what wil give me better game performance:
AMD K7 850MHz on a FIC motherboard
or
Celleron 13.GHz on an Intel MB

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Clarification of Question by dbd-ga on 28 Oct 2002 13:43 PST

It is 1.3MHz Celeron. Sorry, typo.
Intel's doc say the fsb on the celeron 1.3 is 100MHz. 
The K7 on the FIC gets 200MHz.

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Request for Question Clarification by alienintelligence-ga on 28 Oct 2002 14:00 PST

Hi dbd...

A question for you would be,
are you going to be overclocking
the CPUs? What type of video
card will you be using? (this
matters almost more than the
CPU) System memory size?

I know it doesn't seem rational
to suggest a lower clock speed
CPU but the architecture of the
Athlon CPU is dramatically more
tuned to running CPU intensive
operations such as a game over
the Celery (My lil pet name for
Intel's blunder). 

I don't know why fatstu jumped
from Celeron to Duron in his
comment. He seems to be neglecting
alot of hours of research into
chip production. Also, the celeron
will not "clearly" beat the Athlon.
And the motherboard WILL make ALOT
of difference.

"Duron vs. Celeron"
Channel: Comparisons
Author: Matthew A. Dockter 
Last Updated March 23, 2001 
[ http://www.pcmech.com/show/cpucompare/46/ ]

"L1 Cache
The Duron sports 128KB of L1 Cache, split into 64KB
Data and 64KB Instruction segments while the Celeron
only sports 32KB, a mere fourth of the Duron.
Advantage: Duron

L2 Cache
The Celeron processor has, ever since the 300A, had
128KB of L2 Cache running on the die, meaning, at the
speed of the CPU itself. AMD recently moved the L2
Cache of all processors on the core. The only problem
is the Duron only has 64KB of L2 cache. Thankfully,
the L2 cache is exclusive. This means that the L1
Cache is not copied directly to the L2 cache, as it is
with the Celeron. If it were, we'd end up being 64KB
in the hole, if that's possible. Currently, all Intel
processors have inclusive L2 caches, meaning there is
a mirror image of the L1 cache, inside the L2 cache,
decreasing the available amount of L2 cache that is
usable in all systems. With AMD's exclusive L2 Cache,
it's almost like having 192KB of onboard Cache (L1 +
L2). But, even with the 32KB subtracted from the L2
cache for the L1 mirror in the Celeron, it still has
more L2 cache than the Duron. Speed of the L2 Cache is
another story. The latency, or the number of clock
cycles it takes for the CPU to find what it needs in
the L2 cache, is a measurement of speed in memory,
such as Cache. The Latency of the Duron's L2 Cache is
"0", while the Latency of the Celeron's L2 is "2".
That means it takes two clock cycles for the Celeron
to find stuff in the L2, while the Duron will find
what it needs on the first clock cycle. But, even
though the Duron's L2 is faster, the Celeron still has
more, two times more. A problem is encountered when
taking TOTAL CACHE into mind. The Duron has 192KB,
while the Celeron sadly has only 128KB of usable
cache.
Advantage in L2:Celeron
Advantage in Total Cache: Duron"

Duron belittles Celeron
[ http://www.digit-life.com/articles/celeron1300mhz/ ]

So you see, it's not cut and dried on the Celeron/Duron
front. Lets get back to the Celeron and Athlon though.

I have found the Celeron to be nothing but a dog when
it comes to pumping out data. DVD's are choppy without
MPEG compensation. Framerates are low on games (I rarely
see more than 20 for high res). I personally have the
AMD 850MHz. It isn't in my rotation of currently used 
computers but I wouldn't ever sell it. Not oddly enough
there are exactly ZERO celerons in my collection. No
Durons either.


Here is a quick chart showing the features of the Celeron
die from the beginning to the present.
[ http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/02q4/021016/celeron-02.html ]

And from the same article is a comparison of the Athlon 1600XP
vs several Celerons from 1.7GHz thru 3GHz. The celerons un-O/C'd
all occupy the lowest score slots. 
[ http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/02q4/021016/celeron-06.html ]
"We "doctored" the AMD system in the same way. It is true that
most home users would equip their systems with DDR333, but
this would not reflect the picture in the market for complete
systems. DDR266 remains the standard specification.

Once more Celeron fails to impress; in almost every discipline
the Athlon XP takes a handsome victory, despite the
considerably lower clock speed. The floating-point-intensive
SPECviewperf is a discipline in which the Athlon excels."


System memory and the type of motherboard will be very
important here too. The fastest memory attached to the slowest
CPU will give a great performance gain over the fastest CPU
with memory that causes it to be in a "wait-state".


So basically, can you tell us a bit more about your setup?
System memory, motherboard model, video card model and video
memory. How old are the CPUs in question?

Also, what type of games will you be playing? Do you have
a desired framerate in mind for the games? Will you be
playing DVDs also? Lastly... are you going to be bragging
to your friends about the setup? Pure #'s are always the
way to go if you are doing the ego comparison with friends.

thanks,
-AI

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Request for Question Clarification by brightshadow-ga on 29 Oct 2002 20:31 PST

What kind of games are you playing?

Either processor should work well, honestly; if you're playing 3D
accelerated games, I'd look more closely at the overall system
specifications.

Which FIC motherboard is it, specifically, and which Intel
motherboard?
The motherboard's capabilities will have a pretty major say in how
well the system performs; the processors, between the Athlon 850 and
the Celeron Tualatin 1.3GHz.

