bought celeron 600 for same price as t-bird 750! was that dumb? re:"big mistake?" post

[sendatooli]

please read post below.
no one seemed to reply to my "big mistake?" posting so i decided to be more specific in the topic.
i apologize if double posting is not allowed.


last week i was in a position where i had to purchase a new mobo and cpu(old ones fried). so i got myself the celeron 600 cc0 and a mobo. the vender promised me it would go at least 1 gig(i am still breaking it in). i havent tried to o/c it yet.
anyways, the day after i bought this combo, i see on pricewatch.com that i could have had a >thunderbird< 750 and mobo for $30 u.s. more. well 30 bucks was not a problem for me.
now, i dont know what a t-bird 750 o/c's to( i have heard conflicting stories on this matter). although, i would assume whatever it o/c's to, it will outperform a celeron at 1000mhz, simply because of the extra cache.
please do not tell me that i should not post this in an intel forum(or give me a biased opinion), since the t-bird is really a p!!! class cpu and not a celeron class cpu.

well, did i make a big mistake? would the thunderbird(overclocked, of course) have outperformed a celeron that is supposedly going to run at 1000mhz+?

any thoughts or opinions on this matter are greatly appreciated.

thank you,
sendatooli.

[markedmundb]

One word: Yes.

It was thick to buy a c600 c.f. a 750 T-bird IMO. Even non-OC the T-bird at the same speed as the celery would whupp it's a$$.

Never mind one officially rated to 750. The way of actual CPU performance for Celeries is usually OC speed -100 to 150 MHZ on the equiv p///. My Celery 566@850 runs equilvient to a p///750 (non-OC).

Therefore a c600 at 1Ghz, will run the equivilent of a p///850~900 on real world apps.

With the T-bird, even if you didn't hit the magic Gig, a T-bird at 900 whups the equivilent p///. And there's no guarantee that the c600 will run at 900, never mind a Gig+ (even if it is pre-tested to the speed). As e laursen's sig goes "There are no guarantees, only averages". They might test 'em on the most stable cherry-picked mobo they've ever found.

I'm alway dubious about the claims of these places that sell pretested CPUs. How do they grade them? How do they test them. I bet not many test them by running 3DMark/Seti repeatedly under Win98SE (Sucker's is more unstable IMO/experience) for a week -The only true test of stabilty is whilst running games, and apps you run. So what if the thing'll boot at over a Gig? Will it run all of my software over a gig is my question?

As Surlyjoe's old sig used to say "Friends don't let friends buy pretested CPUs".
Where's the fun in OCing the hell outta a chip, if you know it'll reportedly run at the speed your trying to acheive. Hang your head in shame! :¬)}

[proze]

it probably wasn't the best choice... but it's not a train-smash. play with the celly if you want, or re-sell it. that's what i do all the time. sell my gear and move on to something else. you'll probably get a bigger overclock with the celeron if you're going for numbers, but the tbird will definitely perform better.

[sendatooli]

mark black> first of all, it was not a pretested cpu. did i say it was a pretested cpu? the vender simply told me if it did not hit a gig he would let me try another one.(he is a friend of mine).
furthermore, i would agree with you that a p!!! at the same speed as a coresponding celeron is a much better choice.
but a t-bird? now that i think about it, why is the t-bird 750 HALF the price of the p!!! 750? yes you can give the arguement about namesake, market share etc..
ferrari is more than just a name, it is the ultimate sports car. if someone said im going to give you my car for free, and you can either choose my chevette or my testarossa, which would you choose?

i had a k6 1 that blew up. i still have a k6-2 233 that never could run ANY application. i may have bought a slower cpu, but at least it works!
after all it is an intel product. the reason amd processors are half the price of comparable intel processores is summed up in one word "quality". well, actually two words, i'll add "reliability". ever see a big corporation(fortune 200 company) running amd cpu's in their servers? i think not.

