System setup and notes
Here's a quick rundown of the test system should you wish to compare benchmark results with your own.Intel Celeron 2.8GHz S478 CPU - 128KB L2 cache - 100MHz FSB
AMD Athlon 64 Model 3000+ Clawhammer S754 CPU - 2.0GHz - 512kb L2 cache - 200MHz DRAM
Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz Northwood S478 CPU - 512kb L2 cache - 200MHz FSB
Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz Northwood S478 CPU 512kb L2 cache - 200MHz FSB
AMD Athlon XP2500+ Barton, 1.833GHz, 512kb L2 cache - 166MHz FSB
Other components
DFI LANPARTY i865PE with PAT-like BIOS (19/12/2003 BIOS)
EPoX 8HDA3+ VIA K8T880 S754 motherboard (02/12/03 BIOS)
EPoX 8RDA3G NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra S462 motherboard (02/12/03 BIOS)
Hercules Radeon 9800XT 256MB (412/730)
IBM 40GB P-ATA hard drive
Toshiba 8x DVD
Samcheer 420w PSU
Dell P991 19" monitor
Zalman 7000Cu S478 / 754 cooler
Taisol 760 S462 cooler
Software
Windows XP Professional SP1
DirectX9.0b
VIA Hyperion 4.51 drivers
NVIDIA ForceWare 3.13 driver set
Intel 5.02.1002 chipset drivers
ATI CATALYST 4.1 drivers and control panel
Pifast v41 to 10m places
Lame v3.92 MP3 encoding with Razor-Lame 1.15 front-end using U2's Pop album (607MB)
Gordian Knot - XviD encoding test using first vob of Sleepy Hollow. 1433kbit/s bitrate
Kribi Bench 1.19
ScienceMark 2.0
Realstorm Raytracing benchmark 320x180x32
3DMark 2001SE v330
UT2003 Retail (Build 2225)
X²: The Threat - Rolling Demo
Comanche 4 benchmark
Call of Duty HEXUS Custom test
Quake 3 v1.30 HQ
Notes
The Celeron 2.8GHz retail package is priced at around the £85 mark. That puts it well below current Northwood and Athlon 64 pricing, just as it should be. AMD's budget processor can now be thought of as either the Duron or Athlon XP / Barton. We've chosen to include the cheaper Barton XP2500+ as another comparison processor. Priced at around £60 in similar retail form, it's AMD's answer to the Celeron threat. However, we'll do well to remember that it isn't a toned-down Athlon 64 Clawhammer. The Barton was AMD's highest-performing core before the Athlon 64 Model 3200+'s launch in late September '03. The comparison should be an interesting one.
2.4GHz and 3.0GHz 800MHz FSB Northwood-based Pentium 4 CPUs are included to show the difference in Intel S478 cores. AMD excellent Athlon 64 Model 3000+ rounds the group off.
Our analysis has shown that clock speed isn't the sole determinant of performance. Let's now see where the Celeron 2.8GHz CPU fits into our hierarchy.
