I have a computer with a 1.5 GHz processor and another computer with a 1.6 GHz processor, both Willamette core Pentium 4. What route should be done for upgrading, a Pentium 4 or a Celeron. Both computers only work with a 400 MHz FSB, so either way, I'm limited to a 2.8 GHz processor. I know that the P4 has a 512 kb L2 cache while the celeron has a 128 kb L2 cache.

My question is, is there a big enough performance difference to justify spending a lot more money on the P4 or can I just purchase the celeron and not suffer a big performance hit?

the_guy

Such old 1.x GHz celerons are socket 478. Nobody sells s478 CPUs anymore. Intel moved to socket 775 back in 2004. Them CPUs are a 2002 vintage.

So you'd have to either look for a 2nd hand CPU somewhere, or just about buy a new computer (new CPU will require a new motherboard, which won't take your old SDRAM, and that will likely need a newer PSU, and your old AGP card will have to go too, etc).

The only good news here, is that you can likely get a P4 2.8 for like 20$ on ebay...

you can still buy 478 CPUs from places...they aren't that out of date (in fact two of my sisters and my parents second computer all have socket 478 CPUs in them).

go with the larger L2 cache, it'll be faster. the larger the L2 cache, the faster the CPU receives and transmits data from RAM through the Northbridge chipset.

that and Celerons are a cheap waste of money for extreme budget builds. they have little performance to them.

Not many places really. Any store I know in Canada: ncix, directcanada, canadacomputers, anitec, frontierpc, memory express, local places here, and local places last place I lived (greenlyph, robotnik, etc), and places like tigerdirect, etc. NONE of them carry a single socket 478 processor. Most haven't had any in stock for a couple years. Like I said, socket 775 is already dating back from 2004.

It's not even surprising that you don't find them CPUs around anywhere anymore. Just look at the availability of socket 754 and socket 939 CPUs now! And those came out pretty much at the same time as socket 775 -- they're both much newer than socket 478, and it's getting quite hard to find anything that fits those (again, besides the 2 or 3 models on newegg). ncix has ONE socket 939 CPU (a $170 Opteron), and ZERO socket 754 CPUs.

The only place I know of that still has any s478 stuff is newegg, which doesn't ship to Canada. And they only have 5 models total (likely all old stock leftover), none of which have a 400MHz FSB. And they're kind of overpriced for what they are: around $75 for a 2.8GHz P4 class CPU... When a 3x faster core 2 duo can be had for the same price.

So his best bet, is basically checking ebay. There's lots of them there, for about $20 (which is about all they're worth). That, or a new PC.

I looked on ebay, but all of the Pentium 4 processors with the 400 MHz FSB is nowhere near $40. They are closer to $80-$180. Is the big price jump worth getting the pentium 4 or is the celeron ($20-$30) close enough to the same performance?

the_guy

The Celly sucks, plain and simple. I don't know what's the situation there but here you can get a 3GHz P4 Prescott for $60, but of course in used condition. If you do get one of those, get a good cooler for it. They get REALLY hot and the stock cooler makes an awful load of noise.

Edit: Now i noticed you can only run FSB 400. Here's a 2.4GHz chip, $56. http://cgi.ebay.com/Pentium-4-P4-CPU-2-60G...1QQcmdZViewItem Also it's a Northwood chip, it doesn't get hot and the stock cooler is fairly quiet.

Not completely true; when the 2xx/4xx/1xxx line, based on the Core2, is used in combination with DDR2 they perform quite well! But, the Celeron based on the P4, including the Celeron D is indeed crippled.

The Celeron II in compared with its bigger cached PIII S370 didn´t have such a negative effect when only having 128kB cache onboard. OCed at the speed of a PIII it could even be faster than the PIII.

Just some side info .

The original Cels were good because they overclocked a lot. The PIII Cels were basically Tualatins with a bit less cache so they ran very well. The Core Cels are good because they have the Core architecture with less cache than their more expensive brothers so they do well for gaming.

But the P4 Cels were garbage. And considering the OP's mobo only supports 400 FSB and cannot be overclocked, it is worth paying the extra for a P4.

My providers still sell the S754, but none of the S939.

No, not based on the Tualatin core but the Coppermine core .

Well, if they are that expensive I would go for a new Celeron 430, with a new motherboard from gigabyte based on the 945GC chipset and a stick of 1GB 800MHz RAM (Or 2 times that to get better Graphics performance (+30%)). Leave the computers like they are with their 1.5 and 1.6GHz CPUs. Are you sure they are S478? Sounds more like S423 to me at those speeds. 1.7GHz And higher could be S478 and very few ran at 1.5 or 1.6GHz.

One computer (the 1.5 GHz model) has the Intel D845HV motherboard based on the Intel 845 chipset.

The other computer (the 1.6 GHz model) has the MSI MS-6533GL motherboard based on the SiS 650 chipset.

Both appear to be socket 478.

I'm also thinking about going with a Pentium 4 that's slightly slower (2.4-2.6 GHz) that are cheaper than the SL7EY 2.8 GHz. I've also noticed that a 3.0 GHz P4 exists with a 400 MHz FSB, but at around $200 each, it's out of my price range.

the_guy

Not a bad idea at all, if s478 CPUs are that bloody expensive.

Celeron 430 $37.40
Gigabyte GA-945GCM-S2C Motherboard $49.76
2x1GB OCZ Plat DDR2 PC6400 CL4 $25.99

Total price $113.15 (well below $200, not much more than the P4 costs), for:
-a FAR better motherboard. A much better newer and stable intel chipset, USB2 (more of them too) and SATA (which your old boards didn't have -- not sure if they even supported LBA48), and nice solid caps, etc. It has onbard video, and a pci-e slot should you need better video at some point, high def 5.1 audio, etc.
-a much better non-P4 era CPU (Conroe-L core), which is faster than the P4 2.8 on half the power, supports more SIMD instruction sets like SSE3, is 64 bit, has higher FSB,, which you can still upgrade to something faster later on, on the same motherboard
-likely lots more ram, and it's faster too

Quite often, I've seen Athlon64 3500+ barebones (CPU, a cheap mATX motherboard, 1GB of cheap PC4200 ram, and a cheap case) for ~100$ at places like tigerdirect.

I sure wouldn't spend close to $100 on an old P4, and going for almost 2GHz wouldn't really be much of an upgrade either. I think puntoMX had the best solution (as usual!).

As for the P4 3GHz @ $200 LOL. I'll sell you an entire P4 3GHz box for that much...

Don´t forget you need to update the BIOS for sure on the older boards too, and keep your fingers crossed that it works after that. Sounds negative but it´s something to think about.

I say go for the Pentium 4, yes it may cost a little more but well worth it in the end. The only time I see you should use Celeron is if the pc is only going to be used to get on the internet and basic uses like word processing, if that's the case then go for the Celeron.

No, not based on the Tualatin core but the Coppermine core .

Actually you’re both right. Coppermine Celerons went up to 1.1 ghz and had a 128 cache. Tualatin Celerons went up to 1.4 ghz with a 256 cache.

i have a celeron i can sell you. still works great. never dies on me and photoshop CS3 works no prob.