The Celeron Killer: AMD's New Duron Processor

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Comparison Between Duron And Celeron

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Header Cell - Column 0	Intel Celeron	AMD Duron
Bus Clock	66 MHz	200 MHz (DDR)
L1-Cache Size	16 kB I + 16 kB D = 32 kB L1-Cache	64 kB I + 64 kB D = 128 kB L1-Cache
L2-Cache Size	128 kB	64 kB
L2-Cache Interface	256 bit	64 bit
Platform	Socket370	Socket462
Chipsets	440LX/EX/BX/ZX, 810, 815	VIA Apollo KT133, AMD750, 760
Performance	60-80% of Pentium III at same clock frequency	about 90% of Athlon/Thunderbird at same clock frequency, 92 - 99% of Athlon Classic at same clock frequency

You can see that Duron is much closer to the performance of its big brothers than Celeron, because AMD is using the same bus clock for Duron as well as Athlon. Intel is using the little FSB-limitation trick to make people fall into the MHz-trap. Inexperienced users might think that a Celeron 700 is just as fast as a Pentium III 700. Both sell at the same price, but Celeron is significantly slower.

The biggest advantage of Celeron is the huge amount of platforms offered for it. Intel's Celeron design is several years old and Celeron runs on virtually any platform Intel released since. Duron has currently only got VIA's Apollo KT133 chipset to run on, having to share it with its bigger brother Thunderbird. It will take a while until the market is saturated with KT133 platforms. Right now, it's not too easy to get one. Later this year VIA will release more chipsets for Socket462-processors and AMD, Ali and SiS will supply their solutions as well.