pIII 733mhz vs. celeron 1.2ghz

rykoryko new york
edited May 2004 in Hardware
Here's the deal..........i have too many pc's and i need to get rid of at least one. The 2 lowest-end machines i have are a 733mz and a 1.2ghz celeron. I need to decide which one would be better to keep. Both are stable and in good working condition.

Here are complete specs....

dell dimension xpsb733r
dell slot 1 mobo (intel 820---i believe)
pIII 733mhz (133fsb)
256mb pc800 rdram (max = 512mb)
20gb 7200rpm ata66 hdd
gf256 agp 4x
ensoniq audio pci
intel 10/100 nic
48x lite-on cd-rom
8x sony cd-rw
200w dell psu
dell beige mid-tower case

ecs p6vxat s370 mobo (via 694t)
1.2ghz tualatin celeron (100fsb)
512mb pc133 sdram (max = 1.5gb)
20gb 5400rpm ata100 hdd
gf2 ultra agp 4x
onboard ac'97 audio
intel 10/100
8x hp cd-rw
250w startech psu
raidmax 268ws case

I will be keeping the gf2 ultra no matter what...so the video card doesn't really matter. The rig i keep will mainly be used as a trouble-shooting box and occassional p2p box.

I will say that the dell seems to be more responsive lately, but i just did a reformat and reinstall of XP so that could be it. I have thought about getting a slotkit and throwing the 1.2ghz cely in the old dell, but is it even worth it?

What is everyone's opinion on what i should keep and why? Thanks.

Comments

  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited May 2004
    The i815 is a sdram chipset. It'll be an i820 if it's a single cpu rdram board. Regardless, keel the 1.2GHz Celeron system. No contest. The 1.2GHz Celeron system will beat the crap out of the Dell. If I were you, though, I'd take the hard drive out of the dell and put that in the Celeron before you sell it.
  • rykoryko new york
    edited May 2004
    yes, you are correct...........it is an 820 chipset.

    I thought the memory bandwidth of the rdram would be more beneficial than the measly pc133. Do you not think it matters that much?
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited May 2004
    Ditto What Geeky1 said. A Celeron 1200mhz 256K would whup a P3 733mhz @$$
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited May 2004
    It's a p3. It's not starved for memory bandwidth with regular old PC133. RDRAM is expensive and totally worthless on a P3 board.
  • GargGarg Purveyor of Lincoln Nightmares Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    I can attest to that. I have a Dell Dimension XPS B - which means I'm a sucker and when I graduated high school I bought an i820 with a 733mhz P3.

    I have it folding for me right now. It's SiSoft Sandra 2004 Memory Benchmark results are attached. I remember that an older version that I must have run back in 2000 had it much more closely ranked with the 815 chipset, like a 1 or 2 percent difference. There were probably many more 815-based setups in the database in the 2000 version. In the screenshot, I have the VIA chipset listed as it scored slightly higher than the 815.
    I've noticed that my rig scores higher than the database's 820. The only thing I can think of is that it's running on a 10k SCSI disk, maybe that helped the benchmark.

    At any rate, yeah, there is a little bandwidth gain, but nothing that you'll probably notice, given that the processor will be a bottleneck on anything that you'd be running that would be using a lot of RAM in the first place. And folding@home doesn't benefit from faster RAM, either.

    Keep the 1.2 Celly and find some pore sap to buy your Dell. I'll probably give mine away to a friend that needs a comp. I've kept it so long for sentimental value, and because it was under warranty for such a long time.

    Edit that isn't all that important that no one will probably notice: My Dell is running 700mhz RDRAM, not 800. Your results may vary.
  • rykoryko new york
    edited May 2004
    Thanks for the resposes. I was leaning towards the 1.2ghz cely too.
    ... I've kept it so long for sentimental value, and because it was under warranty for such a long time.
    Strange.........i have the same sort of sentimental feeling towards the dell. It was my dad's first "top of the line" pc that he bought for home. He replaced it with a dell 3.06ghz when they first came out, and i have had the pIII since. It just reminds me of home i guess. :)

    Hypothetical situation here......i strike it rich and decide to waste $215 on a pIII-s 1.4ghz tualatin. I also buy a slotkit for the dell. Which board should i throw it in?
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited May 2004
    Athlon XP Mobile 2500+ ((1.86ghz 512K) $90
    Abit, Epox or DFI NF2 Mobo $95
    Total $185

    This is a faster, cooler system with a more modern motherboard (USB 2.0, DDR400, Firewire AGP8X, SATA) And if you wish, you can run the XP-M @ 7x 200mhz = 1.4ghz and still smack around the P3 Tualatin (or run it 12x 200mhz = 2.4ghz)
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited May 2004
    Omega's pretty much summed it up there. The P3-S was a great processor in it's day, but it's day has passed. That's 1 thing really nice about the mobile AXP procs; they overclock like a mofo or you can clock them around where that P3-S would run and run really low vcore for less heat production and make like a silent(or nearly so) multimedia rig out of it. And the features on the new nforce2 mobos just simply smack around anything that will run a socket 370 proc. Plus, you can get a mobo and XP-m for about what you would pay just for a 1.26 or 1.40 P3-S.
  • rykoryko new york
    edited May 2004
    I know, i know.......but it's just a hypothetical situation. I wouldn't actually waste the money on a pIII-s. You know how it is....you dream of the fastest cpu available for any given socket.
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited May 2004
    Hey! I wub my P3s. Hell, I just bought my latest PIII system... oh... no more than 3 months ago. So there! :-d
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited May 2004
    Geeky1 wrote:
    Hey! I wub my P3s. Hell, I just bought my latest PIII system... oh... no more than 3 months ago. So there! :-d

    I forgive you for the Dual Xeons (barely) - But as for a P3 over a XP-M .... Geeky1, You Know Betterr. (Only if it's free...)
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited May 2004
    There's nothing wrong with the P3. Its performance is comparable to a similarly-clocked Athlon/Athlon XP (at least for the Tualatin-core P3s; the 1GHz oppermines I have aren't THAT much slower than 1GHz Athlons), they run a lot cooler, and use less power. Besides, the P3, P4, and Xeon systems (well, planned system in the case of the Xeon) are a nice change from the Athlon. I've been building and working on Athlon systems since I got my 1.4GHz Thunderbird. After a while, it gets boring. It's fun to work on socket 370, slot 1, slot 2 (yeah, I've got an old-ass xeon system too), socket 603/604, and socket 478 systems for a change.
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