Computer processors?

[JerryG]

Could some one please tell me the difference between a Pentium and a Celeron processor? As in performance, speed and over all usability. I am looking at buying a new computer and I am to say the least confused.

 

[Charliebrn]

The Celeron is basically a scaled down Intel processor. The bus speed is slower, which is it's mean of communication with the rest of the computer. Also it's numeric processor is more limited. If you can afford it, go for the full processor, but if money is an issue, the celeron will do the job.

 

[gws]

Pentium is the sports car.
Celeron is the family car.

Both get you to where your going, one a little faster than the other. Faster is always better when it comes to computer. A good computer is going to be balance of computer speed, memory size, disk size and monitor size. Almost every new computer being sold is fast enough for most home users so speed is usually not an issue. next is a monitor, Go with as large as you can afford. Nothing under 15inches. 17,19 or 21.
flat panels are nice but still expensive for a usable size. Memory is cheap right now, I wouldnt take a system with less than 128mb, prerfable 256mb with expansion beyond that for future growth. Disk are pretty cheap now. 10gb min size, prefer 20gb and up.



Gary.

 

[JerryG]

Thanks
I went ahead and bought one this morning. I got a HP ct963 package deal. It included a HP xt963 computer with a Celeron 1.2 GHz, 128 SDRAM, 30GB hard drive, CD-RW and a 15” monitor. It also came with a HP deskjet 656C printer. I’ll probably wind up using my HP 932C printer instead of the 656c. I got a really good deal on it.

 

[frank_f15]

just to add my .02. the celeron is a scaled down version of the pentium. if at all possible go for the pentium and load up on ram. u always end up doing more on the computer than u thought u would.if u are going to do anything with photos or video u want a pretty good size hard driveand at least 256 mg of ram.

 

[rf33]

Technically I think that the biggest difference is not the bus speed, but the very small (128K) level 2 cache on the Celeron processor. The Pentium III has 256K of level 2 cache memory. Cache memory is the fastest type of memory, and having more of it is always better. If you look at high end server processors, like Intel's XEON series of processors, they have 512K, 1MB, and even 2MB of cache memory on the processor. Some of the Sun high end processors even have 4MB of cache - they are clocked much slower (400MHz is a common speed), but are a different architecture (RISC vs Intel's CISC), and have tons of cache, so they make great server processors. Lost of $, but it makes a huge difference in performance. As to the other comments, I agree, on client computers (not servers), the processor is used so little of the time (except for some 3D games) that it rarely makes any difference for most peoples use. Money is better spent on better video cards, bigger monitors, more RAM (it is so cheap right now), and a larger hard drive.

rf33

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[GlueGuy]

<font color=blue>different architecture (RISC vs Intel's CISC)</font color=blue>

What Ron says is mostly true except for the RISC vs CISC statement. Both are actually RISC architecture, as are nearly all microprocessors these days. The Intel has additional support to tranlate the old CISC instructions to the RISC of the underlying engine.

All somewhat academic to most folks though.

FWIW, the new Itanium is the first post-RISC architecture to come along that might actually dethrone RISC in the performance game. It's a VLIW architecture, and (at least for me) harkens back to the old micro-instruction architecture of the 70's. (VLIW is Very Long Instruction Word).

The GlueGuy

 

[rf33]

Thanks for the 411 GlueGuy, I thought that the Intel chips were CISC. Oh well, I guess that just goes to show you that I dont really know that much about how that darn computer works under the hood.

rf33

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[TerryinMD]

RISC, CISC, VLIW.... so what's in a term.

Back in the good ol' days of scientific processors, I worked with a company that used 60 bit words and then switched over to 64 bit later on. Now, these computers were developed in the early sixties. They also had a technology called parallel processing where the computer could perform mulitple operations simultataneously, meaning it could perform logical, mathematical, stores and fetches at the same time. Pretty awesome stuff when you think about it. They also had 10 microprocessors to perform input/output operations to your peripheral devices (disks, tapes, printers, card readers, etc). All of this stuff made them some very fast machines for their time. And if you wanted to get fancy, you could have up to four CPUs running concurrently sharing all of the memory and devices.

I have to chuckle when I hear the younger guys get excited about all of the "new" stuff for their servers, etc. A lot of the technology has been around for years, just took awhile to get in on the current computer platforms.

Gee, I guess I am getting a little older. /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Terry

 

[MossRoad]

DEC PDP11?

<font color=green> MossRoad </font color=green>