So, how fast is it?
As with all members of the Celeron family since the 300A, they have all delivered exceptional performance. The Celeron 500 is no exception
with both Integer and Floating point performance being comparable to the Pentium III 500. Games like Quake II, Unreal and the like will
all run beautifully on this chip. The only concern comes when looking to future games which could well make use of SSE. Here the Celeron
500 will feel slow (a relative concept for Celeron's these days) when compared to the Pentium III.
Benchmarks published by a number of sites all show the Celeron to be just as fast as the Pentium III 500, but in areas such as memory
transfer it would appear that the 66 MHz bus is beginning to take its toll on this chip with it posting lower figures. A good set of
benchmarks have been published by Thresh's FiringSquad which show
how the Celeron performs.
Celeron 500, the verdict.
Don't get us wrong, the Celeron 500 is a VERY good processor indeed. It still offers an incredible price/performance ratio, its
just that Intel could have gone just that little bit further with the Celeron. The lack of a 100 MHz bus on this chip (I can't see this
reaching 750 MHz for even the most ardent overclocker) now is beginning to be a significant drawback, as well as its lack of SSE
instructions. The lack of SSE could well hold this chip back in a year's time, so think hard here before buying.
With an expected pricetag of over £200, is the Celeron worth it? Well, yes and no. If you want the biggest speed hit for the least money
the Celeron 500 is seriously impressive, but do watch out for a dark horse in the shape of the AMD K6 III 500, it is a powerful rival,
although its gaming performance will be somewhat slower. In a year's time though, SSE may be a significant factor and user's should take
a look at the Pentium III 450 which will be a similar price to the Celeron 500 and can take advantage of the goodies that SSE instructions
bring.
Intel Celeron 500, Technical Data
| Processor |
Clock Speed |
Bus Speed |
Clock Muiltiplier |
| Celeron 500 |
500 MHz |
66 MHz |
7.5x |
Celeron 500 - Page 1.
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Celeron 533.
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Celeron Overview
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