Katmai vs. Coppermine Any and all suggestions.

[Zippycut]

I am currently in the process of looking for a new CPU, and I was wondering how large the difference is between Katmai and Coppermine processors. The difference in price is rather large, so I am leaning towards the Katmai... Is this a good idea? I am looking at a Katmai 650 and a Coppermine 667, with a difference of about 75 bucks. Also, if I can get a Celeron II 667 for cheaper than both of them, should I? Thanks in advance for all suggestions/comments

[Ultima]

Well,

both celeronII and coppermine are based on a 0.18micron core design, meaning that they will cause less heat and higher speeds are available.

Katmai has 512Kb half speed cache, so if ya get a 650, your cache would run 325Mhz.
If ya get the coppermine 667, it has 256Kb full speed cache, and the celly has 128Kb full speed.

Just ask yourself what you want.

But, I would seriously not get the katmai, cause they are already practically outdated, let alone over a year or 2.

I'd say get the coppermine.
Or get yourself a duron or Tbird, they are cheaper then celeronII and coppermine respectively.

Pim

[Zippycut]

Thank you for the information. I already purchased a slot1 motherboard, and I am not sure if it could run the coppermine. Is there any way to find out? Also, to use the coppermine, I would have to use a slotket converter. Are there Slot 1 coppermines?

[Ultima]

Yes,

I know for sure that there are coppermine 667 slot 1's, cause we have em here at work.

What motherboard have ya got???
Maybe you'll have to d/l the newest bios to be able to run coppermines, but that depends on what motherboard ya have.

Pim

[Dputiger]

A CuMine 667 will outperform the Katmai 650 by a great deal. However, if you're looking to cut cost and not performance AND are willing to Overclock, the Celeron 566 + Slocket is actually the chip you want.

A Slocket is a device that plugs into a slot-based motherboard and allows a socket 370 chip to be plugged into it. Many slockets also allow for voltage adjustment to ensure that your board will properly support your new equipment.

The Celeron 566 is hitting 800-850 Mhz and costs around $80 I think. If you got this chip up to 850 Mhz it'd give you performance VERY close or slightly higher than a CuMine 650--and would be cheaper.

[krusty the klown]

...And there are certain apps that you will see little difference between the celery and the P3 at the same MHz - if you crack RC5, they perform about the same, but if you use apps like CAD, then the P3 will start to pull ahead due to its larger cache.

Remember the original cacheless celerys? Everyone slated them and called them dogs. Well they appeared to be total dogs when you ran business benchmarks on them, but slap Quake on and you were hard pushed to tell the difference between them and P2's running at the same speed. So if it's a gaming rig, the celery + a Slocket is the best bang for your bux. The new celery2's (speeds 533a, 566 and faster) have the same SSE instructions that the pukka P3 coppermines, so you aren't sacrificing anything there

For a slocket, I'd thoroughly recommend the Abit Slotket III - it's a really well put together piece of kit, nicely fits the Slot1 retention mechanism and has core voltage manipulation.

A point about the Katmai - ~600MHz is about the physical limit of that core, so OCing will be very limited. The coppermines, on the other hand, overclock like demons.

A word of caution about purchasing for overclocking: avoid coppermine based P3s that have 512k cache and go for the 256k. The 512's have half speed off-die cache, which can frequently limit overclocking, but the 256's have on-die (on the same bit of silicon as the CPU core) cache and will OC much further.

[Zippycut]

Thank you for your suggestions. My motherboard is a DFI PA61 (D1+). I'm looking at a p3-700 slot 1 right now, with 256k of Cache. Does this mean its a Coppermine? I assume so. Thank you all.

[krusty the klown]

Yep, any P3 with 256k cache is coppermine!

Try and find a 700 with CB0 stepping - these are the newer versions and are reprotedly good overclockers.

I'm not sure about the steppings and Slot1 - you may have to go for the FC-PGA370 + Slotket route, in which case a GlobalWin FOP32 or an Alpha heatsink/fan combo will do a good job at keeping 'er cool if you overclock. I'd recommend Arctic Silver thermal paste. It's not cheap, but it does make a difference compared to regular thermal paste and there's enough in the tube to last a lifetime.

If you go for the Slot1 route, you will likely want to use a non-retail heatsink if you overclock. Here's how I got on with a large heatsink (GlobalWin VOS32) and a slot1 P3 550E:
http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/For...ML/006616.html

You can get the silver paste from: http://www.coolingstore.com/

Cheap delivery and fast - I got mine shipped to the UK for $3 and it took a week to 10 days.