X-bit labs

Choosing a Budget CPU: 24 Value Processors from Intel and AMD in Our Lab (page 8)

Category: CPU

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 05/15/2004 | 12:44 PM ]

We have the same thing in all the games: all Celerons are very slow. The Pentium 4 1.8A is true to its price and is a little faster than the Celeron 2.8GHz. The Athlon XP family shows high speed, especially in comparison to the sluggish Celerons. As for the Pentium 4 2.4B with the 533MHz FSB and 512KB L2 cache, it is definitely faster than any of the Celerons and can compete with Athlon XPs of 2500+ to 2800+ rating. However, considering the difference in prices, the Pentium 4 2.4B cannot be recommended as a good buy for a gaming computer.

A kind of out of the topic of the current testing session, let me point out a curious detail: the Pentium 4 2.4A on the new 90nm Prescott core is nearly always slower than the old Pentium 4 2.4B in games.