PC processor help... P3 1.1 vs 1.4Cel

OK, i just found out that there are *two* drop in replacements for my computer (currently p3 450), a coppermine p3 @ 1100MHz and a tualatin celeron @ 1400MHz. which would u chose? priced at $230 & $150 respectively, but if there is a performance benefit from the p3 i will get it. both are 100fsb 256 cache.

256mb pc100 sdram, will boost to 512 at same time as proc. upgrade.

PC is home network server, and is used to play games, MPGs (audio and video), etc. basically LOTS of processing power. as it stands, playing MP3s will sometime crunch while i load webpages, and video playback will skip if someone on the network accesses the internet. skipping back/forth in vid files, it takes a few seconds for audio/video to synch, so obviously the current processor is maxed out. also my newly installed mail app (opera m2) has a hell of a time when i try transfer stuff between folders, taskmanager shows maxed CPU even to load my mail folder on screen. (thousands of emails; 800mb folder).

the more newer things i get the more i find the processor in serious need for upgrade. so, go for raw clock speed (celeron) or something the p3 has that will make it worth the additional 80 bucks? thanks!

iddibhai,

I kind of **guess** that your current motherboard which was running a P3 450 at around 2V and possibly in a Slot1 form factor too or so will have problems running the later 1.4 Tualatin chips as these have much lower voltage requirements and using the socket 370 also another form factor. Possibly even those 1.1 P3´s will be in socket 370 factor and below 2V too. I would encourage you to carefully check your motherboards brand and type and check what the manufacturer lists as CPU compatibility. Typically I fear a 450Mhz Chip won´t give you all the upgrade paths you wish.

The "old" Pentium II/III CPU´s where several families starting at 233/266/300 at 66Mhz busclock and typicall using the LX chipset, then the newer 300/350/400/450 type chips came online using 100Mhz busclocks and BX chipsets. The next step went to a maximum of 600Mhz and introduced the newer 133Mhz FSB on some of them and the next one to 1000Mhz and the ones you are wishing to upgrade to are even the next generation. All these steppings required at least a lower voltage and while Intel spent some effort on upgradability it typically wasn´t more than 1 generation.

You might want to check your upgrade path possibilities and also make shure you get the right to return your goods in case they won´t run in your system - which as I tried to shortly line out is of some propability.

And regarding the speed difference - the P3 has a larger cache and the Celeron a higher internal speed - it will depend on what you actually run on it - if the code of what you do will fit inside the larger P3 cache it will outrun the Celeron - overall I would guestimate both to perform pretty equal - but chances are probably smaller that the 1.4 Tualatin will run in your system at all. In both cases I wouldn´t spent any money without being shure it running at all - and don´t let anyone sell you that there ios some fancy upgrade socket included which will make shure it runs - it might - or might not - make shure you get your money back if it fails to run to your satisfaction.

Klaus

Paying $150 for a 1.4GHz Celeron is nutz. Currently, Newegg has that proc for ~$60.00! Where is that price from? You can get a P4-style Celeron for under $100 (a 2.0GHz is about ~$86.00). If I were you, I would upgrade to an Asus motherboard that supports P4's and P4-style Celerons. I say Asus because we use Asus motherboards here at work with great success and they have what they call the EZ-Plug. The EZ-Plug allows you to use their P4 motherboards without a P4 power supply. This will save you the $$$ of having to upgrade your power supply (as long as you have a "decent" one).

As for performance differences with the two proc's you mentioned... It depends on what OS you'll be using and what software. In my experience, the difference between a P4 1.7GHz and a Celeron 1.7GHz is not very noticable with FreeBSD 4.x (tested with 4.7-R_p6). In Windows, with things like games, it's much more noticable. Win2K server is much happier on a P3/P4. RedHat is kinda in the middle. If you do some tweaking, you can get it to run pretty similar on both.

- G!mpy

Have you considered upgrading your motherboard?

You can get a state of the art(or nearly so) mobo + 1.7 GHx Celeron plus 256 Meg of high speed DDR memory, assembled and tested for $256. 512 Meg is $30 more.
http://www.jncs.com/content/fb_Asus_P4S8x.htm

Lots more to choose from too.
http://www.jncs.com/content/qwikbuns.htm

I apologize in advance for asking another question instead of answering yours.

Edit: Now that I think about it, you'd probably have to upgrade you power supply too.

Depending on what all is in the computer, the power supply would not have to be upgraded...if an Asus motherboard was used. As I mentioned in my previous post, the Asus P4 motherboards have the EZ-Plug so you don't need a P4 power supply. However, if you've got a lot of components in the computer, a bigger power supply is suggested. In my experience, a 250W power supply is fine for a 1.7GHz Celeron, CD-ROM, burner, single HD, video card, sound card, modem/network card, and one or two fans. If you get into SCSI or several HD's you'll want more power...

