Celeron vs Athalon: Choosing the Best Processor for Your Notebook - eNtRopY

[eNtRopY]

Okay, so tonight I need to buy a new notebook computer before I leave the country tomorrow. I do not want to spend the money to get a machine with a Pentium 4 processor; so, I am looking at the situation of Celeron versus Athalon.

I have heard that the Athalon can out-perform the Celeron, but it is less stable. Is this true?

Here's a better question. If you had the option getting a free notebook computer with either a 1.8 GHz Celeron processor or a 1.6 GHz Athalon processor, which would you choose and why?

Thanks dudes.

eNtRopY

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

definitely the 1.6 Athlon. Celerons are very watered down Pentiums. They are on the verge of being discontinued too. The Athlon T-bird, although outdated was AMD's primary processor. I repeat, don't get the Celeron.

 

[Considering]

Athalon.

The celeron chip generally includes less cache, is a bottleneck for performance. Although I personally don't like the chip offerings AMD brings to the table, I would go with the Athalon in this case.

Be warned, they do get much hotter than a celeron. So for a notebook...the celeron might be better, just not quite as good performance.

 

[BoulderHead]

Well I thought the breakdown was something like;

AMD
Premium CPU = Athlon
Budget CPU = Duron

Intel
Premium CPU = Pentium
Budget CPU = Celeron

I think I would go with the 1.6GHz Athlon, all other specs being equivalent (RAM, size of HD, video memory, Drives, etc).

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by eNtRopY
I have heard that the Athalon can out-perform the Celeron, but it is less stable. Is this true?

No, with caveats: you aren't going to be overclocking a laptop.

 

[grady]

Go with the Athlon. Celeron is pure crap in every way. Since MS software is what you apparently have to use, you need a processor that can stay on top of the Window's Rot for at some reasonable amount of time. With a celeron, a month from know, it would take twenty minutes from the time you saw the windows splash screen from the time all of your start up programs were up and running and your desktop icons were loaded.

 

[Artman]

I have had two Celeron CPUs a 566 and a 1.1Ghz, both Coppermines (P3 type).

They have both been very stable, and the 1.1 is fast enough for everything that I do with it. It actually seems faster than my 1.5 P4 at work. I read that this is often true of the P3s and the lower P4s. Using SiSoft Sandra benchmarks, it beats a 1.4ghz P4.

Even the 566 wasn't bad, but I do a lot of computer art and it couldn't quite keep up with the paint brush (cursor) motion. the 1.1ghz Celeron does great, even with just a Voodoo 4500 PCI graphics card it stays right with my brush placing the "paint" on the screen. I have used the same program with a 2.8 Ghz Pentium with an AGP graphics card, and my 1.1 Celeron seems just about as fast. Once the program is up, there is no real noticable difference, but man, you should see that 2.8 load that program, WOW, click and it is there!

 

[Considering]

I've heard more bad things about AMD chips than I ever had about Celeron.

What this boils down to is: what are you going to be doing with the laptop? 3D games? Photo editing? Just typing things up?

For moderate gaming, medium photo stuff, typing, etc, go with celeron. Intel chips and chipsets always work better with Microsoft.

For more advanced stuff, like higher-end gaming and high-end photoediting, the AMD will be better.

Once again, I echo the fact that the AMD runs MUCH hotter than a celeron, a big consideration for notebook users.

If I had to choose between the two, celeron would be my choice. The clock speed you are looking at is fast enough for just about anything you would do.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Considering
I've heard more bad things about AMD chips than I ever had about Celeron.

What this boils down to is: what are you going to be doing with the laptop? 3D games? Photo editing? Just typing things up?

For moderate gaming, medium photo stuff, typing, etc, go with celeron. Intel chips and chipsets always work better with Microsoft.

For more advanced stuff, like higher-end gaming and high-end photoediting, the AMD will be better.

Once again, I echo the fact that the AMD runs MUCH hotter than a celeron, a big consideration for notebook users.

If I had to choose between the two, celeron would be my choice. The clock speed you are looking at is fast enough for just about anything you would do.

Pretty much all of that is popular misconceptions and selective anecdotes or obsolete information.

-Exacly what have you heard "bad" about the Athlon?

-Athlons are 100% x86 compliant. There is no "work[ing] better with Microsoft."

-SOME AMD chips run hotter than SOME Intel chips. There is a HUGE difference from one chip to another, so blanket statements like that don't work.

Remember, there have been at least a dozen different athlon chips, a dozen different celerons, and half a dozen platforms for each. Blanket statements about either don't work very well.

