On Thursday we got acquainted with the new AMD Duron processor on Morgan core, which was tested in our laboratory and defeated Intel Celeron on Coppermine-128 core completely. However, the competition for the right to be called the fastest Value processor is not over yet: today we would like to introduce to you the latest Celeron model announced in the beginning of the month and built on the new Tualatin core. Now the rivalry between AMD Duron and Intel Celeron gets much more tense, as both, Intel and AMD have enhanced their value processor families this fall. So, it's high time we undertook another comparison of their features and performance.

As we have already mentioned in the previous article, AMD was very likely to have moved its Duron family to the new Morgan core for unification purposes. However, as for Celeron processor, the situation is totally different. First of all, you should bear in mind that from the very beginning Celeron CPUs have been slower than Duron and lagged behind in terms of core clock frequencies. The demand for Duron processors kept growing and at the same time grew Intel's concerns about the future of its low-cost CPU family. Moreover, Celeron processors on Coppermine-128 core (Coppermine with the disabled half of L2 cache) reached 1.1GHz clock frequency, which is the top limit for this core. We all remember very well Intel's failure with Coppermine 1.13GHz, which was announced a year ago and then had to be called back as soon as possible. No doubt, Intel didn't want to repeat this poor experience with its Celeron family. So, it simply appeared vitally urgent for Intel to move Celeron to a new processor core.

However, it was quite a thorny way for Intel and they had to face some serious obstacles. Pentium III family, which turned out in a very uncertain position after the announcement of Pentium 4 processor, has become known as a relatively low-cost but fast solution. This didn't allow Intel to start enhancing its Celeron processor, which is supposed to be slower than Pentium III, following common logic. Nevertheless, Intel wasn't very much willing to increase Pentium III working frequencies, because the company was afraid that faster Pentium III might start competing with the freshly announced Pentium 4 CPU. As a result, this state of things also prevented Intel Celeron processor from growing up. Yes, Intel did want to move Celeron processor to a new 0.13micron Tualatin core, but they were planning to do it only in 2002. And before that the company's initial plans were to use Tualatin in Pentium III processors, which frequency couldn't increase that much anyway, as it was limited by the low performance of younger Pentium 4 CPUs. So, the whole situation was very serious for Intel, as it threatened to make Celeron family absolutely unattractive against the background of AMD Duron competitor.

Luckily, such a huge company like Intel hasn't lost its flexibility. That is why in the middle of summer they revised their plans concerning the future of Celeron family and changed them radically. Intel dared to undertake a very brave move: it gave up the production of new Pentium III CPUs and decided to fill the vacant market niche with faster Celeron processors followed by younger Pentium 4 models. On the one hand it meant the end of Pentium III, but on the other it offered Celeron a lot of room for further development. All these changes allowed Intel to transfer Celeron processors quite rapidly to the new 0.13micron core and to increase its clock frequency without prejudice to all other processor families. This could return Intel Celeron its former attractiveness and Intel pinned a lot of hopes upon it. Well, the whole thing happened in the end of summer - beginning of autumn. At first Celeron quickly reached 1.1GHz and on October 2 Intel announced the first Celeron processor on the new Tualatin core working at 1.2GHz. So, today we are going to pay special attention to this particular CPU, its features and performance.

Before we pass over to the new Celeron processor, its advantages over the predecessor and competitors, we would like to briefly mention the future of this processor family for low-cost PCs. According to our sources, Intel's current plans look as follows:

