Intel Celeron D: New, Improved & Exceeds Expectations
by Derek Wilson on June 24, 2004 3:01 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Final Words
The numbers don't lie: Prescott is very well suited for Celeron. Not only do the new Celeron 3xx line of processors perform better than the previous Northwood based Celerons, but even when hampered by a 400MHz FSB, the Prescott Celerons consistently showed improved performance over their predecessors. Even more impressive is the fact that the Celeron 3xx line is able to keep pace with AMD's 2600+ and under Athlon XP line.The improvements in Prescott's core weren't enough to help it keep up with Northwood as a Pentium 4, even with a double-sized L2 cache. With a 128kb cache, much of Northwood's strong points were ripped away, causing plenty of costly pipeline stalls as we mentioned in last year's budget CPU roundup. With the Prescott based Celeron, Intel's architectural enhancements aimed at avoiding pipeline stalls really had a chance to shine. This is due in no small part to the increased returns on performance when smaller caches are doubled in size.
It's clear that at this L2 cache size, Prescott is able to avoid enough potential pipeline stalls that the increased impact of refilling a 31-stage pipeline is much less significant than Northwood's constant struggle to keep itself busy. It's hard to tell how much of this is due to the improved branch prediction and scheduling as opposed to the fact that the extra 8kb of L1 cache that the Prescott has is a more significant percentage of the overall cache size on Celerons than Pentiums, but either way, the performance advantage over Northwood is there.
The bottom line is that Intel's newest architecture scales down with cache size and bus speed in a much more graceful manner than Northwood.
The only issue left for Intel to deal with is pricing. With both the Athlon XP 2500+ and 2600+ easily available at under $80.00 (as per our RealTime Pricing Engine), Intel really shouldn't be charging much more for their essentially comparable Celeron D parts. The information we were able to track down tells us that the 325 will be priced at $79, the 330 at $89, and the 335 at $117. It's a welcome change to see Intel close the gap between price and performance, as it was distasteful for us to look around and see people being pulled in by ads pushing something like "only $200 more to upgrade form an Athlon XP 2500+ to a 2.7GHz Celeron!" Stuff like that almost makes my stomach cringe. Now that Intel's gotten a handle on performance, we're happy that they are tightening up their belts and starting to rely on quality (rather than the Intel name) to sell products in the value space.
A very special thanks to MonarchComputer.com for sponsoring this review.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
54 Comments
View All Comments
JeremiahTheGreat - Monday, July 26, 2004 - link
I bought a Celeron D 320 (2.4Ghz).. running it at 3.2Ghz as we speak! I know.. why would someone buy it to replace a XP2700+.. and that I cannot answer :)Minot - Wednesday, June 30, 2004 - link
Has anyone seen these processors for sale? I thought we'd see them available for sale by now.Thatguy97 - Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - link
There on eBay for like 99 centsThatguy97 - Wednesday, December 21, 2016 - link
*They'reKaraktu - Monday, June 28, 2004 - link
What's funny about all the hype surrounding the Celeron "D" is that it is no different than what some of us have been doing with Mobile Celeron CPUs for months (except the "D" has SSE3).Buy a 100MHz FSB Mobile Celeron, crank it up to 200MHz FSB, and you have a CPU that can hold its own.
I had a for sale thread awhile back that gives you plenty of info:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=...
And a screen shot of a 1.6GHz CPU at 2.13GHz (133FSB)
http://tschidanet.com/forsalepics/213.jpg
So maybe this is an instance of Intel paying attention to what the overclockers are doing. Then again, probably not...
Joe
Spacecomber - Saturday, June 26, 2004 - link
First off, let me say that I'm a long time fan of AnandTech, so my criticisms are hopefully constructive ones.It seems to me that this article suffers from taking something of a cookie cutter approach to reviewing these new processors. In other words, it talks about the processor's new architecture and then runs a bunch of benchmarks with an eye to seeing whether the new architecture actually demonstrates “real world” benefits. This is all fine, but I think the review would have been better if the writer had taken a bit more time to think about what possible interests the typical AnandTech reader might have in this chip. While the article successfully shows how the Celeron D is an improvement over the previous P4 based Celeron, and this is in itself is newsworthy, it still leaves many AnandTech readers with a number of unanswered questions, as they wonder whether this new processor is really something that they should take an interest in.
You've already seen and noted many of these questions, such as whether this processor can be easily overclocked and how it performs in comparison to other kinds of processors, such as full blown P4's in roughly the same price range as the top end Celeron D.
Before actually suggesting some questions for AnandTech staff to think about for a potential follow-up article, let me mention a previous Celeron up-date, which has some similarities to this most recent one, the Tualatin Celeron. If you think a bit about what made this processor so interesting, i.e., new architecture allowed for better performance than its predecessor, backward compatibility (including PII motherboards with an adaptor), and easy overclockability on motherboards supporting frontside bus speeds faster than the default speed for this processor, I think you can better imagine some the questions that readers will be thinking about with regard to this latest Celeron.
So, here are my questions, whether it will overclock has already been asked, but are these new Celerons backward compatible with older chipsets supporting a 533 MHz bus, such as the 850E, E7205, or the 845PE? Does this new Celeron have hyperthreading? How do these new Celerons fit in to some sort of a bang for the buck curve, both at their default speeds and overclocked (assuming that they can be overclocked), compared to other processors?
I hope this is helpful, and I look forward to your future articles.
Space
davidbec - Friday, June 25, 2004 - link
Since the Celeron D cost abour $117 it would only be fair to include the Athlon XP 2800+ in the review. For reasons or price comparison. The reviewer himself expressed his distaste when resellers charge customers to "upgrade" computers from Athlon XP processors to Northwood Celeron.Let justice be done. Let your viewers know the truth. Include an Athlon XP 2800+ in the review.
In addition, the AXP 2600+ is supposed to match the P4 2.6. To be fair to the less informed viewers include the AXP 2800+ so that Intel's 2.8 chip can be matched with a processor AMD supposed equalvalent. Which is the Athlon XP 2800+
Otherwise a great review!! Good job.
D
Zebo - Friday, June 25, 2004 - link
We definitely note the request for heat, overclocking, and Pentium 4 Prescott comparisons ...----------------------
While your at throw a $100 air cooled mobile barton @2600Mhz and watch the beating Intel takes.
johnsonx - Friday, June 25, 2004 - link
I'd like to second (or third, or whatever) the call for at least adding a Prescott 2.4A to the benchmark mix. The 2.4A's play in the same pricing ballpark as the higher-clocked Celeron D's, and a certain large chain store often sells a bundle of a P4 2.4A and an ECS i848 board for $120 or $130, depending on the week. That bundle makes the 2.4A cheaper than the cheapest Celeron D (though nothing compared to the XP 2500+ and NForce2 bundles for $70 a few weeks ago!)I won't name said store, but just think of the potato-based fat sticks you get with a burger in the drive-thru... (sorry, they're on the west coast and Texas only, though I imagine that other stores in other places offer similar bundles).
DerekWilson - Friday, June 25, 2004 - link
We definitely note the request for heat, overclocking, and Pentium 4 Prescott comparisons ...We hear your requests, and will look into our review schedule and see if we have room for a follow up.
Thanks,
Derek Wilson