Fast Celeron or Slower Pentium?

[FatMan42]

A quick consensus, please...

Which do you think would be better performing, a Celeron 900 (on an Abit slocket) or a Pentium-3 600 ? The system is a P3V4X mobo, GF-256 gfx card, big stack o'RAM non-RAID IDE hard-drive. The system is used for office apps mainly. Gaming should be considered (RTCW, Q3A, Tribes 2 etc) and also frequent Visual Studio compiling jobs.

Which CPU should be used, and why?

 

[ToXiCRaGE]

I would go with the P3.........anyhow you should browse more through the forum.....
there is a similar thread to yours Here

 

[AkumaX]

if its a p3 600 katmai w/ 512kb, ???

if its a p3 600 cumine 100mhz fsb, o/c it to 800!

if its a p3 600 cumine 133mhz fsb, ???

if its a celeron 900, o/c it to 1200! <~~~~ my choice

 

[FatMan42]

It's a Cu-mine 133fsb P3. Yeah - could o/c the Celeron (would it really do 133fsb? I heard most people topping out at ~124MHz fsb). Given the choice I wouldn't o/c at all. These are both chips I have, so the cost is irrelevant, but I'd rather not fry 'em.

A quick rough'n'ready comparison in RTCW showed very little difference between 'em. Perhaps the P3 had a slight edge - but this wasn't a scientific test.

The question really I really meant was; without o/c-ing which of the two chips would perform better in office apps/gaming/software compiling?

 

[Rand]

I'd go with the Celeron, were it still on a 66MHz FSB my opinion might differ but given that it's now on a 100MHz FSB it should be enough to outperform a P3 600EB.

 

[kylebisme]

i think the beter cache and extra 33mhz in the fsb will put you in a beter spot. however if you can get the celeron to 133mhz fsb it is bound to win. and btw, try it you wont fry it unless you try it without a heatsink or manage to crank the voltage unresonably high. looks like you have bought into the myths of the "dangers" of overclocking, its just myths.

 

[The_Lurker]

The Celi's perform equivalent to about 150mhz slower Cumine, so go w/ the Celi. Plus, you can overclock higher too w/ the Celi, so i suggest go w/ the Celi.

 

[FatMan42]

OK - thanks for the input, guys. Looks like consensus says: Celeron. I think I'll try O/C-ing the Celery to a 133fsb with a stock Pentium-3 cooler.

Cheers...
(keep 'em coming, if there's more ideas out there!)

 

[Wind]

<< athlon >>


NolesIn2001,
Wrong post !!

Fatman42,
Go for the celery.

 

[ChurchOfSubgenius]

Go for the cheap Celo, if ya fry it, it's ok, they'll make more

 

[FatMan42]

Well, the Celery is partially stable at 1.2GHz (133 fsb) with a core voltage of 2.0 V.

It's not stable enough - will BSOD/memory dump after ~30mins moderate usage. How high a core voltage can these chips handle? I'd like to just crank up the V-core 'til it retains stability, but I'm a little worried about cranking it that one +0.05 V notch too high.

I've seen references to boosting the V-IO voltage (re: "undocumented jumper" on P3V4X's) - is that anything that could help in this case?

I've not got any core-temp readings yet - but the heatsink is still cool to the touch, so I'm guessing that I can keep boosting V-core. But, how high?

 

[lefthandedgoat]

go to www.overclockers.com and click on CPU database at the top. Then choose celeron 900 and search it. You can see what other people had to do to get their processors to whatever speed they obtained.

 

[rwalterk]

I would definitely go with the Celeron. The 300Mhz difference is too much for the 600 to overcome, even with the 133 fsb. I'm not a big overclocker, but you could probably push it just a little (make sure you have two case fans and a great HSF).

 

[blackhawk]

Try the celeron oc as you already have it. You wont fry it unless you dont use a heatsink or up the voltage significantly. Just try it at about 1.8v or so.

I did with mine and it runs fine at 133fsb for 1200mz. Hotter though now in a cheap case as I'm modding the old enlight.

 

[kylebisme]

<< Well, the Celery is partially stable at 1.2GHz (133 fsb) with a core voltage of 2.0 V...I'm guessing that I can keep boosting V-core. But, how high? >>



the question is how hight are your temps under full load use a program like seti or prime95 to heat it up and dont let the temps get above 70c. prime will stop with math errors if the processor becomes undstable wich makes it great for testing. get a beter hsf and posably some artic silver if your temps get too high.