As you can see from the picture above, Intel sees its Tualatin playing the same role as AMD Morgan does. In other words, even though Tualatin has just come to the Celeron family, this core is very unlikely to stay there for long. Intel's incredible desire to push its Pentium 4 architecture into every single market sector will not let them use Tualatin core for Celeron processors for a long time. The shift of the entire Celeron family to Willamette core with the cut down 128KB L2 cache planned for Q3'02 will stop Tualatin's career at the point of 1.5GHz. This way there will be only four Celeron models based on 0.13micron Tualatin core, even though its potential is much greater. These models will be the ones working at 1.2GHz, 1.3GHz, 1.4GHz and 1.5GHz. In other words, Intel needs this Celeron family in order to secure that the value processor segment will remain covered before Pentium 4 on Willamette core leaves the mainstream market and comes down to the value sector. Unfortunately, this is very sad news, because the quick death of Tualatin based Celeron processors means that the today's FC-PGA2 mainboards supporting these CPUs will have absolutely no future. All these marketing actions undertaken by Intel in order to speed up the introduction of Pentium 4 architecture in all possible market sectors simply killed an extremely promising Tualatin core (we have already dwelled on its great potential in our Pentium III-S 1.13GHz (Tualatin) Review). To our great disappointment this core lived a very short life in all market sectors giving way to Pentium 4 processors.

Nevertheless, Celeron processors on Tualatin core will be competing with AMD Duron on Morgan core for about half a year and we can't help paying keen attention to it. In this review we will try to find out which of the two rivals deserves being chosen for the today's value PCs.

Closer Look

As usual, we would like to offer you some brief specifications first:

• Processor core is codenamed Tualatin and is manufactured with 0.13micron copper interconnect technology.
• 32KB L1 cache (16KB for data and 16KB for instructions).
• 256KB on-die L2 cache working at full processor frequency. 256bit L2 cache bus.
• This model works at 1.2GHz core clock frequency.
• 100MHz AGTL system bus, Socket370/FC-PGA2 physical interface.
• SSE, MMX instructions support.
• 1.47V Vcore, 29.9W maximum heat dissipation.

As it follows from the listed above features, the new Celeron differs from the predecessor quite considerably and is more like Pentium III processor, rather than 0.18micron Coppermine-128 based Celerons. Intel has made a real lot to increase the performance of its new CPU and now it has caught up with the Pentium III family as far as L2 cache size goes.

If we compare the new Celeron (Tualatin) with Pentium III (Coppermine), the only significant difference between them will be the system bus frequency. In the meanwhile Intel retained one of its traditional "artificial brakes", namely the 100MHz FSB, which undoubtedly tells negatively on the processor performance. Moreover, the i810 B2-step and i815 B-step based mainboards supporting processors on Tualatin core do not allow clocking the memory at any frequency higher than that of the FSB. As a result, many users who are willing to have this CPU and don't want to get a VIA based mainboard will have to use slower PC100 SDRAM (i.e. the memory used in these systems will work only as PC100 SDRAM).

But even despite their 100MHz bus, Celeron (Tualatin) CPUs could have been a really attractive solution for older Socket370 systems upgrade, if it were not for one very upsetting fact. Namely, all Celeron CPUs built on the new core are incompatible with the older mainboards. It means that they do not suit for the upgrade of this kind of systems.

Like all other processors with 0.13micron Tualatin core, mew Celerons require lower system bus voltage, than they used to support before. As a result, instead of the AGTL+ processor bus with 1.5V signal level, Tualatin uses AGTL bus with 1.25V signal level. This modification allows reducing EMI, which is supposed to allow easy processor core frequency increase. Of course, this is a very cold comfort, especially since Intel isn't going to speed up Tualatin based Celeron processors that greatly. But the fact is undeniable. Only FC-PGA2 mainboards built on i815 chipsets with the new B stepping and i810 mainboards with B2 stepping as well as VIA Apollo Pro133T, VIA Apollo Pro266T and ALi Aladdin Pro 5T will support new Celeron 1.2GHz and all the upcoming models from the same family.

Besides, the mainboards supporting new Celeron processors should have a new voltage regulator meeting VRM 8.5 specs and supporting different Vcore values with 0.025V increments. VRM 8.5 specification implies that two formerly idle pins of the CPU, namely VID25mv and VTT_PWRGD, will be involved. If the mainboard doesn't support VRM 8.5, the system won't boot up with a new Celeron 1.2GHz or any other processor on Tualatin core.

