 decoding.

Oh, yes, I'm using Linux (Fedora Core 6) with mplayer, xine, or kaffeine.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by killmoms

...What? The Core 2 Duo's are demonstrably faster than Pentium 4s in pretty much every benchmark, even single-threaded ones.

I wasn't denying that.... otoh, there isn't much/any software out there that actually takes advantage of the new architecture. If a random piece of existing software runs faster, it would also run faster on an equivalent non c2d device. So if the price break matters... it is something to consider. Ledgem's most recent post - last paragraph pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter.

[Kurz]

Originally Posted by Vexx

I wasn't denying that.... otoh, there isn't much/any software out there that actually takes advantage of the new architecture. If a random piece of existing software runs faster, it would also run faster on an equivalent non c2d device. So if the price break matters... it is something to consider. Ledgem's most recent post - last paragraph pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter.

vex do not give advice about things you don't understand.
Core 2 Duo and the pentinum 4's can run the same code, which is code meant for a x86 system.

However in most cases Core 2 Duo can run it faster and more efficiently.
The reason why is because they taken out the latencies of the core and increased prefetch and many other aspects of the chip.

Core 2 Duo Runs everything faster PERIOD, Nothing needs to be coded differently since its based on x86 extension.

[arcadeplayer987]

Between P4 and Celeron I chose Core2duo.

[Bonta Kun]

Originally Posted by arcadeplayer987

Between P4 and Celeron I chose Core2duo.

theres ur answer right there

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Kurz

vex do not give advice about things you don't understand.
Core 2 Duo and the pentinum 4's can run the same code, which is code meant for a x86 system.

I don't know how Vexx would feel about that post but personally I was pretty insulted. Vexx is probably one of the more highly knowledgeable members that frequent this forum, but personal discussion aside, what he wrote makes perfect sense. He wasn't saying that they can't run the same code - he was talking about whether software makes use of both cores or not. And there's a huge difference between a dual core processor running code made for any old processor, and a dual core processor running software that was designed to make use of both cores.

It's almost the same as the argument a while back about 64 bit vs. 32 bit processors. 32 bit could beat out 64 bit processors when both were running the same software, but the 64 bit processors really shone through when running 64 bit software (which obviously couldn't be comparison-benchmarked). There's a similar issue here. Is a C2D faster than a Pentium 4 processor? For all intents and purposes, yes. But depending on what you're using your computer for, you may really not notice a difference between a Pentium 4 and a C2D.