Three Processors In Search Of A Buyer

Since I rejoined the workforce I've been thinking about upgrading my PCs. I have two main computers (plus a notebook), and they're both over two years old. They're 1.2GHz Athlons; one running WinXP (which is a whole 'nother story in itself) and the other running Linux (Red Hat .

Now, my rule of thumb is to upgrade a computer (assuming I have the money) when the replacement is (a) cheaper than the original and (b) at least twice as good. So, I should be looking for a 2.4GHz Athlon, right?

Small problem: there isn't one. There's a confusing gaggle of performance ratings, and if you're trying to work out how fast a particular Athlon might be, you have to know that the XP2400+ has a 266MHz bus and 256KB of level 2 cache, the XP2500+ has a 333MHz bus and 512KB of cache, but runs at a lower clock speed, and the XP2600+ apparently comes in two flavours, with a 256KB cache and either a 266MHz bus and a higher clockspeed or a 333MHz bus and a lower clockspeed. The XP2800+ has historically come in three different flavours, so very much caveat emptor.

Then there's Intel. I'd rather avoid Intel, not because their products are bad, but because they are evil. Not as evil as Microsoft, not nearly as evil as the RIAA, but clearly on the darkish-grey side of the line. But the Celerons are pretty cheap, and run at 2.4GHz, so...

Turns out Celerons pretty much suck. I'm not sure why, exactly; they have the P4 architecture, and the 400MHz Celeron bus is as fast as that found on any Athlon. Presumably part of the problem is the 128KB cache, but they should be good for something. But I benchmarked a 1.7GHz Celeron, and my tests showed that it was no faster, and often significantly slower, than my existing 1.2GHz Athlons. So, no joy there.

Finally, there's the P4. The shiny new 800MHz bus version is out. That huge bandwidth increase seems to offer only trivial performance increases, though, on the order of 3 to 5 per cent. On the other hand, they all have hyperthreading enabled, so it's sort of like getting a dual-processor system for free. On the other other hand, most of the time I'm only running one thing anyway.

So, what I've decided to do is blow all my money on beer and skittles. Or, since I don't drink beer or play skittles, keep it.

Except for the iPod. Still gotta getta iPod.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:49 AM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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