Hi,

Intel is playing the "confuse the public" game.

There are now 2 Celeron platforms currently produced by Intel.

There is a socket 370 Celeron that goes from 1000 to 1400mhz at a 100 mhz
bus with 256k cache
and there is a socket N, 478pin, Celeron that stats at 1.7gig and will go
up to 2 gig with 128M cache and runs at the 400mhz bus for the P4 socket N
boards.

Celerons stated back in the days of Slot 1 boards, at 300mhz @66mhz bus
with no internal cache running at 66mhz bus to have a lower cost CPU
solution - that gave them a bad rap in the industry that for the life of
me, I do not understand why the marketing genius's at Intel have chosen to
perpetuate the name till this day.  Don't get me wrong - I use celerons all
the time - Cheap and dependable - I don't need the speed, as much as I need
the money.  My rule is spend no more than $100 for a CPU because sooner or
later it gets down to that point.

They soon came out with 128M cache after the introduction ("A" version) and
went to higher speeds (466).  The Intel guru's changed from the slot 1
design to the socket 370 design (Black and silver CPU's) and the celerons
went as high as 533mhz, before they changed the core voltage (coppermine)
and the chips were now green in color.  These coppermine celerons ran at
66mhz, had 128 cache and went up to 766mhz before they changed them to the
100 mhz bus versions (800-1000mhz).  The present batch of celerons,
starting at 1000 "a" mhz up to the 1400 are based on the tatulin core and
have 256m cache, much like the P-III's do but still at 100 mhz bus.

What happens with the reduction of Die size in the manufacturing process is
that they can make faster and faster chips, because the thermals are better
- (don't get as hot) as they reduce the core voltage necessary to run the CPU.

When the P4 came out it was originally a socket 423 pin processor, it has
256 cache and runs at the 400 mhz bus.  It soon changed to the socket N,
478 pin design and stayed at 400 mhz us 2gig, for a minute, till they
changed it again and now we have 533 bus cpus that will go up to 3.06 gig
with 512 cache (annoucement Nov 14th).

Because of price and marketshare, they came out with a lower cost Socket N
solution a few months back.
400mhz bus, 128 cache, running 1.7gig to now 2.0 gig.  The price is a
significant amount lower than the P4 and will work on any socket N board.
They decided to keep the Celeron mantle - can't figure out why.  I think
they would sell a lot more if they had called it something else.



God Bless America!

Joe Lore
MicroComputerCenter, Inc.
781-933-5530 / [log in to unmask]

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