im not trying to make myself feel better for a dumb purchase. no, indeed at least my cpu works!
i feel better already!
so why are amd cpu's half the price of intel cpu's, amd did this to themselves.
quality speaks for itself. supply and demand. it seems most people know enough to pay twice the price for a quality product. rather than to be tempted by a cheap come-on
.
hmm. also, how do you o/c an intel cpu? you change the fsb and maybe the vcore.
how do you o/c a amd cpu? you get out a soldering iron, graphite pencil and dipswitches etc.. so you can start blowing up stuff that didnt even work good in the first place!

boy oh boy, now i really feel better!
so, i should not hide my head in shame. no, amd owners should hide their heads in shame!

i pitty the fool!

happy as a frog,
sendatooli.

[Eriksson]

Wow man my deepest condolences, I really admire your mental strength. I would be crying by now If I were you. Your only hope is your friendship with the vendor, try to twist his arm a little and check if he(she) is willing to take the celeron back.

However if you are stuck with the celeron you can always do like I did with my celeron 700@880. This trick really takes full advantage of celerons "quality" and "reliability". There is a 4mm hss drill involved in this simple mod but it is really straight forward. I dont have a pic of my own mod but the one attached sweeps the general Idea. ;)

[SpeeDj]

Just a side note, AMD makes a quality product and has time after Time, this is coming from a computer tech of Five years, yes I have a Celeron, but I also have a variety of K6 and some K5's in my house, It is not a Chevette compared to a Ferrari. More a Lambo, compared to a Ferrari it's all about Preference, you don't slam the AMD Guys quite simply because they have a Point, spec for spec the New AMD's K7 Line preferrably Duron and T-Bird Will MHz for MHz whip the Intel outright fair and square if you think this is Intel bashing it's not read the Reviews. Now if you feel that Due to AMD Ingenuity of trying to stop overclocking on their chips was a dumb move that may be. I however feel the pure genius of the guys figuring out how to work around it was a godsend. Even Tom's Hardware one of the most highly hit tech sites on the web can be acredited to figuring out the Bridge fix. Sincerely I feel you posted your question just to bash someone else. That's not right we are here as a community to support one another, we all make choices. What is my next computer going to be ? A Duron, bundled with an ABIT KT7 Raid. As for the price war, is INTEL Shipping any of their high end chips in quantity to brag about ??? No, have they ? No, Is AMD YES, from the get go of the K7 Line. Intel has played the I can make the Price higher war for long enough KUDOS to AMD for finally giving them something to sweat about. Not to mention what is a PIII ? Just a pentium same as a PII same as a Celeron, the K7 Was designed from the ground up. Not to mention have you done your homework on AMD ? They have matched intel family line for family line for Years, started way back with the 8088, just CEO problems over the years dealt with some of the issues. Enough Said.

SpeeDj

[sendatooli]

i did not mean to insult anyone. please dont take it personally. first of all i do not want to have to modify hardware to gain an overclock. that is just my personal preferance. furthermore, i have had nothing but trouble with the k6 line of processors.
now more to the point:
anyone that knows the inside workings of microsoft personally(as do i) will tell you that the windows family of products is written for x86 code. that means intel, folks. amd MUST and does deviate from the true x86 code that is supported by all windows products. in the use of "interpreters". meaning that a windows machine call must first be compounded into another command set before it is interpreted as x86 code. were amd not to do this or were they to use outright x86 command set, they surley would be sued by intel. since intel holds the patent on the x86 command set. do you remember back in the day when amd processors stated that they were "fully ibm compatible"?
the fact remains, amd is not a true x86 device and cannot be.
what does this all mean? well, it mens that there are only so many workarounds for amd so they do not get sued for patent infringement. so windows will encounter errors that it will not occur with an intel cpu. not to say windows does not encounter errors with an intel cpu,it does. simply put the amd processor is less compatable with windows than an intel processor. although amd has choosen that it is better marketing to no longer advertise this fact.
yes, the P2 P3 and celeron are all pentium(directley x86 compatable) processors. yes again the k7 is a totally new processor. so it even further deviates from the x86 architecture.
also i would like to point out that i DO NOT play games. 3dnow is only for games and maybe SOME high end video production apps.
simd on the other hand can (and is) used to benefit any and all applications.

