Old CPU speed question

idont

Distinguished
Apr 23, 2008
23
0
18,510
Hello,
I got a quick question:

I can get a free PC and got the choice between a
Celeron "Northwood", 2,2GHZ, 256KB L2
Pentium 4 "Willamette", 1,5GHz, 126KB L2

The rest of the specs are mostly the same, I just need the know the speed difference between these two CPU's.

Which one should I take? I can't find any benches between these two (maybe because they got a different production process?)

(btw, I also got a Athlon 4800+ system, this one is for my brother :p)

Thanks in advance,
iDont
 

dobby

Distinguished
May 24, 2006
1,026
0
19,280
Right i would assume they are roughtly they are roughly the same i could say which is better, but i would go with the P4 with some hope of OC'ing it.

bewareb the celeron is soc 479 and the P4 could be PGA423 or a 479. make sure your mother board is spec.

also the if the P4 is 423 and you dont have the right board, run like hell from it, because it uses rd ram (rimbus) which s great ram for it's time but it's deadly expensive.

how much do you intend to spend on these because you can get a new dual core celeron for £33 ($66)

if you get these chip and intend to run XP or Ubuntu make sue you have at least 512 as it is pain stakingly slow

the athlon 4800 is a much more powerful CPU good enough to run vista with 2GB of ram.
 

idont

Distinguished
Apr 23, 2008
23
0
18,510
Thanks for all your replies.

I got another pc (athlon 4800+, 2gb of ram, 9600gt, all OC'ed) but I looked for a PC for my brother. He doesn't know that much about computers and the only game he plays are Wolfenstein ET online and Red Alert 2.
This morning a friend of my offered me a choice between two computers which i may have for free.

I know that the CPU's have different sockets, but that ain't a problem. I get the whole platform (MB, RAM (512MB), PSU, etc) and both platforms are almost identical, except for the socket and CPU. So that's why i needed to know the difference between the CPU's.
 

Gravemind123

Distinguished
Aug 10, 2006
649
0
18,980
I'd go with the Celeron, it is probably Northwood based, which was a good improvement over the Willamette core of the P4 listed. If he just plays Red Alert 2 and the like, either should work, as I ran RA2 on a 450MHz PIII back in the day.
 

idont

Distinguished
Apr 23, 2008
23
0
18,510
Okay, but I don't think it will ever get upgraded. I just need the performance between the two CPU's, looking at no other factors.

I'm sorry if i sound a little bit harsh or so but that's the only thing i need to know.

Again, thanks for your reply :)
 

idont

Distinguished
Apr 23, 2008
23
0
18,510
thanks Gravemind, I hadn't seen your post when I posted my last post (fast posting here at tomshardware huh?). I'll go with the celeron than.

-iDont