- G!mpy

[ QUOTE ]
eluminator said:
Have you considered upgrading your motherboard?

You can get a state of the art(or nearly so) mobo + 1.7 GHx Celeron plus 256 Meg of high speed DDR memory, assembled and tested for $256. 512 Meg is $30 more.
http://www.jncs.com/content/fb_Asus_P4S8x.htm

Lots more to choose from too.
http://www.jncs.com/content/qwikbuns.htm

I apologize in advance for asking another question instead of answering yours.

Edit: Now that I think about it, you'd probably have to upgrade you power supply too.


[/ QUOTE ]

Gimpy is right on the ball there... I do 95% of my PC parts shopping at Newegg.com - extremely competitive pricing and some really great deals. Plus, the CS is great.

Don't pay anything near that $150 price tag.

-Jim

he wrote about upgrade kits - which might incude the CPU, a slotket or whatever to mod the suspected Slot1 to socket370 or whatever - so you can´t compare just the CPU price - while I agree that the quoted price seems quite steep.

Exchanging the motherboard as well **might**be over the head for the original poster - it might not only include the motherboard and CPU and Powersupply as well but also the memory and whatever else. Not everybody really wants to disassmble / assemble the complete system from parts.

I don´t question the possibility to upgrade more parts for that money - while again for a bit more a complete new system could be bought too.

Klaus

can't upgrade Mobo, propietary dell connector. the prices were for a SLot1 kit including fan/heatsink and all voltage controllers and 3yr warranty sorry for not being clear /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif since this is the family computer, i like to play it safe, a drop in mod over a gut it and put new stuff. i've installed HDDs, vid cards, PCI accessories, so i can do it, just not willing to. mobo is intel 440bx2, so yes, slot 1. here's what i'm talking about:

http://shopping.netledger.com/app/site/site.nl/site.ACCT72136/mode.items/sc.2/category.7/it.A/id.315/.f;jsessionid=8451e62bb7b24400a629f27563e7a373sCxKsBQBA

http://shopping.netledger.com/app/site/site.nl/site.ACCT72136/mode.items/sc.2/category.7/it.A/id.246/.f;jsessionid=8451e62bb7b24400a629f27563e7a373sCxKsBQBA

power supply is pretty good, 200w continuous, and i have the power scheme shut off the 2 HDDs when they aren't in use, so only the processor and vid card and primary hdd are running most of the time, even the primary drive will shut off if i'm not accessing it.

oh yes, and this is proven working stable upgrade, LOTS of ppl with slot 1 mobos have been doing it for quite some time, and initial quality issues (a year or so back) have been solved. this is what i gathered from last year's searching the net, when the fastest celeron was 1.2. unofficially intel's plan called till 1.5G Q4 2002, but it hasn't surfaced, and powerleap claims that they don't know if intel will go for it. so 1.4 cel is tops at the moment, as is the 1.1 p3 as far as 100fsb is concerned.

If you run CPU intensive applications, such as DivX/MP3 encoding, dig video editing/manipulation etc the extra cache on the P3 will noticeably boost performance over the Celery. However if your main use is simple browsing, playing 3D games (assuming you have decent gfx card), running Office applications that rely on floating point calculations (excel formulas etc) then the extra clock speed from the 1.4 will help.

You can save yourself a bunch if you buy a normal slocket and mod it. However if 'modding' something close to your CPU freaks you out better to splash the extra for the Powerleap adapter.

Rest assured, no matter which you get P3-1.1 or Cel-1.4, general CPU performance in most applications rival that of a P4 1.7 to 1.8Ghz. Willamete cored P4s are notoriously slow.

Onyx, no trouble with office/web apps, it's the photo/video editing and playback that really taxes the system. gfx is ATI AIW8500DV, 64 mb ddr agp2x, so that won't be a big bottleneck altho i'm running it close to maxed out, 1154*862*32@75Mhz. i'm not into modding or building my cpu slocket, esp if i can get it, i dont mind spending if it means a "will assuredly work, backed by guarantee" peace of mind. you say extra cache on the p3... both are 256kb L2, so i'm assuming the p3 has more L1 cache? sounds like a p3 is go.. shortly after next paycheck, maybe this week!

The regular Pentium is just about always twice the L2 cache as the Pentium's little brother. That is, until the Tualatin's rolled out and messed it up...

If you're comparing strict L2 sizes, though, I'd tend to perfer the larger L2 cache to a sizeable increase in Mhz. As an example, I've always perferred playing Counterstrike on my cousin's 1.0Ghz Celeron rather than playing on my old 733Mhz P3 (both computers have a GF2-GTS vid card)... But when it came to compressing MPEG4 files and mass-converting WAVs to MP3s, I'd actually prefer my 733 to my cousin's Celeron; it's just a hair bit quicker.