   

Like all the other processors on Tualatin core, the new Celerons will look a bit unusual. Like Pentium 4, these CPUs will be equipped with Integrated Heat Spreader (IHS) - a metallic lid, which is supposed to help spreading the heat produced by the working CPU. However, Intel is most likely to be using IHS with its new Celeron processors for a totally different reason. In fact, our practice shows that 0.13micron Tualatin doesn't heat that much when working. So, IHS serves probably to protect the fragile processor die against mechanical damage. And the Integrated Heat Spreader seems to cope very well with this task.

We would like to particularly dwell on the L2 cache structure of the new Celeron CPU. As we remember, older Celeron processors based on Coppermine-128 core could be obtained from a regular Pentium III by disabling a half of L2 cache. In other words, Intel used the same dies for both: Pentium III and Celeron production. As a result, Celeron turned out to have an associative cache with 4 data strings in each associativity field, while Pentium III cache featured 8 data strings in each field like that. In practice it meant the following. The associative L2 cache memory algorithm implies that L2 cache as well as RAM are split into an equal number of parts, so that each part of the RAM were assigned a corresponding part of the L2 cache memory. First of all, it should reduce the seek time when the CPU addresses some part of the RAM. Since Celeron featured twice as small cache fields size as those of Pentium III, the probability that the requested data was located in Celeron's cache appeared much lower and the efficiency of L2 cache of older Celeron CPUs based on Coppermine-128 core was not that high.

And what about the cache associativity of the new Celeron processors built on Tualatin core? As you know, Intel has a Pentium III-S processor family also based on Tualatin core, but still featuring a twice as large L2 cache as that of the new Celeron CPUs. Their L2 cache equals 512KB. In this case no one can prevent Intel from repeating their former experience with using the same processor die for Pentium III-S and Celeron CPUs. In this case, the associativity of L2 cache of the new Celeron processor will be also twice as low. To find out the truth, we resorted to Cpu-Z utility, which is available for download here. This utility allows getting the L2 cache-memory parameters of the processor tested. We compared the L2 cache parameters obtained for Pentium III (Coppermine), Celeron (Coppermine-128), Celeron (Tualatin) and Pentium III-S (Tualatin). The results are given below:

As you can see from this table, the cache of the new Celeron processor didn't lose anything as far as associativity goes. And it means that Pentium III-S and new Celeron processors are built on physically different dies, which grants Tualatin based Celeron processor a smaller die size and fewer transistors, as it doesn't have the disabled half of the L2 cache on its die.

So, L2 cache structure of the new Celeron looks very much like L2 cache of Pentium III. And if it were not for high latency, it would have been just the same as that of Pentium III. This way the statements about new Celeron processor on Tualatin core differing from Pentium III processor only by the FSB frequency appear somewhat incorrect.

We would also like to point out that Tualatin core can boast one more feature absent by the Coppermine based CPUs. We are driving at Data Prefetch Logic. Data Prefetch Logic serves to predict what data the CPU may need in the future and to copy them from RAM to the processor L2 cache in advance. By the way, similar function has been recently introduced by AMD in their new Palomino and Morgan based processors.

So, no doubt, the new Celeron CPUs on Tualatin core boast a much more progressive architecture as their predecessors on Coppermine-128 core. That is why no one doubts the fact that hypothetical comparison of the new and old Celeron processors will end up in favor of the newcomer. However, it is of really big theoretical interest to compare the new Celeron processor with Pentium III working at the same core frequency, because these CPUs have very similar features even though they are based on different cores: Tualatin and Coppermine. This comparison could let us check the efficiency of the Data Prefetch Logic and understand how greatly larger L2 cache latency of the new Celeron processor could worsen its performance. Luckily, we got the opportunity to carry out this kind of comparison. One of the Celeron 1.2GHz processors we had at our disposal featured an unlocked clock multiplier, which allowed us to run this CPU with 7.5 x 133MHz, i.e. at the same external and internal frequency as a regular Pentium III has. The results of this comparative testing are provided in the table below:

Well, this is a surprise! Tualatin core appears faster than Coppermine in the same testing conditions. In fact, the only explanation here is the Data Prefetch Logic, because the frequencies as well as the L2 cache size of the CPUs tested were absolutely identical. In general, Tualatin appeared 3%-5% faster, which is the same difference as between Morgan and Spitfire cores (see our AMD Duron (Morgan) 1.0GHz and 1.1GHz Review). Bearing in mind that Morgan and Spitfire also differ by the Data Prefetch Mechanism support, we dare conclude that storing some data in the L2 cache in advance provides up to 5% performance gain, which we saw in both cases, actually.