 

[klabe]

i would go with the celeron, i didnt think they were that good, but i got a 1100Mhz celeron for a SV24 mini system and it performs about equal to a pentium 4 1.5GHz
there is a review on it with some benchmarks here- http://www.chicagogamers.com/reviews.php?op=showcontent&id=6

 

[MeTaLrOcKeR]

<< i would go with the celeron, i didnt think they were that good, but i got a 1100Mhz celeron for a SV24 mini system and it performs about equal to a pentium 4 1.5GHz
there is a review on it with some benchmarks here- http://www.chicagogamers.com/reviews.php?op=showcontent&id=6 >>



All I have to say is one word........Tualitin..........

 

[FatMan42]

MeTaLrOcKeR - yeah, that would be good if (1)I had a Tualatin chip and (2)I had a board that would run it. For this exercise, that's just not relevant.

The progress is that the chip is part-stable O/C'd. Celeron 900 @1200 with V-core 2.0 volts. WinXP reports errors when booting, but boots anyway of you say 'continue'. System hangs after a while of usage (say, 1/2-hr of moderate use). I looked at the Overclockers CPU database and the V-cores used to attain 1.2GHz ranged from 1.8V to 2.1V.

At 2.0V the HS never really gets that hot. No hotter than normal (non-O/C'd) use, if that's a useful indicator.

My question to you guys is - who here has successfully O/C'd a Celeron 900 to 1200, what core voltage did you use? Do YOU think that upping my V-core from 2.0V (to 2.1V ?) would find the stability sweet-spot? Or, should I just accept that it was never meant to be, and not O/C it?

 

[blackhawk]

I'd be VERY careful about upping that voltage anymore. Mine is stable no problem at 1.8v selected on the slotkit and a GW hs/fan combo. My hs also isn't very warm to the touch whereas my tbird 1.4 at 1500 is just about hot even with an 80 mm fan on a GW hs.
I can play UT and the vid card gets pretty warm as well at 89mz agp bus but no errors. My system monitor reports up to 29c with an ambient of about 20 to 23c.

Sounds like your cpu just wont do it. Can you go down on your fsb to 120ish? The 900s are all cdo steppings so far.

 

[FatMan42]

I could run the CPU at a lower fsb, but that would mean over-bussing the other components. I chose 133fsb because, being a standard frequency, it would allow PCI, AGP etc to run at their own standard frequencies. I'd rather run non-O/C'd than between 100 & 133 'cos I don't want to stress other components. Perhaps there's some funky AGP/PCI (their freqencies are tied, right?) divider setting buried away in the bios of that old board (Asus P3V4X) - haven't used it in a while, can't remember.

Yeah - I saw on the Overclockers DB that quite a lot of peeps could do 1200 @ 1.8V, guess mine just isn't one of the lucky ones.

...unless I just crank it up and see what happens (puff o'smoke, probably...) - hell, like someone else said: if ya fry it, it's ok, they'll make more

 

[oldfart]

You can boost it up a bit by using a 112 FSB. This will get you to 1008 MHz. 112 FSB is safe. Your PCI and AGP will be slightly out of spec, but not enough to cause any problems. You should be able to do this @ default vcore. What HS/Fan are you using? Stock PIII cooler? If so, which CPU did it come on? Some of the retail PIII HS/Fans are quite good, some are not.

 

[FatMan42]

It's actually the cooler from the boxed Celeron-900 itself. I have a boxed P3-1GHz HSF and they're identical, so I don't think it matters much. Besides the chip wasn't getting that hot. Definitely cooler than the P3 non-O/C'd

 

[oldfart]

The PIII 1 G cooler is pretty nice (I run one). I would just run it @ 9 x 112.

 

[KennyH]

For the love of God, don't run that Celeron over 1.9V with optimal cooling (Alpha). I think you would have a very good chance of it saying bye-bye!

 

[FatMan42]

Why not?

If it was getting very hot, then I could understand that setting the voltage any higher would be risky. However, the HS wasn't getting warm at all (felt only warm to the touch, so 30-ish C) - so that's not the case. That's with the boxed Celeron-900 cooler at default RPM. Surely that low temp indicates there's more headroom available, doesn't it?