not so long ago everyone was trashing amd for their poor fpu and overall performance. also, doa cpu's were not uncommon from amd at one time. how quickly you all forget. you may comment that amd now makes a better product. they are not.

so why did i go off on this tangent in the first place? no, not to insult anyone.
heres what happened to me. the vender said he would gladly exchange the celeron cpu and motherboard for an amd cpu and motherboard. well i thought about it for an hour and said to myself, i would be out of my mind to do that. i have a handfull of k6 family processors that pass bad data(in the eyes of windows). also these k6 family cpu's will not o/c even by one mhz. like i stated above the k7 deviates even further from the x86 architecture than did the k6 family. here is a great example, the corvaire. i will not comment on wether it was a good car or not. that is irrelivant. although blame ralph nader for its demise. so blame intel for having a patent on their product and windows having a more or less exclusive agreement with intel to support its hardware.
if amd could simpily copy intel and then make a better product with that kowledge, so be it.
sadly for amd, this is not possible.
also, amd k7 cpu's require a lot more "hair pulling" to o/c than intel cpu's. another drawback, since people do tend to overclock.
so once you are done soldering and scribbling you need to then build some type of exotic cooler since you upped the voltage. yes, amd cpu's run way hotter than intel cpu's(they use more energy).

if you want filet mignon dont buy hamburger!

once again, i did not mean to insult anyone. please do not take my commentary personally!


sincerely,
sendatooli.

[SpeeDj]

You do realize that the CEO and primary person in charge of the "ORIGINAL K6" Which you keep cutting on quit, and was then replaced by the CEO who is responsible for the K6-2 and K6-3 Which were both fine processors and also marked the Historical upswing of a processor company whom had alway's been foreshadowed by intel. If you sincerely don't mean to badmouth a good product quit referring to AMD as Hamburger vs. Filet Mignon. After the K6-3 and the company's upturn they hired on of Sun's main engineers and he designed the K7 Which is why it initially ran on the ALPHA EV6 Bus spec. Intel has been head to head with AMD since the 8088 and 8086 Day's. If you don't believe AMD to be a formidable player in the Processor Game why was their Dresden Fab co funded by Motorola ? Why also if INTEL has such a perfect relationship with Microsoft have they pulled most of their primary support and are now Touting their sponsership of Linux ? *Sigh* You just don't get it... Basically INTEL vs AMD is chevy vs ford, or nike vs reebok. It's a brand name you go with what brand you prefer obviously, I support both of them, but have always found it humorous that the only processor company to employ people to purposely brainwash the consumer has been Intel. Ever go into a Best Buy or Circuit City or etc ? And start looking at an AMD based solution and find someone doing their damnedest to feed you an AMD Horror Story ? These Sales reps are actually paid to do this, magically what do they steer you towards ? Suprise! an Intel. Hey I love them both they have both alway's been solid performers with some problems here and there, *The 1.13 GHz Pentium III Ring a bell ?* I am just simply stating keep an open mind and stop this animosity.

SpeeDj

[sendatooli]