 

[Considering]

Indeed, Russ is correct. In most cases, blanket statements do not work, and this would be one of them. I will be more concise in future posts.

I have dealt with an equal number of AMD/Intel over the past 4 years. In that time, I have noticed more errors and oddities out of an AMD machine than an Intel. Normally the problems are varied, from machine lockups on fresh installs (patched, of course) of the Windows OS to the machine running slowly for periods of time.

I have a friend who builds computers, and he hates AMD processors. He says he has never received so many faulty chips, DOA. I wouldn't know from this standpoint, I'm more on the repair side with what I do.

However, I know quite a few people who run AMD and are happy with it, zero problems.

The point of all this is in MY OWN experience, I have seen Intel to be a superior chip. As far as the heating thing goes, this is to some point affected by the manufacturer's cooling design for its case, but once again, in MY OWN experience, and the input of those I know, AMD runs hotter than Intel in the majority of cases.

 

[Artman]

Original quote from russ_watters...
-SOME AMD chips run hotter than SOME Intel chips.

Some Intel chips are designed to reduce their power use when they get too hot. the technique is known as "clock throttling." They say that the speed appears to drop as much as 50%. This design aids in cooling, especially in laptops, but is largely unnecessary in desktop models where more cooling can be built into the housing. Intel CPUs have a capability called "Advanced Dynamic Execution Thermal Monitoring Built-in Self Test (BIST)" and this coupled with a chipset designed to dynamically adjust the motherboard, cools the CPU. They also are fitted with a better heatspreader than AMD that takes the heat and disperses it over a larger area (this difference has been changed in more recent AMD models).

Although AMD CPUs run hotter does not mean they are not a good Chip. Just maybe not as good for a laptop.

 

[J-Man]

Originally posted by eNtRopY
If you had the option getting a free notebook computer with either a 1.8 GHz Celeron processor or a 1.6 GHz Athalon processor, which would you choose and why?

I would choose the 1.6GHz Athlon. I would almost always choose the Athlon over a Celeron no matter what the clock speed. But I'd get the highest frequency Athlon that I could afford.
Why? Because Athlons are better. For basically the same reasons that Greg, Boulderhead, Russ, and grady mentioned. There's not much comparison. If you want to compare C.P.U.s you'd have to compare the Celeron to the Duron; If you want to compare an Athlon, you need to compare it to a P3 or P4.
If you must compare the two, I like the analogy of a Camero Z-28 (Athlon) to a Volkswagon Rabbit (Celeron).

 

[Artman]

Originally posted by J-Man
...If you want to compare C.P.U.s you'd have to compare the Celeron to the Duron; If you want to compare an Athlon, you need to compare it to a P3 or P4.
If you must compare the two, I like the analogy of a Camero Z-28 (Athlon) to a Volkswagon Rabbit (Celeron).

Both of these statements are true. The analogy is fair as well. You won't get the speed out of a Volkswagon Rabbit that you would out of a Camaro Z-28, but they are a good little solid car.

Actually, if I was shopping for a new laptop, I would look for one with a mobile CPU (optimized for laptop models).

 

[Considering]

Originally posted by Artman
Actually, if I was shopping for a new laptop, I would look for one with a mobile CPU (optimized for laptop models).

Are you talking about that new processor from Intel for notebooks? Does anyone know what significant differences that brings to the table? (I know this is a bit off topic) I got the impression it is more for business users...why?

 

[Artman]

Some differences are that the CPU can detect when the notebook is operating on battery power and reduce its clock speed and core voltage to increase usable time (this is called speedstep), the Tjunction of the mobile is higher than that of the desktop CPU allowing for warmer operation without damage and reduces required cooling through fan and heat spreader capability, a feature called quickstart reduces CPU power to .5w when the CPU is not in use and bring it back on a keystroke.

Mainly the differences are in power control and heat control.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Artman
Some Intel chips are designed to reduce their power use when they get too hot. the technique is known as "clock throttling." They say that the speed appears to drop as much as 50%. This design aids in cooling, especially in laptops, but is largely unnecessary in desktop models where more cooling can be built into the housing.

Although AMD CPUs run hotter does not mean they are not a good Chip. Just maybe not as good for a laptop.

Actually, you've mixed two different (though similar) features here. Both AMD and Intel have for a few years had the ability to dynamically change the clock speed of a chip while its running. Intel callse it "SpeedStep" and I think the AMD version is "PowerNow". Both were created for saving battery power in laptops, not for heat. However, my P3 laptop runs so hot, unless I have it sitting on a cool-pad, I always run it throttled back. This is done through SOFTWARE.

