Celeron 2 and overclocking

[GT98]

Well I just got done checking out the Firing Squad article on over clocking the new Celery2 on a BH6 Motherboard. They got the sucker up 853mhz, which is a hell of a good deal for $150 and using old equipment. I pretty much had the same setup as the reviewer did 6 months ago before I upgraded to a P3-450 that I'm running at 558mhz. I was wondering if anyone has picked up one of these puppies yet and what their luck has been. if I did my math right and I can run my C2@124 FSB as I am doing to my P3 I should be able to get over 1GH out of an old BH6 Mobo with generic PC100 RAM! Now I need to do some shopping to find a good deal on one. I guess this will hold me over till I get my 1GH Altlon later in the year....

Scott


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Abit BH6 with a P3-450@558,128mb RAM,G400 MAX,SB Live!, Optiquest V95 19in montor, Asus 40x CD-ROM, Aopen 5x DVD-ROM,HP9110i 8x4x32 CD-RW,SupraMax 56k modem, Win98 SE on Western Digital 30.7GB, Win2000 on a WD 13 GB HDD

[ObiBen]

Hey Scott,

The Celeron 2 CPU's that are out right now will truly provide a boost in performance when compared to the old Celeron line. Unfortunately, the performance gap between the Celeron 2 and the P3 Coppermine is so wide that I wonder if it will be a big a hit as when the original Celeron 300A debuted back in 98.

I remember when I first heard about the 300A I rushed to my local computer store and put one on order right away (with the BH6, of course!). Like everyone else, I loved it because the raw performance of the 300A@450 was almost on par with than of a similarly clocked P2 450.

Now, when you get an overclocked Celeron 2, it gets bested by a P3 Coppermine clocked at the same speed , or even slower. With near identical architectures (other than the lower amount of cache), the Celeron 2 and P3 Coppermine should be neck-in-neck in terms of performance. Makes me wonder what Intel designers had on their minds when considering the Celeron 2.




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Regards,

Ben

Config: AOPen AX6BC Pro II Millenium Edition, P3 500E@715, 256MB PC133 RAM, SB Live!, 3Com 3C905BTX 10/100, Adaptec 2940U2W SCSI adapter, Quantum Atlas III 9.1GB U2W, IBM 13.5 GXP IDE HD, Yamaha 4416S writer, Pioneer 36X SCSI CD reader, STB Blackmagic V2 (SLI) - removed after new TurboGL, Matrox G400MAX (Yeah!), Viewsonic PS790 and G773, Win98SE and WinNT 4 Server

[paulcs]

I get the feeling Intel is trying to make a clear distinction with the Celeron II and the Pentium III, a distinction that wasn't quite as apparent with the first Celeron series (with on-die cache) and the Pentium II. People were wondering what exactly was going through Intel's collective head then as well. It really didn't make sense to have two products that performed so similarly at very different prices.

While I think much of what Intel has been doing recently is a little daffy, to say the least, this makes business sense to me. The Celeron was a budget part that performed like its high-priced counterpart. It appears that the Celeron II is a budget part that performs like a budget part, and the cost differential between it and the PIII makes a lot more sense.

I do agree that if you have a PIII Katmai, and you're looking for a nice performance increase, the PIII Coppermine is the way to go. I think people have to learn to stop looking at the Celeron II's impressive overclocking numbers and start looking at its benchmarks, and factor in cost vs. performance as opposed to cost vs. clock speed.

One wonders, given the G400's CPU dependancy, if the performance differences will be even greater for it than the numbers I've seen with the Celeron II and the GeForce. I guess we won't know until somebody tries it.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[ObiBen]

Hi Paul,

I agree with you when you refer to the fact that the Celeron 2 is a budget processor for those wishing to save lots of money. But when you examine the hardware between the Coppermine and Celeron 2, one would think that the performance would be very similar.

I just hope other people understand about this performance gap. They have to examine the CPU on its other merits, not just the fact that you can send the clock speed through the roof. A lot of people out there are hoping the Celeron 2 will do to the Coppermine what the original Celeron did to the Pentium 2. From all the reviews that I've been reading on the web...doesn't look like that will happen this time around.

Nonetheless, the Celeron 2 is still a great CPU for the budget conscious buyer. No stores up here in Vancouver have it yet, but I'm sure it will sell big!

Regards,

Ben

[GT98]

Main reason I'm looking at getting one is that it will hold me over till the end of the year when I'm looking at getting a new system based off a 1+Ghz Alathon system. I understand that a P3 coppermine is a better performer, but for just $150 or so bucks and my older equpiment I can get coppermine like performance. I figure that if I do get the C2 with its 128 cashe running at the speed of the chip it should beat the pants off my current P3-558 with its 512 cashe running at half speed. When I get it I'll post benchmarks of before and after with the new celeron.

Scott


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Abit BH6 with a P3-450@558,128mb RAM,G400 MAX,SB Live!, Optiquest V95 19in montor, Asus 40x CD-ROM, Aopen 5x DVD-ROM,HP9110i 8x4x32 CD-RW,SupraMax 56k modem, Win98 SE on Western Digital 30.7GB, Win2000 on a WD 13 GB HDD

[ObiBen]

Hey Scott

Good luck with the upgrade!

Regards,

Ben