Intel CPU Comparison

The only difference between these two chips is the cache size and the CPU speed. Both run on the 533 FSB and both are Prescott cores (sans cache)

I would think the 3.06 GHz. speed advantage of the CeleronD would make up for the larger 1M cache of the P4 in most applications, but I'm not really sure if a Linux server would be more sensitive to CPU speed or cache size...

Both chips put out quite a bit of heat so you may have some fan noise keeping it cool. I built a SFF PC for a guy using a 2.53 GHz. CeleronD and he still complains about the fan noise!

I'd go for Northwood,a 3+ Ghz one.
No heating problems and excelent performance.

Are you saying that the 3.06GHz Celeron D will run cooler (and better) then the 2.4GHz Pentium 4?

Then my answer is: The PreScott 2.4A for sure.

You don't want HyperThreading enabled in the BIOS for a game server, unless running 2 game servers at once using just 1 core with HT - which is a bad idea anyway, as the instuction look ahead suffers when HT is enabled unless the code benefits from it. (Long story short: Xbitlabs and/or Anandtech have several technically excellent, in depth, articles regarding this issue.)

That and the 2.4A lacks HT anyway from memory.

The extra L2 cache will help in a dedicated game server as most DediGameServers are:

1 - ALU/FPU intensive
2 - Memory SubSystem / L2 Cache sustained throughput (includes prefetching and branch prediction) intensive
3 - Memory / Cache latency sensitive

In that order.

If the 20% of the code that does 80% of the work (common procedure) will fit within the processors cache, the performance will scale far better, as the cache hit rate will be in the 80-90% range, if it doesn't (Celeron D) the cache hit rate will drop under 60-70% at times.... and that is bad for performance when the action gets heavier in multiplayer games, even when playing on a LAN you'll feel it.

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Suspect that CompGeek was implying that the Northwood core Pentium 4 (with 512 KB L2 cache) actually run cooler than the PreScotts and will perform better at equal clockspeeds even only with said 512 KB L2 cache.

ie: A 3.0 GHz Northwood will outperform a 3.2 GHz PreScott on the same mainboard (assuming it supports both processors).

Thank you both for the excellent information. I really appreciate the effort you've put forth into explaining this to me.

I'm off to grab my gig of ram and Intel CPU =)