ex-xian

Is there any difference between athlon processors and the intel brands? For that matter, what's the differnece between pentuim and celeron?

I'm in the market for a new computer and was just wondering what difference the processor brand would make. Thanks in advance!

chanoc

They both are good. I had an Intel Pentium 4 2.0 Ghz, and was happy with it. I hear the Athon's got a 64bit processor in the future though. Get either, and you will be happy.
<blockqoute>
This is advise coming from a Mac OS-X user. What the fuck difference does it make? Choose one, pay the piper, and boot up!
</blockqoute>

scumble

AMDs are commonly cheaper, but basically, if you get a machine that runs well for a reasonable price, it doesn't matter. You only want to worry about performance issues for heavy-duty computing.
But at least get a 2GHz Pentium, or an Athlon XP 2000+.

What sort of stuff do you do on the computer?

Barney Gumble

If you don't plan to overlock - the different is basically price. At the mid-low end, AMD has a definite price/performance advantage right now.

Here in Toronto for example, an AMD 2500 Athlon XP Barton goes for $134. A Pentium4 2.4ghz/800mhz bus goes for $266 - almost twice the price.

While AMD chips run at a lower MHZ than Intel, they have a higher IPC (Instructions Per Cycle), which basically means they get more work done at a lower MHZ than the P4. The PR-number ratings for AMD chips (2500/2600) roughly correspond to the P4's MHZ, so an AMD 2500 performs very similarly to a 2.5ghz P4. Slighly faster in some apps, slightly slower in others.

When you get into the high-end though, such as the 3.06ghz/3.2ghz P4 with hyper threading, the P4 starts to pull away. AMD has been stretching their PR rating numbers in my opinion, from the benchmarks I've seen an AMD 3000 will perform almost identical, if not somewhat faster, than a 3.06ghz P4 in general office apps and some games. But in applications that have been tuned to the P4's SSE2 instruction set, the P4's much higher bandwidth + hyperthreading make it pull away (examples such as movie and MP3 encoding). So in general, it's a stretch to say a AMD 3000/3200 equals Intel's equivalents when we get up into the high end, but below that the PR numbers AMD gives out are generally accurate - a 2800 performs like a 2.8ghz P4, and so on.

Now, all that being said, I'll come back to my earlier comment about "not planning to overlock". In general, providing you have a good motherboard, mid-range P4's can overlock more than their AMD counterparts. Many enthusiasts will purchase a 2.4ghz P4 and have it running at ~3ghz rather easily, but it's still not something I recommend to those who aren't familiar with the process and can thoroughly diagose their systems if problems arise. There are exceptions on the AMD camp on this though - the AMD 1700XP processor had an incredible reputation for overlocking - you were practically guaranteed to clock it to 2500 speeds easily.

If you must have the absolute fastest PC, get a 3.06ghz or 3.2ghz P4. But as with all processors on the bleeding edge, the price/performance ratio is abysmal. If I were shopping for a new system today and I wasn't planning on overclocking, it would likely be an AMD 2700/2800 CPU, which would place you just ~20-25% slower than the fastest CPU on the market, at a fraction of the price.

To answer your last question, the Celeron is a crippled P4 that's designed to be put into bargain boxes. Avoid it. Even at 2.4ghz, it has trouble keeping up with a 2ghz P4. The Bus speed is lower, and the internal cache is also smaller. Goes without saying after I've told you that, but an AMD Athlon XP with the same PR rating (say, a 2400) as compared to a Celeron at 2400mhz, absolutely no contest. The AMD will eat it for lunch. Just don't bother with Celeron, you'll only save a few bucks for much worse performance than a true P4 or AthlonXP.

Guillaume

If you want high end computer, get an Intel with a 800 FSB ( NOT a 533 FSB ). The P4 2.4GHZ C 512K 800FSB is probably your best bet here, since it costs only ~190 $, is easily overclockable and it beats even the more expensive ATHLON XP3000+ and XP3200+ ( http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/200...4_3200-15.html ).

If you want the best bang for your buck, get an AMD ATHLON XP 2500+ 512K 333FSB. It only cost about 100$ and offers solid performences.

Guillaume

You are talking about a 3.06ghz P4 with a weak 533 mhz FBS. The new 3.0 GHZ P4 with the 800FSB however crushes the AMD 3000.

ImGod

I bought a 1.2 ghz Athlon 3 years ago and didn't realize the heat the thing would put out. It's great in the winter because I can heat the room with it. In the summer it's a pain. I had to cut a bigger hole in the back of my computer desk to get enough air movement.

I doubt you can tell much of a difference between a 1.5 and a 3 ghz machine if all you do is run basic office and internet stuff. Application windows can ony pop up so fast. I would stay away from Celeron, and buy 6 month old Athlon stuff in the 2-3 ghz range to save money, unless your planning on serious gaming or number crunching for NASA. There's not many reasons to pay extra for top end stuff that will be out of date in a couple months anyway.

I have a 2 ghz Intel P4 machine at work and can't tell any difference with normal day-to-day stuff on my 1.2 ghz Athlon home PC. But I don't play any serious games on either.

dunadan

With any of the newer processors, you will get a lot of heat. I don't think there is much difference in the heat output of any of the multigigahertz processors. I just replaced my laptop - a PII-450 with a P4 2Ghz, and it is amazing how much more heat any of the new procs seem to pump out.

Also nowadays both the (in general) more powerful power supplies and the GPU on a fast graphics card can be significant sources of heat

Kinross

The differences between the processors are negligible but that shouldn�t be your only concern. You should also look at motherboard chipsets. These chipsets control all the peripherals of your computer.

Intel makes its own chipsets for its processors and historically these have been rock solid. AMD on the other hand has third parties supply these chipsets. Some of these chipsets have a history of not quite meeting the specs and causing system instability.

Some problems I have run into are a badly implemented USB controller that would lockup and not supplying enough current to an AGP to causing games to crash.

If your only criterion is speed as cheap as possible then go with AMD. If you want better system stability then go with Intel and an Intel chipset.

pariah

Difference between pentium and celeron: celeron is shit.

Ok, the last time I did in-depth benchmark was ~6 months. At that time, dual xeon machine was kicking the most ass, whereas the amd athalon was a close second, the pentium 4 was a semiclose third, and the apple G4 was far behind.

But now pentium 4 has hyperthreading and that nice 800 MHz bus. Ohhh preeetty. I really havent looked into the new stuff lately.

Bus is pretty important. Thats why computers that utiliize dual processors are faster...twice the bus. Incase you don't know, the bus is how much data can enter into the processor at once. Two processors allows you to have twice the bus, hence it is much faster.

Let me say this though. Gigahertz DO NOT MATTER. as much as you think. Back to my benchmarks, the pentium 4 I tested was 2.0 GHz, the athalon was only 1.6 GHz, yet the athalon beat the shit out of the P4 in EVERY TEST that I did. These were rendering tests in photoshop, 3dstudiomax, amongst other thigns.

Anyway, to sum things up:

Processor type makes a huge difference. If you buy a new computer, FIRST try to get a pentium 4 that has a bus speed of 800 MHz. If you can't, go athalon, b/c they will be faster than the 533 MHz bus P4 (Which the cheap computers will probably be). NEVER EVER EVER GO CELERON OR YOU WILL DIE A PAINFUL DEATH. Or at least have a slow computer. Same thing for me.

And remember, as long as you have a black/silver case with a glass window and some cold cathode tubes lighting her up, processor type is irrelevant.