UTMonkey

Just my twopenneth but if all you are going to do is surf\wordprocess\electronics stuff either are fine.

Layer 2 cache is very important - but not as important as layer 1 cache, I believe that is one of the significant differences in the chip.

From what you say they both have the same FSB so both should throw RAM in and out of the chip very well. But it is the caching the counts.

Regards

Photoshop or 3D Studio - go for the P4
Mail\Wordprocessing\(Solitaire?) - go for celeron.

UTMonkey

Just out of interest do the motherboards have on board VGA? if so is it shared RAM?

Torben

Just for giggles I wanted to see what a relatively modern laptop would get on the test. My laptop runs 1 million digits of pi in 17.5 seconds under Linux. I also ran the Windows version under wine and got 25.5 seconds. That's using one core of a 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo w/2GB RAM. I hear there's a multicore version of the test available but I haven't hunted it down yet.

Back on-topic, I'd probably go with the P4 unless I was able to test the machines for the tasks I wanted to use it for.


Torben

zanes

My AMD 1900XP+ I picked up at the start of the academic year is fine as a Linux box, even with ubuntu installed.

Optikon

So how is super Pi a real test of computing power?

Isnt the real performance result VERY dependent on operating system and how it handles multiple threads and utilizes the cache?

Super pi seems cute but are you fooling yourself?

Torben

Nobody claimed it was. It's a test of how different machines run the same piece of code, which can be useful but probably isn't as useful as some people out there believe. If you're interested in how fast a machine can compute pi it might be a useful test though.

Of course, and it's also dependent on the compiler, the algorithm, the amount of available memory, what other processes are running at the time, and probably the weather and what you had for dinner last night.

Linux results are not directly compared to Windows results since the Linux version just runs faster.

I don't think anybody here is taking it terribly seriously.


Torben

audioguru

Super Pi is the only test i have seen for computers. It makes the fans in my pc speed up.

__________________
Uncle $crooge

Torben

I used to download all kinds of benchmark tests. Magazines etc. often use them but good benchmarking is hard, and you have to specify what aspect of performance is being tested.

Some people use standardized demos in games to measure the FPS in different situations.

Some people use Linux/BSD/whatever kernel compile times.

My favourite screensaver makes my computer sweat much harder than the pi test. Seems silly to run a screensaver which makes the computer work harder than it does in general usage.


Torben

zanes

You use BOINC by any chance?

Torben

Nope. Or rather, I haven't tried it yet. I used to fold for the myelin project but now that I pay for electricity I don't leave spare machines on all over the place anymore.


Torben

theinfamousbob

Only when I'm at school; I pay a flat rate for the year on electricity and internet. I run the SETI project; it's fun stuff.

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-Ian

HiTech

I know the P4 mobo has on-board VGA... dunno about the Celeron board since I didn't bother to look. Besides, I will be using an ATI 1650x 512MB video card. I'm going with the P4 and it's accompanying VIA mobo. The BIOS is pretty decent and I can safely overclock it to 2.2GHz It's just a project PC I feel like fiddling around with... it should make for a decent back-up if I need one in a pinch.

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Don't make me reach through this monitor to slap you a good one!