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August 2001Calm before the storm is the best way to describe August. Recent weeks have seen few price moves (apart from a few Celeron price drops) as the summer holiday season works its way. This though will not remain the same as Intel has a whole raft of price cuts and new product introductions scheduled for the latter part of this month. Look forward to more new Pentium 4 and Celeron processors to be introduced. Pentium 4 is not yet in the chart, but this probably won't last as Intel's planned price cuts and new clock speeds will at last make their new high-end chip begin to look attractive to home buyers. The flip side of this move is that Intel will look to accelerate the phase-out of the current Pentium III, with the new 0.13 micron "Tulatin" moving to the Celeron range relatively quickly. As a result of the non-moving prices seen recently, this month's chart is still dominated by AMD's Athlon and Duron processors. This chart does not include processors in ready built PC's, so to meet the criteria for the chart, the processor in question must for sale separately and in volume. The criteria with which we rate the processors currently available is simply what we judge to be the best value for money. Raw power alone can not top the charts (unless we think that it is significantly good enough to warrant a high price tag), and other factors such as all round performance and availability (at time of writing in the UK) also influence our decisions. We do not use a chip's overclocking potential as a factor in this chart, thus giving a guide to those who do not wish to overclock their CPU. Plese note that this rating is purely the opinion of the authors. So onto the chart... No. 1AMD Athlon 1.33 GHz. High-end power for £131, this really is even better value than last month. When compared to the Pentium III which can only muster 800 MHz for similar money the 1.33 GHz Athlon looks fantastic, and when paired to a good KT133A (and also AMD 760) based board this gives very impressive performance indeed. Still the pick of the crop. No. 2AMD Athlon 1.1 GHz. The 1 GHz Athlon is disappearing with the 1.1 GHz part moving into it's price range. Very impressive at £93. No. 3AMD Duron 900 MHz. AMD remains the price/performance leader with the budget based Duron processor. A price drop to £64 looks even better. Drop one of these into a KT133A board and you have Workstation power at a budget cost and a non-mover at No. 3. No. 4AMD Athlon 1.2 GHz. £99 bargain. Try and go for the 133 MHz FSB version if your board supports it. No. 5AMD Duron 850 MHz. All the power of a Pentium III 850 but at only £54. Enough said. No. 6Intel Celeron 850 MHz. At £72 the 850 MHz Celeron is at last making Intel's budget chip look competative again. Whilst beaten on price and performance by the Duron, the Celeron 850 is by no means a slow performer. Couple this to a good i815 or Apollo Pro133A board and this chip looks very good indeed. Whilst Intel's P6 is beginning to show its age, it is still a very capable performer. No. 7AMD Athlon 1.44 GHz. Whilst the 1.33 GHz chip is only £131, the new 1.44 GHz chip weighs in at a heftier £170. Mind you, it is far better value that spending £250 on a 1.3 GHz Pentium 4. Best paired with DDR SDRAM. No. 8Intel Celeron 800 MHz. The FC-PGA Celeron once again looks better with recent price adjustments. We would advise users to go for the 800 MHz part over the 766 as it uses the far superior 100 MHz Front Side Bus. Now priced at £62 this chip looks rather nice. No. 9Intel Pentium III 866 MHz. Whilst pricey at £152, the Pentium III 866 is still a good chip. No. 10
Intel Celeron 733 MHz. Not bad for £49, despite using a 66 MHz Front Side Bus.
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