Both (every chip from both for the past few years) also have throttling that is controlled in hardware and is indeed designed to keep a chip from burning itself up. When my laptop overheats it becomes unusably slow - but it doesn't crash so I can power it down myself and let it cool.

Actually, if I was shopping for a new laptop, I would look for one with a mobile CPU (optimized for laptop models).

Are you talking about that new processor from Intel for notebooks? Does anyone know what significant differences that brings to the table? (I know this is a bit off topic) I got the impression it is more for business users...why?

Probably not. Intel has for years had moble versions of the p3 which are generally preferable to the desktop version because they use less power.

The new Intel moble platform is called the Centrino and consists of a cpu, a motherboars, and a wireless card. The cpu is great - its the first cpu designed from the ground up to be a moble cpu. Its fast, cool, and uses very little power. And the motherboard has advanced power management as Artman mentioned.

The big drawback of Centrino is the wireless card - its the obsolete 802.11b standard with a bandwidth of 11mb. The industry recently released 802.11a and 802.11g (I can't remember what a is, but g is 54mb).

 

[Artman]

No, Russ, I knew that clock throttling was for desktop models, to protect from overheating. I see what you mean though, my previous post was misleading. The CPU models that he is comparing he didn't say whether they were mobile type or not.

AMD has it now, but did they have clock throttling or a speedstep type technology in the Athlon 1.6? Intel has had it for several generations of CPU including the mobile Celerons.

 

[BoulderHead]

I thought that the way you tell a mobile Pentium was...

to look for a small 'm' in the logo, as seen in the black area here;

http://di.dell.com/images/us/segments/dhs/logos/p4mobile_clickhere.gif

Does the Centrino use a different logo and, more to what I'm wondering, can you tell a mobile-type AMD CPU by looking at their logo? How do you tell?

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Artman
No, Russ, I knew that clock throttling was for desktop models, to protect from overheating. I see what you mean though, my previous post was misleading. The CPU models that he is comparing he didn't say whether they were mobile type or not.

Fair enough.

AMD has it now, but did they have clock throttling or a speedstep type technology in the Athlon 1.6? Intel has had it for several generations of CPU including the mobile Celerons.

The Athlon has had PowerNOW since the 850 "Athlon 4" in 2001. Lower voltage moble chips for both have been around much longer.

Does the Centrino use a different logo and, more to what I'm wondering, can you tell a mobile-type AMD CPU by looking at their logo? How do you tell?

Pretty simple. Centrino laptops have a Centrino logo. Laptops with athlon mobile chips have a PowerNOW logo.

Btw guys, I'm not really this smart. Check http://www.geek.com/procspec/procspec.htm out.

 

[Artman]

Thanks Russ!

My geek type site was outdated

I'm going to bookmark that one.

 

[BoulderHead]

I thought you guys...

were pulling it all from your heads, you cheaters!

Skimming over all those processors I see that there is a P4-Mobile, and also a Centrino platform Pentium-M, hmmm, perhaps Intel likes to play with the letter 'M'...
I didn't see the Intel 386 and 486 CPU's at that link, maybe I'm the only one left using them. It is interesting to me how the cost of a new battery for my laptop is about 10-15 greater than the current selling price of the laptop itself.

[just a joke]
If I were to ever purchase a new laptop again, I'd try to get one this time with a built-in math coprocessor, at least 8 megs of RAM, minimum of 80MB HDD, and an internal floppy drive.

 

[Artman]

Originally posted by BoulderHead
were pulling it all from your heads, you cheaters!

[just a joke]
If I were to ever purchase a new laptop again, I'd try to get one this time with a built-in math coprocessor, at least 8 megs of RAM, minimum of 80MB HDD, and an internal floppy drive.

Parts of it came from my head. I knew that the desktop CPUs had heat safeties and that the mobile processors had controls to help manage power and heat, but the details I had to research (that's why I screwed up my earlier post ).

My laptop is an IBM with a P166MMX 48MB Ram and a 2gig HD not exactly state-of-the-art technology , but it runs all of the software I need it to run and still works great.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by BoulderHead
I didn't see the Intel 386 and 486 CPU's at that link, maybe I'm the only one left using them.

Yes. You are the only one on the planet still using either a 386 or a 486

I have a keychain that probably has more ram than your 386. No really, I took a 4mb stick out of one of my older machines and snapped it in half for a keychain.

 

[Saint]

who had tried Opteron, how is it?