Obviously, there's going to be a threshold of when it becomes more beneficial to have quicker speed as opposed to a larger L2 cache, but in this scenario: a 1.1Ghz P3 and a 1.4Ghz Celeron, I'd say it's a tossup, if indeed both have the usual 1/2 L2 cache ratio. If both have the same L2 cache, then it'd make sense to go for the Celery... And of course, when it comes to toss-ups, it's the price and cost of ownership that's usually the difference.

iddibhai,

you are right - Onyx and I wrong - the latest Celerons using the Tualatin core indeed had 256K L2 cache - the 1.1 Mhz PIII also had the Tualatin core and just 256K L2 too - only some higher clocked PIII´s like a 1.26Mhz version came out pretty late in the PIII life cycle with 512K L2 cache only to get burried by Intel shortly after in favor of the newer P4 designs - we got confused as Intel always had that L2/half trick to differeniate the PII/IIIs and Celerons - alas 128K vs 256 and 256K vs 512 - the 1.4 vs 1.1 setup is different and it seems that the 1.4 Celeron definetely is the way to go - same L2 cache and higher clock will result in higher performance acros the board. Sorry for the confusion. But again I would try to make shure you can return the goods when they are not working in your system.

Klaus

yup, they have a 30day money back guarantee. so since both appear to have the same cache (l2 anyway, no idea on l1, not specced), the faster clockspeed is the way to go then? the more i try to search, the more confusing it is! thanks for all your help guys!

If both have the same amount of L2 cache, then definately go for the Celery...

You now have speed and savings on your side for the Celeron...

wow, an "extra" 80$, that can buy a SF /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif i think we should standarize on a unit of "flasholic" currency", starting with, say, a microlight, an AAA, and l1. so i just "bought" myself 4 AAAs! whoohoooooo /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Save even more and better Performance: buy an AMD Athlon XP. Don't let the slower clock speed fool you. They cost half the price as In$el (not a spelling error).

Another thing that helps, no matter the cpu, is add more RAM. Do I actually NEED 1 GB? No I don't. However it was very cheap at the time, and I never know if I will need that much in the future.

Graphics programs are very RAM intensive, so that would be an excellent option, anyways. You may be suprised at the performance increase by adding ram.

Yeah, as Klaus pointed out correctly Tualatins Celeries do have 256k cache, matching Cumine P3s of the older generation...

However one other point to note (it may not apply to Tuals I'm not sure), but my Cumine Celeron has (L1 cache to core) 4 way set associative with L2 cache latency of 2 (nanoseconds or clockcycles I'm not sure), while a P3 has 8 way set associativity and L2 cache latency of 0.

In any case, go for the cheaper one and buy yourself a SF! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

A P3 Celeron is only very slightly slower than a regular P3 at the same clock speed.
A P4 Celeron is faster than a P3.
"In my experience, a 250W power supply is fine for a 1.7GHz Celeron, CD-ROM, burner, single HD, video card, sound card, modem/network card, and one or two fans. If you get into SCSI or several HD's you'll want more power..."
I am running the following on a stock Dell 250w(the Britney Spears of PSUs):
P4 2.4GHz
640MB DDR SDRAM
GeForce 4 MX 420
2x 7200RPM 60GB Western Digital HDs
PCTV Pro
48x24x48x CD-RW
16x DVD-ROM
System is stable even with both CD drives going, distributed.net running(I crack RC5-72 for OCAU), and HDTV open(nothing overclocked).
Voltages(measured with a radioshack DMM):
12v: 11.99
5v: 5.02
3.3v: 3.30
BTW, I reverse engineered an old dell supply from a p133.
That dell supply used a LITEON power transformer(at first, I thought they only made CD-ROM drives).
There is only one switching transistor(well, only one big primary transistor, as there is a smaller transistor in the 5VFP supply, and several big transistors on the secondary side), but it is a high-power IGBT(20A, 900v) in a TO-3 case.
The primary caps are 680uF each, for a total of 1360uF(most PC power supplies have only 2 470uF, or 940uF total)!

I have a Dell XPS-R350 PII that was upgraded to 700Mhz PIII with a slotket and I enjoy about twice the speed of my old machine. I am going to buy the Celeron 1.4Ghz upgrade because it will again boost processing by a factor of two. I have bumped the memory to 512M and replaced the hard drive with a fast 80G disk and this box runs at least as well as a PIV of similar clock speed. Yes, The motherboard is memory speed throttled but it's 5 years old! Check out the link to Bob Matthews site and you will find much on the Tualatin Celeron processor( http://duhvoodooman.com/powrleap/iP3TvsP4/iP3TvsP4.htm ). The PowerLeap Celeron Upgrade is a little pricy at $150 but it will out run the Coppermine PIII @1.1Ghz all day long. It is the same core, same L2 cache, and it is clocked 30% higher. It is a simple upgrade, It is going to get cheaper, and the adapter regulates the voltage to the Celeron. Long live the Intel SE-440BX motherboard.

SRB