Testbed and Methods

First of all, we would like to draw your attention to the fact that for the reasons described in the previous review devoted to Duron (Morgan) testing, all the tests were run on platforms equipped with PC133 SDRAM.

Besides the new Celeron 1.2GHz CPU on Tualatin core, there were the following participants involved:

• Celeron 1.1GHz on Coppermine-128 core;
• Eldest Pentium III model supporting 1GHz frequency and built on Coppermine core;
• Youngest Pentium III-S 1.13GHz processor on the same Tualatin core as the new Celeron, but featuring a larger 512KB L2 cache;
• Eldest CPU from the competing AMD Duron family working at 1.1GHz and based on Morgan core;
• Youngest Socket478 Pentium 4 processor working at 1.5GHz on i845 based mainboard with PC133 SDRAM support.

As for the mainboards, we used the same ones as in our previous testing session. So, the list of systems tested for this review looks as follows:

All the testbeds were provided with Microsoft Windows 98 SE operation system.

Performance

Well, let's see what we've got in reality. In the first place, we will focus our attention on the performance of Intel Celeron 1.2GHz and AMD Duron 1.1GHz, as two eldest representatives of the value processor families offered by two largest competitors.

In this test showing the processors' performance in typical office applications the new Celeron simply rocks. Large L2 cache with wide 256bit bus connecting it to the die as well as relatively high working frequency allow Celeron 1.2GHz to leave behind not only its major competitor, Duron 1.1GHz, but also Pentium 4 1.5GHz on i845 based platform.

In content creation applications new Celeron processor is no longer so impressive. Nevertheless, it is at least not worse than its rival. The thing is that the tasks included into Content Creation Winstone 2001 testing set care a lot about the memory bus and processor bus bandwidth. That is why Celeron with only 800MB/sec bus bandwidth (which is twice as low as that of Duron) can't guarantee any more or less high performance rates.

In the previous article we have already discussed why Intel's CPUs show beautiful results in this benchmark. That is why there is nothing to be surprised at: Celeron 1.2GHz outperforms Duron 1.1GHz significantly. By the way, this test also illustrates the tremendous influence of L2 cache size on the performance. For example, Pentium III-S working at lower frequency than Celeron 1.2GHz but equipped with a twice as large L2 cache-memory appears about 10% faster. At the same time, older Celeron 1.1GHz with smaller L2 cache falls about 30% behind Celeron on Tualatin core.

These two parts of the SYSmark2001 benchmark set give us more details. In both cases Celeron 1.2GHz surpasses Duron 1.1GHz. It means that all enhancements we have just described made a real change for the better, so that Intel Celeron again became a highly competitive and attractive solution.

To make the office coverage complete, we measured how fast the systems could archive the data packs of big size (directories with installed Unreal Tournament) with the maximum compression, which loads the CPU quite heavily. For this purpose we used a widely-spread WinZIP archiving utility. So, the smaller value on the diagram denotes higher performance. And again the situation repeats: faster and larger L2 cache of Celeron 1.2GHz allows this processor to outperform Duron 1.1GHz with faster bus and more efficient computing units.

And during DVD video stream encoding into DivX MPEG-4 format, faster processor and memory buses help Duron (Morgan) to win the laurels from the new Celeron (Tualatin).

Also system bus and memory bus bandwidths matter a lot in Quake3 Arena. Therefore, Celeron 1.2GHz performed not that brilliantly. It fell behind even Pentium III 1GHz, not to mention its No.1 competitor - Duron 1.1GHz.

In Unreal Tournament the new Celeron manages to show pretty good results. Anyway, faster and larger L2 cache together with the Data Prefetch Logic do have a positive influence on the performance. As for Duron 1.1GHz, it falls behind Celeron 1.2GHz by about 5%-6%, as the benchmark shows.

