Pentium vs. Celeron

[barryware]

In some of the other areas of the forums, there is a bit of "unrest" in regards to the time it takes to process video projects. Decoding, encoding, rendering, burning, etc.

 

Processing video may be one of the most intensive tasks you ever call on your computer to do.

 

There are many factors that influence the speed of your computer. It is not all processor speed. The amount of RAM in your rig for instance, the more RAM you have, the less time the computer is spending moving data in and out of the "swap file" (virtual memory)

 

The "swap file" is a file on your hard disk that the OS uses to temporally store data when the RAM fills up. You can loose a tremendous amount of processing speed if the computer is constantly moving data back and forth from this "swap file".

 

There is MUCH more to come but below is the difference between a Celeron and a Pentium. Even though the two different processors could be the same speed, a P4 will process your data 4 - 6 times faster over a celeron.

 

I see a lot of "celeron" processors in the users sig or system specs on the forum. Not to bash a celeron but below is an explanation of the differences between a Celeron and a Pentium. The article is a bit old so there is no mention of Hyper threading or Dual Core which will be address later if there seems to be any interest.

 

Here are the most important similarities and differences between the Pentium 4 and the Celeron chips coming out today:

 

Core - The Celeron chip is based on a Pentium 4 core.

 

Cache - Celeron chips have less cache memory than Pentium 4 chips do. A Celeron might have 128 kilobytes of L2 cache, while a Pentium 4 can have four times that. The amount of L2 cache memory can have a big effect on performance.

 

Clock speed - Intel manufactures the Pentium 4 chips to run at a higher clock speed than Celeron chips. The fastest Pentium 4 might be 60 percent faster than the fastest Celeron.

 

Bus speed - There are differences in the maximum bus speeds that the processors allow. Pentium 4s tend to be about 30 percent faster than Celerons.

 

When you sort all this out and compare the two chips side by side, it turns out that a Celeron and a Pentium 4 chip running at the same speed are different beasts. The smaller L2 cache size and slower bus speeds can mean serious performance differences depending on what you want to do with your computer. If all you do is check e-mail and browse the Web, the Celeron is fine, and the price difference can save you a lot of money. If you want the fastest machine you can buy, then you need to go with the Pentium 4 to get the highest clock speeds and the fastest system bus.

[REDWAGON]

"If you want the fastest machine you can buy, then you need to go with the Pentium 4 to get the highest clock speeds and the fastest system bus."

Good stuff barryware. However, I might suggest that there are some faster processors now than the P4.

I doubt very seriously if most of the users that do any Video processing have any idea of all the information you just posted, but now maybe some of them that frequent the Roxio forum will have increased their knowledge about their computers thanks to you. Thanks for your post and keep them coming

 

Frank...

[grandpabruce]

Yes, it is a good explanation of the differences. Thanks for taking the time to post it.

[ggrussell]

Good stuff barryware. However, I might suggest that there are some faster processors now than the P4.

The article is a bit old so there is no mention of Hyper threading or Dual Core which will be address later if there seems to be any interest.

[lynn98109]

So far as I know the AMD K6-2 and AMD K6-3 are more-or-less comparable to PII and PIII - but where do AMD Athlon and Duron fit into the picture?

 

I came across both recently amongst the comptuers being refurbished at interconnetion.org. That implies they are somewhat dated, but they were in with P4s and PIIIs. (One really impressive case looked good until I noticed the Win98 sticker - turned out to be PIII 600MHz - good enough to be headed for Chile, but I think once-upon-a-time it was top-of-the-line.)

 

As my friend John observed, when you buy a computer, by the time you get it home it loses half its value

 

Lynn

[malatekid]

In some of the other areas of the forums, there is a bit of "unrest" in regards to the time it takes to process video projects. Decoding, encoding, rendering, burning, etc.

 

Processing video may be one of the most intensive tasks you ever call on your computer to do.

 

There are many factors that influence the speed of your computer. It is not all processor speed. The amount of RAM in your rig for instance, the more RAM you have, the less time the computer is spending moving data in and out of the "swap file" (virtual memory)

 

The "swap file" is a file on your hard disk that the OS uses to temporally store data when the RAM fills up. You can loose a tremendous amount of processing speed if the computer is constantly moving data back and forth from this "swap file".

 

There is MUCH more to come but below is the difference between a Celeron and a Pentium. Even though the two different processors could be the same speed, a P4 will process your data 4 - 6 times faster over a celeron.

 

I see a lot of "celeron" processors in the users sig or system specs on the forum. Not to bash a celeron but below is an explanation of the differences between a Celeron and a Pentium. The article is a bit old so there is no mention of Hyper threading or Dual Core which will be address later if there seems to be any interest.

 

Here are the most important similarities and differences between the Pentium 4 and the Celeron chips coming out today:

 

Core - The Celeron chip is based on a Pentium 4 core.

 

Cache - Celeron chips have less cache memory than Pentium 4 chips do. A Celeron might have 128 kilobytes of L2 cache, while a Pentium 4 can have four times that. The amount of L2 cache memory can have a big effect on performance.

 

Clock speed - Intel manufactures the Pentium 4 chips to run at a higher clock speed than Celeron chips. The fastest Pentium 4 might be 60 percent faster than the fastest Celeron.

 

Bus speed - There are differences in the maximum bus speeds that the processors allow. Pentium 4s tend to be about 30 percent faster than Celerons.

 

When you sort all this out and compare the two chips side by side, it turns out that a Celeron and a Pentium 4 chip running at the same speed are different beasts. The smaller L2 cache size and slower bus speeds can mean serious performance differences depending on what you want to do with your computer. If all you do is check e-mail and browse the Web, the Celeron is fine, and the price difference can save you a lot of money. If you want the fastest machine you can buy, then you need to go with the Pentium 4 to get the highest clock speeds and the fastest system bus.

Would it be nice to give credit to Howstuffworks.com for this informational article?

 

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question268.htm

[barryware]

Would it be nice to give credit to Howstuffworks.com for this informational article?

 

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question268.htm

I didn't take credit for the post. I mentioned it was an article that was a bit old. The last 6 paragraphs came from an article posted in another forum I frequent, not howstuffworks.

 

Google "Celeron vs P4", "Celeron vs Pentium", substitute "vs" with "versus", and then try different combinations of the keywords.

 

The same text verbatim is all over the net. I don't know who or where it originated. I thought it was worth sharing as there have been more than a few posts concerning the speed (or lack of it) when working with video.

 

Feel better?

[malatekid]

I didn't take credit for the post. I mentioned it was an article that was a bit old. The last 6 paragraphs came from an article posted in another forum I frequent, not howstuffworks.

 

Google "Celeron vs P4", "Celeron vs Pentium", substitute "vs" with "versus", and then try different combinations of the keywords.

 

The same text verbatim is all over the net. I don't know who or where it originated. I thought it was worth sharing as there have been more than a few posts concerning the speed (or lack of it) when working with video.

 

Feel better?

Yep, you definitely mentioned that the article was a bit old; just suggesting, as a good practice, to acknowledge source (or where it was actually lifted--in this case from a forum you frequent) or put quotation marks.

 

Yes, I feel better now.

[barryware]

Yes, I feel better now.

I'm so glad we got this straightened out. I too, feel much better.

[REDWAGON]

"I might suggest that there are some faster processors now than the P4."

 

 

Yeah, I read the post correctly Gary. I was just "SUGGESTING" that there are processors out faster than those mentioned, even though the post did suggest it was OLD. Sorry for mentioning if it was not in order.

 

Frank...