Celleron vs Pentium

Celeron is basically missing the equivalent of an instructional pathway or two

SO much like its been previously stated if yer doing graphic intensive work - dont go Celeron

However I wish to dispute AMD assertions made

my personal experience with the AMD line of chips has always been negative

That chipline is missing different instructional pathways then the Celeron - and so it seems to perform better, but when it comes down to certain tasks it grinds to a halt - but as a general processor its acceptable

 

Don't Celerons also run a little cooler? Could this prolong the life of a Celeron over a Pentium? Am I wrong about either of these points? Just wondering.

 

If you are getting a computer, whatever processor you get, make sure you get memory. Do not get less than 256MB and get more if you can. I would recommend not getting it from the manufacturer though. It is always more expensive. Memory is very cheap these days. Check out www.crucial.com for good memory prices.

Memory will often have a greater affect on the speed of your computer than your processor will.

As an interesting side note, I have a Dell laptop (purchased from dell) and a dell desktop (purchased from PCSurplusonline.com). I have become increasingly disgusted with Dell. During a recent problem, I spent hours on the phone with dell doing the same things multiple times because they were convinced it was the problem. I finally took one of my 128MB memory chips out and it ran fine. So I found out the chip was bad. I called Dell about the warranty on th chip (virtually all memory has a lifetime warranty). Dell told me the memory warrant expired with the computer warranty so I would have to buy a new one. They recommended I use Dell even though I wouldn't get a lifetime warranty with it and even though I would pay over $100 more than I would pay somewhere else for the same exact memory. I decided to call Kingston (the OEM for dell memory) and ask them. They said their memory has a lifetime warranty and they sent me a new one that I got the next day.

I had another issue with dell where they wanted me to send in the laptop, have the motherboard replaced for $800. I decided I couldn't afford that so I took it apart to see what I could see. I put it back together and it worked fine. The problem?? A screw in the case had come loose and was causing the board to short out. It was admitted that that sometimes happens. So they wanted $800 to fix a problem that could be fixed by a few turns of a screwdriver.

Basically Dell was willing to charge me big bucks for something that was free.

I probably wouldn't buy another dell from dell. Of course, I don't know that anyone else is better. But I would find it hard to believe that they are worse. The only reason I bought the laptop was the price that I got on it from this online place.

 

Celerons are crippled Pentiums. Half the level 2 cache is disabled which depending on the situation can reduce performance a little or a lot. Athlon XPs are good processors especially when you want to save money. The top of the line Athlon XPs aren't worth it (except for games, where the fast XPs are able to pull ahead of the fastest P4s) as you won't save much money and may actually pay more. At the more affordable end however, Athlon XPs are a good buy as you can get a faster processor for less. The Athlon XP 1800+ for example is cheaper than the Celeron 1800 and performs better. While Athlons are more dependant on their cooling than Pentiums (remove the heatsink & fan from a P4 and it will slow down and freeze but not fry, do the same to an Athlon and it fries, but then you shouldn't be running it without cooling in the first place) they are fine even with the stock heatsink & fan that the boxed versions come with. An alternative to buying a PC from a company like Dell is to go to a local computer store and tell them what you want and they'll assemble it for you. The advantage is that is built to your needs and you may even save some money. Also if you decide to upgrade in the future, you'll probably be better off. The disadvantage is that you probably won't get as good of a warranty.

 

I've had the same experience with Dell. A few years ago we purchase some Dells for my company and about 30% of the Dells were defective out of the box. The online help was ridiculously ignorant of computer problems and kept wanting me to repeatedly reinstall Windows 2000 to solve a problem that was obviously memory-related. (I ran a hardware test before I ever called them and knew that the system memory was bad!) But they refused to honor their warranty and dispatch a service tech until I had reinstalled Windows 2000 twice (a process that takes several hours) and reformatted the hard drive.

Dell has been coasting on their reputation for some time...