speedj, your point is well taken. i hear you loud and clear. although originally in this post everyone decided to insult my choice. like you said it is a choice.
i live in the united states a country who's principles are based on freedom of choice. i chose the celeron over the amd. so be it. yes, i could have gotten a t-bird instead of the celeron. no, i could not have gotten a p3 for the same price as the celeron. i honestly do wonder why intel cpu's cost so much more and people still buy them. i am not mocking anyone here, just asking an honest opinion from you people. if amd makes a likewise or superior product for half the price how is intel still in bussiness? today it may be true that the p3 and t-bird are of comparable quality and performance. i honestly dont know. i have not bought an amd processor for 5 years. the chevy vs. ford point may well be in order at this point. i may add though, it is not just a k6 i have that does not work. it is also a k6-2 i have that does not work. albeit a very early one. when i say does not work i mean they will not even boot windows without crashing. they were like this from day 1. simply put amd put a bad taste in my mouth at that time. those cpu's were expensive in their day. i bought something i could go home and throw in the trash. how would that make you feal?
also, i think in most technology companies save for microsoft the ceo has very little to do with the actual mechanical design of a product. maybe amd is different. anyways that doesnt really matter one way or the other. just that you mention the early k6 was the "ceo's fault". honestly i really should give kudos to amd for still being in bussiness in this fierce market. how many companys have we seen rise and fall in the time amd has been in bussiness.
i am not going to sing the praises of amd. although, i will refrain from any further "amd bashing". at the behest of yourself and others in this group.
i will also state that wether the amd is a "quality" product or not is neither here nor there. since the fact remains that my celeron is just that, a celeron. in specification at least the t-bird is a p3 class processor. it could be further argued that a duron will even hands down kick a celerons but. all i know is that going back 5+ years all you ever heard was amd hype their product that it was the intel smasher. it would be released to the marketplace only for everyone to discover it could not compete. amd has lived and learned, and may very well at this point have surpassed intel in both quality and performance. although to the very best of my knowledge(my knowledge on this subject is vast) my above post about x86 technology may very well still hold true. unless amd has unlocked some seceret that is unknown to myself. anyways, i really dont know enough about amd to state whether or not it is superior in quality and reliability. i think its performance has been proven already. back in the day quality and reliability were majer issues for amd. this all may have changed. like i said it may be a testament to there superiority that they are still in bussiness.

one thing i do know is intel seems to have blowin it with the pentium 4. even though they were first to market with a new class of processor. they usually are.
that in itself means very little.

like i stated in my above post, i could have traded the celeron back for the t-bird.
i decided to stick with my guns and what i know and love.
i even went so far as to make a posting in the amd group on this board asking humbly of the prowess of the t-bird(no joke). since i really am uneducated on todays amd i will refrain from any further bashing of them.

i guess the thing that really killed it for me was what you have to go through to o/c and amd processor these days. dont get me wrong my soldering skill are fine. i just didnt want to bother with it. i do not have that much time to spend on it.


sincerely,
sendatooli.

[SpeeDj]

Well being an overclocker we are all a little above and beyond the standard user, IE Soldering and etc is not unheard of. I would like to know what you get that Celeron too. Yes I will say again the Quality of the AMD is far better now then it has ever been. They are a safer overclocking processor being that you can increase the multiplier vs having to run out of spec. With ASUS' new mainboard they Support the cheap PC133 Ram to support even more options. They made some bad marketing decisions along time ago yes I will agree with that considering yes they had problems with the K6 Core. I agree it would put a bad taste in my mouth as well if it were DOA. I had two SOYO Mainboards that were both DOA does that mean I refused to give them a try ? No I know DOA's are a problem of the game happens to everyone. I have built 7 systems using their boards with great results. I hope someday you do find yourself wanting to check out an Athlon, I know you won't be dissappointed I built a 750 Duron system for a friend. Popped everything together, no compat issues she booted right up and the Performance ? WOW I am still sitting on a 366@552 Celly. But again I am just giving you some more information to think about I am glad you are happy with your purchase. Do you realize that AMD has finally done the unthinkable ? Business's are now asking for that choice of the AMD Chip's. AMD also signed a Deal with SUN to be supplier for the low end servers. And when the Sledgehammer comes out you are going to be amazed. Just a few things to consider. AMD I feel has finally come of age and I am proud. I am also an american and I wouldn't give up my freedom of choice for anything. Hope this sheds a little light for you ?

SpeeDj

[grisy11]

Hello i like your choice i would get a celly any day. my wife had a amd athlon 850 not o/c and i had a pent 866 and the amd stomped the 866 badly but the amd is now dead for the #3 time and the 866 is sill going. good choice