Performance - PIII 600 vs Celeron 800

[Mullzy]

I am looking to cheaply upgrade an old PC.

Current System:
- Abit BX6 (not sure if v1 or v2, has 4 RAM slots... was told that meant it's rev 2.0)
- PII 400 (tried oc'ing using 112 and 133, no go at any voltage I am assuming due to PCI bus)
- 512 MB, PC133 RAM
- Geforce2 MX400 (64 MB)

Because of the problems I had with a 112 and 133 FSB, I am planning to get a 100Mhz

My basic/cheap options are:

1) Slotkey converter & Celeron 800-900 ($120 CDN)
2) Slotkey converter & PIII 600 ($220 CDN)

This PC is generally going to be used for 3D gaming and I am wondering which will give me better performance in this category. I am assuming that the Celeron option will give me a higher 3D framerate but nasty load times (whether loading a document in a word processor or loading the zone/level of my game of choice). I am assuming the reverse of the PIII, nice load times/disk access but a lower framerate in games due to clockspeed.

Are my assumptions correct? Anyone done some testing or know a site showing some cpu comparisons on 3D games?

I hated the first Celeron I ever was exposed to because of the nasty, nasty disk access (might not have had any cpu cache at all though...) and I am afraid that I will hate myself for buying one. If the disk access between these 2 chips is not drastically different I'll go with the celeron due to framerate... otherwise I'll cough up the extra $100.

Thoughts?

 

[nucro]

Get Celeron 800-900 . I have celeron 600@900 and the 3d mark scores are similer to PIII 750 or PIII 700 (133)

For your prices PIII 600 is not worth the extra 100 CDN

 

[Racoon]

Not sure if you'll find this relevant but Tomshardware had a celeron 566@850 which beat a PIII 650 in Expendable & beat a PIII 600 in Quake III Arena. X-bit Labs had a celeron 667@1000 which consistently performed similar to a PIII 750/800 in Quake3, Unreal Tournament & Explendable.

 

[Tilly]

At www.tabsnet.com a P III 600 render the Image in 18 Min. 11 Sec. , a Celeron 800 did the same job in 15 Min. 58 Sec. . So, I think you can have much more power for less Money...

 

[CrystalMethod]

If you're looking to spend as much as $220 on a PIII, why not forget the Cel 800 and get a 1Ghz Cel?

 

[funnyperson1]

i agree with Crystal Method, as much as i love my PIII600 a Celly 1GHZ could whoop it in most anything....

 

[fearless]

If you could use a P3 800, PM me. I may have another option for you!
Dr.

 

[murdoch]

beg to differ

Well if your bx6 can do 133 well, (not sure about that board) and your interested in o/c I would go with the cel 800 over the 1 gig cel. It always depends mainly on the chip more so than the board but a good board helps alot. The gig cel has a high multiplier and chances of successful o/c go down. Personally I was debating between the two before I bought and my research came up with that roughly the majority of people who bought the cel 1 gig could hit about 125 fsb pretty consistanly. Only a few were lucky to get that chip which could do a 133 fsb. so I weighed out the cost and the 1 gig was twice the money over the 800 I went for the 800 cause the majority of people with cdo 800 were doing 133 fsb, and I am glad as hell. The 800 did 133 fsb for 1066 mhz default voltage. making it faster than a standard 1 gig cel cause of the 133 over 100 fsb. Then I went for the 150 fsb and boom I was there.Default voltage(actually for some strange reason after I switched to xp and added all my ram a total 900 megs. It runs completly stable at 1.7 volts its weird ran some tests and couldn't get rock stable till after I dropped the voltage go figure. So now I am at 150 fsb for 1.2 gig at 1.7 volts. Temp 24 idle 29 heavy load. System 24. Can't remeber but I think my 3dmark gave me results equal or better than a p3 1 gig 100 fsb. Chances are better with the 800 and your dollar too. I did have it running at 166 but the dividers didn't work well with my nic. But if your board doesn't have the dividers for agp and pci for these kinda of bus speeds then go for the 1 gig cel.

 

[Lancelot]

I have to agree with Murdoch on the fact that with a Celeron 800/850/900 you have more headroom to reach a nice 133FSB OC. (presuming he wants to OC his new setup) I've seen to many posts from people with 1Ghz and 1.1Ghz Celerons who either can't OC at all, or cannot get higher than 112 to 115Mhz FSB.

 

[Mullzy]

Sounds good...

Regardless of oc'ing... 800 Mhz for $100 CDN is a nice cheap upgrade for me. I haven't had any success running my current PII 400 at 112 or 133 Mhz - I can get into Windows but I crash right away. I've played with voltage but nothing makes a difference. I only have 2/3 AGP and a PCI devider I can't change, so I might be stuck at 800 Mhz.

Don't get me wrong, I will try 112 and 133 FSB when I get my Celeron 800, but I will be happy either way.

 

[muddocktor]

How many isa slots does your board have? If I remember right, the version 1.xx boards have 3 isa slots and the version 2.xx boards have only 2 isa slots. They both have 4 dimm slots though. Too bad you live across the border; you could run a cD0 P3 1000E on your board and they are only $134 US at star-components.com.
Have you upgraded to the latest bios for your board? That might help on overclocking stability and will be necessary for a coppermine based celeron. Also, you shouldn't have any problems on a 112 fsb because the pci bus is only at 37.5 mhz, and I've never had a problem with any pci device at that speed. You might have 1 of those overclocking-unfriendly chips that won't overclock worth a darn. Also, you did disable the speed hold error in bios, I hope.

I used to have a BH6 rev 1.01 board until recently and it is fairly similar to the BX6 boards except for the dimm slots and hardware monitoring, but uses basically the same softmenu 2 setup. I never had a problem running a P3 750E or 2 different P3 1000E procs at 112 fsb, so I think that your board should do it just fine with some mild overclocking at least.
I was looking at the abit site just now and the latest bios for the rev 1.xx boards is the QS and the latest for the rev. 2.xx boards is the QR. Hope this helps you out.