Good Old Newbie: Intel’s Celeron 1.7 GHz for Socket 478 — THG.RU

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Intel Celeron Willamette: Hunting Down AMD’s Duron?

Do you still remember the shootout between AMD’s Duron and Intel’s Celeron at 1.3 GHz? In virtually every benchmark, the Celeron was lagging behind considerably. Today, Intel wants to rectify this circumstance with their latest budget processor: The Celeron at 1.7 GHz.

As you may have noticed, Intel skipped some clock speeds — the fastest Celeron up till now was running at 1.3 GHz. The reason for the sudden surge in clock speed is that there’s been a transition to the new core, which isn’t actually that new anymore, and also to socket mPGA478. Intel’s move simply consists of turning the «old» Pentium 4 based on the Willamette core (0.18 µm) into a «new» Celeron. The L2 cache, however, was trimmed by 50%, so that it is now only 128 KB.

And voilа — we get an attractive low-cost processor that runs at excellent clock speeds. And it also merges two market sectors so that only one platform is used, namely Socket 478. The result is that OEMs and system integrators get to choose from a vast variety of chipsets that support all kinds of memory.

Furthermore, Intel will release new chipsets next week — one of them comes with integrated graphics once, which can be teamed perfectly with the new Celeron. But now let’s take a look at the newbie!

The Core: P4 Willamette

This image shows both the new Celeron 1.7 (left) and the Pentium 4 Willamette (2 GHz). Both outside and inside, there is no real difference between these two processors. The new Celeron is nothing more than a Pentium 4 Willamette that has had half of its L2 cache removed. Everything else is pretty much the same:

• 100 MHz quad-pumped Front Side Bus (= 400 MHz), providing 3.2 GB/s
• High clock speeds (1.7 GHz, faster versions to follow)
• 1.75 V core voltage
• Socket mPGA478
• 128 KB full speed L2 cache
• Instruction Trace Cache
• Rapid Execution Engine
• SSE2-Instruction Engine

Are you disappointed because Intel didn’t decide to use the Northwood core? Well, you really shouldn’t be! First of all, Intel still has large production capacities for 0.18 µm that should not lie idle. The «old» Celeron architecture, based on the Tualatin core, suffers considerably from the limited bandwidth of conventional SDRAM, so it was time for an appropriate replacement.

It was important for Intel to switch to Socket 478, because it enables much faster clock speeds, even for low-end processors. Also, system integrators and OEMs will be able to buy higher quantities of motherboards and memory, since they now have the option to choose freely from various components, including chipsets. And it helps to shut out competition from VIA and their C3 processor, which have certainly spoiled Celeron sales a bit.

Finally, don’t forget that there’s another CPU core waiting in the wings — yes indeed, get ready to see Celerons based on the Northwood core, as soon as clock speeds exceed 2 GHz.

Architecture Diagram Of The Celeron Willamette

Some of you might remember this diagram, which dates back to the end of 2000 when the Pentium 4 was first introduced. It’s still valid today — nothing has changed, except the fact that the processor we are talking about is called Celeron rather than Pentium 4.

Please see the initial Pentium 4 review for more details on the Willamette core.

Celeron: A Little History

The first Celeron was a Slot-1 model which was based on the Pentium II Deschutes (0.25 µm, 266 MHz) — but it had to live without an L2 cache. Only its successor called Mendocino was equipped with 128 KB L2 cache on-chip. The Celeron Mendocino was available at 300 and 333 MHz.

The next generation Celeron moved to Socket 370 and remained with the Mendocino core, but in contrast to the Pentium III, Celeron had to live with only 128 KB cache again, and slower FSB speed as well. In exchange, the cache was on-die again. This processor also performed the transition from Slot-1 to Socket 370. Since then, the Celeron has been known for being an inexpensive and very overclockable CPU, letting overclockers achieve clock speeds of up to 50% above specs. For example, a Celeron 300 MHz could be overclocked to 450 MHz (by running the FSB at 100 rather than at 66 MHz). Versions at 333, 366, 400, 466, 500 and 533 MHz were available. In contrast to the Pentium III Katmai, the Celerons had to live with only 66 MHz instead of 100 MHz FSB.

Next, the Celeron Coppermine followed. The die became much smaller, thus the Pentium III processors were equipped with 256 KB cache. In addition, the transition to 133 MHz FSB was made. Again, the Celeron had to stay at 66 MHz for a long time. It was available with various clock speeds: 533, 566, 600, 633, 667, 700, 733 and 766 MHz. At 800 MHz and above, the Celeron Coppermine was finally allowed to run 100 MHz FSB. It was available at clock speeds of 800, 850, 900, 950, 1000 and 1100 MHz.

Last but not least, there is the Celeron Tualatin — based on the most recent version of the Pentium III core. Finally, it was given a 256 KB L2 cache, since the Pentium III had been upgraded to 512 KB optionally.

The Main Competitor: AMD Duron

AMD has given Intel quite a hard time — all versions of the Duron have clearly been faster than the Celeron at the same clock speed. Until today, the has had the big advantage in that it can make use of the same platform, the same chipsets and the same type of memory that is used by the Athlon and the Athlon XP. Naturally, a Duron paired with DDR memory would always be faster than a Celeron with conventional SDRAM. Now, the Duron no longer has this advantage, because the Celeron 1.7 GHz gives you the option of using various chipsets, DDR-SDRAM and even RDRAM.

Duron / Celeron Comparison Table

Test Setup

Benchmark Results

OpenGL Performance: Quake 3 Arena

DirectX 8 Games: 3D Mark 2001

MP3 Audio Encoding: Lame MP3

MPEG-4 Video Encoding: Xmpeg 4.5 and Divx 5.01

SiSoft Sandra 2002 Benchmarks: CPU and Multimedia

CPU and Multimedia Performance: PC Mark 2002

Office/Internet Performance: Sysmark 2002

Archiving: WinACE 2.11

3D Rendering Performance: SPECviewperf

Conclusion

A quick look back at the history of Intel’s Celeron shows that the transition from Socket 370 to Socket mPGA478 was the only logical step. Now that the battle between Intel and AMD is becoming increasingly fierce, grabbing market shares becomes more important than ever before.

By adopting the Celeron as a member of the Pentium 4 family, it can now make use of the installed base and even help to increase the number of Socket 478 systems that are sold.

While the Celeron cannot keep apace with its older brother or the Duron at the same clock speeds, it has to run much faster by default — so it not only offers fast performance, but it fits perfectly into Intel’s «clock speed sells» strategy.

In the end, it seems to work out: The Celeron Willamette 1.7 GHz is currently the fastest budget CPU. At $83, it is even slightly cheaper than AMD’s Duron 1300 ($84).

The 1.8 GHz Celeron should be available within few weeks, as AMD plans to phase out the current Duron in favor of the slower Athlon versions with the launch of the Thoroughbred core.