Celerons...

[Mascot]

Are they ok to use, to build a budget gaming Small Form Factor computer, because I have a computer I am selling, and it is PCI-E with an x800 Pro, AMD Athlong 64 3200+, 1 GIG Geil Memory, 80GIG HDD, and Asus A8N-E Mobo, I am looking into this setup, Celeron D 2.8, 6800GT (Maybe a lower end, like a 5950) 1 GIG Corsair XMS, 120GIG HDD, and a mobo that supports AGP, I only play 2 games, Counter-Strike:1.6 and Source, will the Celeron be able to handle Source? I do not care how the game looks, just want it to be playable, as I am a competitve player, and will be bringing this to lan tournaments, so I do not need to look at all the details in the game, and suggestions or comments are welcomed, and thanks in advanced!

[Sjaak]

The celeron-D (prescott-spinoff) chips are great overclockers (3.5 - 4Ghz on medium air cooling), and perform good. They have less cache (256k vs 1M) but don't take as much of a performance hit from that as the old celerons did (128k vs. 512).

Yes, the celeron will handle source, with the 5950 on nice detail, too :)

[Mr_Fuchs]

detail and looks is a graphics card issue... load time and fps to an extent is the cpu issue.i've never touched a celeron in one of my rigs.. but on paper they should get the job done if you can wait a little longer, and if it allows you to get a better video card.

[Shelnutt2]

Well I run on a celeron 2.4@ 2.75, AGP 4x Radion 9550, 1 gig of Kingstone vaule ram and I am able to play BF2 on low details with absoulty no problems. On every other game that I have on full detail (I.E...C&C Gernerals, EE2)

[Silver]

I have a Celly D 2.26 at 200 x 17 for 3.4Ghz ($66 from newegg). Think it would go higher on a better board but that is not what you asked. At 1.575vcore it is running 42c folding a qmd (tougher folding unit) loaded. Cooling is xp-90 with the heatsink and cpu lapped ($25 svc). Ram is patriot 2 x 256 2,3,2,5 1:1 ($60 newegg). Mobo is asus p4p800-se picked up from dumpingoods.com for $60. Case was $19 from Geeks? Psu is rosewill 450 value ($15 from classifieds). System is relatively fast. Folds the qmd in 24.25 hrs which is rather respectable. Gaming? All I can tell you is that my son plays farcry with it and his ti4200 without an issue.

Only dif I would make is either up the mobo to p4p800 or -e or move cpu up one grade and still look for 200fsb.

[Tracker]

I have a 2.4 Celeron "D" running at 3600mhz [200FSB] with some Kingston Hyper-X at 1-1 and everything at default voltages. The mobo is a Asus P4S 800 el cheapo board but its pretty darn quick with my setup.

[JCLW]

Are you looking at s478 or s775? I'd say go with s775 myself, and a Celeron "J", like a 325J.