The previous clarification requests are off a bit in a few places.

First of all, the Celeron 1.3GHz processor is a Tualatin core
processor with 256k L2 cache; it is, effectively, a Pentium III
1.3GHz, which is actually a -very- competent performer, and in raw CPU
power, will destroy an Athlon 850MHz.
The ONLY major difference between the Celeron 1.3GHz and the Pentium
IIIs of the same class is bus speed; the Celeron will use a 100MHz
front side bus speed, and the Pentium IIIs of its class use a 133MHz
front side bus speed. Both are using the same core (and the Tualatin
core is an EXCELLENT performer, both in games as well as desktop
applications.)

To answer your question in raw numbers, the Celeron 1.3GHz will win
over the Athlon at 850MHz by a decent margin.

HOWEVER, the motherboards in question may have different capabilities.
What type of memory do they use? What type of hard drive controllers
do they have? What type of video card are you going to be using? (What
components are onboard on both motherboards? Onboard sound? Video?
Network card?)

There's a number of factors that need to be considered; for raw power,
the Celeron you mentioned is a better processor. The motherboard for
the Athlon system is likely to be faster in the memory department,
however.

If you want reliability, Intel's motherboards are great for that.
They're fairly inflexible (no overclocking capabilities, you can't
really "tweak" them, etc) but they do what they do, and they do it
reliably, and if you need to service the board, the manufacturer is
located in the US, as is their tech support, etc.

FIC is a company based in Taiwan; their tech support is primarily
composed of people who don't speak English very well, in my personal
experience.

Anyway, if you could give us a little more information about the
motherboards (model numbers would be fine!) I could give you my
educated opinion on the matter, and will do my best to cite examples.
I build systems for a variety of people for a variety of intentions,
from gaming to fileservers to rack units for server rooms, etc, and
consider myself to be an excellent resource on this sort of thing. :)

Let me(us) know!

-brightshadow

---

Clarification of Question by dbd-ga on 30 Oct 2002 12:12 PST

Thank you all for the comments. It seems several of you need more info
so here it is:

Q: what games will be played?  
A: 3D accelerated games such as Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, Heroes IV
and other graphical games

Q: how much and what type of memory? 
A: 384MB of pc133 SDRAM

Q: what video card? 
A: nVidia 440MX 64MB DDR

Q: hard drive info? 
A: IBM Deskstar 76GB 7200RPM

Q: motherboard specs? 
A: FIC AZ11 using VIA chipset


The Intel option comes with a 815EGEW motherboard. It has no AGP slot
(it has onboard AGP, I doubt its any good) so it can't use the nVidia
card.

And, I will seriously consider overclocking once I study the subject
and figure out the safeties and the how-tos (It seems the FIC board
actually has BIOS and windows utilities support for overclocking, as
well as some overheating protection...

Thanks all,
Dan

If you talking about a 1.3Ghz Celeron then I'd go for that. Usually
the budget chips are based on the older cores, so for example the
Duron 1.3Ghz will prob have a similar core to the K7 you are referring
to...only thing is, its clocked at 850Mhz, a substansial drop. The
motherboard wont make to much of a difference in performance because
the celeron will clearly beat the 850Mhz. Hope this helps.

Before deciding,Take into account which one gives good aftersales
service in your area. There is No meaning in having a high performance
chip which don't have after sales support.

K7 is the Athlon right? Even if it's at a lower clock speed, I'd go
for the AMD K7. Celeron just sounds like celery to me (and performs
like it too). :)

Techtor

The AMD will out perform the celeron by far.  Not only as was
mentioned elsewhere is the architecture better, but the access to the
processor is faster(200mhz vs 100mhz) and that access is wider on all
sides, allowing more info into the processor at once.  And to be quite
honest with you, the actual clock speed of the processor begins to
matter very little when you get into the higher clock speeds.  Worry
more about getting plenty of RAM and a good video card for playing
games.

I don't think, especially for the price of this question, and the info
that is provided, that a definite answer can be given.
Info needed includes:
what games will be played?
how much and what type of memory?
what video card?
hard drive info?
motherboard specs?

Also, find comparisons between the 2 CPUs is difficult because of the
difference in age. When the Celeron 1.3 Ghz came out, it was generally
pitted against Celeron/Duron 10 to 1.3, Athlon XP 1600+ or better, and
P4 1.7 and up.

When the Athlon 850 was out and being tested, it was usually up
against Pentium 3 800 to 1000, Celeron 600 to 900, and Duron 600 to
900.

I can say that the Celeron 1.3 performed equivalent to a Duron 1.3 and
also equal to some Athlons and P4s, in some tests.

I can also say that another test showed the Athlon 850 as faster then
a celeron 800, but not as fast as a P3-1000.

The problem is not only the different types of benchmarks, but also
the different ages mean the banchmarks were tested with different
equipment. For example, the benchmark I mentioned that used the 850
used a GeForce 2 GTS video card in each system. THe newer tests were
run with GeForce 3 or 4 cards.

(all benchmarks mentioned are from www.tomshardware.com)

To give my opinion as a PC tech/sales rep, I would say:

If there's a price difference, go with the cheaper one and invest in
512MB RAM mimimum, and no video card lower then Ti4200.

If they're around the same price, my gut instinct is the Celeron with
the above memory and video card, but the Athlon with the same video
card and memory should be just as suitable for gaming.