Here the new Duron and Celeron CPUs run relatively close to one another. Celeron lacks the bus bandwidth, while Duron needs larger L2 cache. However, we have to note that the processor and memory buses bandwidth can be artificially increased by overclocking the CPU, but as for the L2 cache, there is no way to make it any larger.

In Dragothic test Duron 1.1GHz proves faster than Celeron 1.2GHz, and in the remaining three tests the victory goes to Intel processor.

Disabling hardware T&L unit results into the fact that all the geometry and lighting calculations are carried out by the CPU using SIMD-instructions. Distributing the workload in such a way makes Duron 1.1GHz with higher computing efficiency beat Celeron 1.2GHz in all the tests except Car Chase.

And here is another proof of our point. In scientific tasks requiring fast FPU and high memory bus bandwidth, Duron 1.1GHz leaves behind all its closest competitors.

The diagram above shows the time each CPU required for the particular tasks from the Science Mark V1.0 benchmark set. So, smaller value stands for higher performance.

Overclocking

When we tested Tualatin based Pentium III-S processors last time, we pointed out their low overclockability. However, these were probably the mainboards that were responsible for their low overclocking potential, because overclocking a CPU with 133MHz FSB requires a mainboard, which could work stably at super high FSB frequencies. As for Celeron on Tualatin core, there is nothing to prevent this CPU from overclocking quite well, except the processor's potential. Since Celeron uses a default FSB frequency of 100MHz, there is theoretically a significant room for growth.

To overclock our Celeron 1.2GHz processor we increased its Vcore from the nominal 1.475V to 1.6V. After that we increased the FSB frequency, because the clock frequency multiplier of the new Celerons is locked in the same way as that of the old ones. In the end, we managed to achieve 124MHz and the system remained stable. Further FSB frequency increase disturbed the stable operation of the platform. This way, our Celeron 1.2GHz managed to get overclocked up to 1488MHz = 12 x 124MHz.

Of course, this is far from being impressive, because the processor frequency grew only by 24% over the nominal value. But it is still better than 18%, which we managed to squeeze out of Duron 1.1GHz on Morgan core. So, new Celeron (Tualatin) boasts a bit larger overclocking potential than its AMD competitors. However, it cannot be called and "overclocker's dream".

Conclusion

Performance. Having moved Celeron family to a new Tualatin core, Intel made a significant step forward. Now Celeron processors got a more efficient and twice as big L2 cache, which boosted their performance quite tangibly. If we used to say that Duron CPUs run faster than their direct competitors, now the situation has changed: new Celeron processors on Tualatin core are at least as fast as Durons.

Pricing. Today elde.str models from Intel and AMD value CPU families, Celeron 1.2GHz and Duron 1.1GHz, are selling for the same official price. However, bearing in mind that as a rule AMD's pricing policy is much more aggressive, we tend to believe that Duron will get cheaper than the competitors in a short period of time. Moreover, you shouldn't leave out the fact that new Celeron CPUs on Tualatin core will require new mainboards, which are not that cheap, actually. And it means that if you are willing to equip your system with a new Celeron processor, you will have to spend quite a bunch of money on it.

Future. Again we have to point out that from this point of view, Duron is still more attractive. Both AMD processor families, Duron and Athlon, use the same processor socket and fit into the same mainboards. Moreover, AMD is not planning to change the processor socket in the near future that is why the today's Duron based systems will remain upgradeable for a long time. As for Celeron, we can't say the same thing about it. In the middle of next year Intel will discontinue Socket370/FC-PGA2 processors, so you'd better forget about any upgrades.

Overclocking. As far as overclocking goes, new Celeron (Tualatin) didn't show any outstanding results, despite all our expectations. However, we should definitely give credit to the newcomer for it is still better overclockable than AMD Duron (Morgan).

Summary. New Intel Celeron processor on Tualatin core turned out a really good product offering good performance for a low price. However, as usual, marketing policy spoilt the whole picture. These CPUs are unsuitable for upgrading older systems. Besides, there is not so much time left for Socket370/FC-PGA2. So, all these facts take away a significant part of Celeron's attractiveness.