<Is a Celeron at all worth considering, or is a Pentium II or III that much better?>
Celeron is an excellent performer, a great CPU to buy if you are building your own system or if you are in the habit of upgrading your computer piece by piece.
However, if you are only buying complete systems, Celeron-based systems are usually bundled with not-so-top-tier components, such as cheaper graphics cards, or cheaper monitors, or fewer goodies like DVD-ROM. Exceptions are abundant, but that's the general rule for Celeron systems.
If you ask me, I'd recommend the Pentium III 450 MHz. That's the current sweet spot of price/performance. Also, Pentium III systems are normally bundled with top-notch components. However, you should double-check, since some vendors will try to cut corners even on Pentium III systems. Pentium III 450 MHz is faster than the fastest Celeron out there (466 MHz), and that's not even counting SSE that you find on Pentium III. Speaking of SSE, more and more software is being enhanced with SSE, from 3-D games to Internet-related stuff. They'll run faster with SSE.
Finally, in terms of CPU cost alone, the Pentium III 450 MHz goes for $250, while the Celeron 466 goes for $145. For systems that typically cost somewhere between $1500 and $2000, the extra $100 for the Pentium III isn't much. It might be a big difference for cheaper PC's, but it all depends on your needs.
Of course, no one's stopping you from getting a Pentium III 500 ($450) or 550 MHz ($695). ;-)
Tenchusatsu |
