Question on a CPU Upgrade

[Methos]

I am looking to upgrade my old dual processor ibm box. I currently have dual PII-450s and the max the motherboard supports normally is a PIII-600 Katmai processor. I was looking into upgrades from Powerleap and as far as I can tell the motherboard only supports 100MHz FSB speeds. So it looks like I can either go with a dual PIII-850 Non-Tualatin setup or a single Celeron 1400 based on the Tualatin core. Now it seems to me that the Celeron 1400 would have the advantage on dual or single processor programs given the advatage of the Tualatin core. But I was wondering what anyone else thought. Is the Celeron 1400 the better deal? Its definatly the cheaper one, but I want to get some more input before I make a final decision. Thanks

 

[lhgpoobaa]

the celleron wil suffer with slower cache.. but its up to you.

<b>I am an Emotional and Intellectual Strumpet! </b>

 

[Schmide]

You can't justify the cost of the Powerleap adapters as they cost ~60 bucks and dual Tualatin boards go for 90. Your choice.

Complicated proofs are proofs of confusion.

 

[Crashman]

You can support dual PIII 1000E's. The E is more rare than the 1000EB and has a slower 100MHz bus for decreased performance, er, increased compatability. It cost more too. Such is the case for <A HREF="http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PIII1000S1-2NB" target="_new">This example from Compgeeks</A> which will work with your Slot 1 board as long as your board supports core voltages of less than 1.80v.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[Methos]

I didnt realize there was a 1GHz PIII on a 100mhz bus. That opens my options a little. Ill have to check IBMs forums to see if the board supports below 1.8V. IBM themselves dont seem to be to forthcoming on info about their systems, but hopefully I will find something out. Thanks

 

[Methos]

Well after searching the IBM forums and asking a couple questions, the only answer I'm able to get is the PIII 1000E will not work because it only has 256K of L2 Cache. That is the only reason they will give. And they seem to refuse to answer and questions regard CPU Voltages, so Im not sure if the 1000E will work or not. I guess im back to square one for now. As far as the Powerleap upgrades go, I thought the speed of the L2 Cache on the celerons ran at the speed of the core, did that change on the Tualatin? If it does run at the same speed along with the IPC improvements of the Tualatin core, wouldn't a 1.4Ghz Celeron out perform 2 PIII 850Mhz processors based on the Coppermine core?

 

[Unolocogringo]

The P3 has a L2 cache latency of 0 .while the celeron has a cache latency of 1. So even though it runs at full speed it can only read every other cycly . Which translates into about half core clock speed.
It would depend on your operating system, Your software. and what you will be using the computer for.

For most programs that fully support 2 cpus the pair of P3 850s would be faster. Running games, which do not support 2 cpus, then the celeron would beat them by a small margin.(I know quake does but it only improves performance by arround 5% to 10% at best.) The stock celeron 1.4 performs somewhere between a P3 900 and a P3 933 . So you would see a 10% to 12% performance increase by switching to a celeron tualatin. But this is only on programs that do not support 2 cpus. Programs that support 2 cpus will drop in performance. The amount will depend on what software you are using.


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[Methos]

ic..I didnt realize the Celeron got hampered that much. I figured the newer core would offset that more but I think I may end up going with the Celeron anyway. I dont use enough dual processor programs to warrant spending that much extra to get two older processors. Thanks everyone for you help.

 

[jclw]

In that case I'll suggest a Celeron-1000A on a TUSL2-C or ST6 @ 133FSB (which would give you a Celeron 1333 while keeping everything else in spec).

- JW