New Celeron, new Duron

[msanc024]

Take a look at this article:

http://xbitlabs.com/news/story.html?id=1017814067

[msanc024]

If someone hasn't read the article, here's a summary:

- A new celeron will be released, based on the williamette core, with speeds starting at 1700 Mhz. In fact it will be a P4 based CPU with 128 kb L2 cache.

- As a response, AMD will release a 0.13 micron Duron with 266 FSB. The new Durons will use the PR rating (Duron 1400 wiill be called Duron 1600+ etc)

There's a lot of things to say:

1. I believe it's a backstep from Intel to go to a 0.13 micron core (Tualatin) to a 0.18 (Williamette). This could limit its overclocking capabilities and, due to the larger die, make it more expensive. It also reduces the amount of cache from 256 (Tualatin) to 128. However there's a huge speed boost, from 1300 (or 1400?) to 1700.

2. As it's based on a P4, I assume it could work with P4 chipsets, including i850. To me it's a contradiction to combinate a low end CPU with a high end memory like RDRAM. But let's not forget there are other chipsets available wich provide cheaper (but slower) solutions like SDRAM or DDR. In fact, manufacturers will surely make effort on selling it with the latest.

3. Consolidation of two different architectures from AMD and Intel, making the battle more interesting


Does anybody has more information about this?

Any opinions?

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Sounds like BAD VOODOO to me! More low-end chips to muddy up the waters. Keepem I say.

[msanc024]

It's evolution baby!

The Celerons had always been PII/PIII with less cache and less FSB speed.

The PIII is dead (according to Intel, to me it's still a great CPU, specialy Tualatins), so now it's time for a low-end P4 with less cache and less FSB speed(by the time they appear 533 FSB P4s will probably be available)

OH MY GOD 533 FSB!!!!

[gibsinep]

I bet the duron will still be faster.


I think this is a stupid move.
If the celron is a budget processor then it is ment to be in a budget computer. Than why would they have the best performance be with one the more expensive RAM types?

So will these new durons be able to run with DDR ram.
Since they do have a higher bus than before.

I think celron is slowly getting out of the "budget market"

[msanc024]

I think the performance battle results will be similar as with Williamette-256 vs Palomino.

I think Intel made this in order to add support for the Celeron to the new market standard memory: DDR.

Think of it : Celeron + i845D + DDR. Not bad, not much slower than most actual P4s, but... will it be as cheap as actual Celerons???

I beleive Duron will keep its better Performance/price ratio.

[Rugor]

It's a logical move for Intel. The P6 core is much better balanced than P4's Netburst Architecture but won't scale as well.

Willeron or Celeron4 or CeleronW will work quite well within Intel's marketing strategy because the smaller cache will lead to a higher proportion of cache misses which will slow it down significantly against even Willamette, let alone Northwood. Given Northwood's approximate 6-9% performance advantage over Willamette at a given clockspeed we can project that Northwood will have a 10-20% or greater advantage over an equally clocked Willeron. Couple this with Northwood's upcoming 133MHz FSB and the performance delta will only increase. It's Intel's dream, a budget chip that is significantly slower than the mainstream and doesn't overclock well. They'll go into low end Dell's and Hew-Paq's and make tons of money for Intel. Remember, people will love to buy a cheap 1.8GHz system.

Intel can't continue to make Tualatin based Celerons because on a clock for clock basis they simply slaughter P4's for performance, and Willeron will be even worse.

Duron266 will peform better clock for clock, and with the reduced on-die cache should actually scale higher in clock-speed than the current Athlon XP. If this can be achieved, though it would probably require copper interconnects and thus have to be fabbed at Dresden it might even be able to scale very close to Willeron.

Both chips will give the low end much faster computers than ever before, Duron266 will give higher performance too.

[Rhino302]

Hey Gibsinep, Durons have always been able to runn DDR. They've used the same chip as the Athlon always.

[gibsinep]

O really.

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Durons I think can run DDR. I know mine is on 100fsb but the SDR ram is on 133fsb. FSB +33 for ram setting. So ddr 266 is possible you know what I'm getting at! Now since they both do use the same chipsets I would think if it doesnt work it would have to be due to the way a Duron access the memory-i.e. memory controler.

[Rugor]

Of course Durons can run DDR, they are Athlons with less cache.

Remember in current processor designs the processor has no direct connection to the memory. It communicates with the memory controller located in the northbridge which then communicates with the memory. This is why the P4 is available with DDR-SDRAM, SDR-SDRAM, and DRDRAM, because the processor itself only sees the data coming across the FSB, not the memory on the other side of the northbridge.

Intel may call it an MCH but it's still essentially a northbridge.

The end result is that since Athlons and Durons use the same northbridges, they can both use the same memory types. Durons may not benefit as much from DDR but they are still fully able to use it.

[Rhino302]

I ran both a Duron 750 @ 933 and a Durno 1.0 @ 1.2 with PC2100 for many months. Default they would be at PC1600 speed.

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Originally posted by Rugor
Of course Durons can run DDR, they are Athlons with less cache.

Remember in current processor designs the processor has no direct connection to the memory. It communicates with the memory controller located in the northbridge which then communicates with the memory. This is why the P4 is available with DDR-SDRAM, SDR-SDRAM, and DRDRAM, because the processor itself only sees the data coming across the FSB, not the memory on the other side of the northbridge.

Intel may call it an MCH but it's still essentially a northbridge.

The end result is that since Athlons and Durons use the same northbridges, they can both use the same memory types. Durons may not benefit as much from DDR but they are still fully able to use it.

I figured you would know the answer to that one rugor. Isnt the new Hammer supposed to have the mem controler intergrated on the cpu again? I read something about it but may have been seeing it wrong.

[Bogg]

Duron duron duron the only way to go in the budget zone...

[Rugor]

Yes, the Hammer will have it's own memory controller directly integrated into the processor die. That's one reason why Clawhammer comes in a 754 pin package; it needs the extra pins for memory traces. This wil give a huge advantage in memory efficiency and latency, with the controller running at full speed, but it will tie the processor to one memory type.

Clawhammer will have a single 64-bit DDR memory channel, but it should be able to handle any speed of memory. I can forsee if it runs into bandwidth issues they may have to go to an external memory translator, possibly to step dual channel DDR up to a double-speed single channel interface for the processor.

But that's a little off topic.