I’m sure you have seen the ads for all the new computers with all the available processors from Pentiums to Celerons to AMDs. Intel offers 2 main types of CPUs for desktop/workstation computers, the Pentium 4 and the Celeron. I’m also sure you have noticed that the Celerons are cheaper than the Pentium 4s. Here is the reason why.
Smaller cache memory
Cache memory is fast memory that is attached to the CPU that contains the most recently used data. Celeron chips have less cache memory than Pentium 4 chips. A Celeron usually has 128 or 256 kilobytes of L2 cache, while a Pentium 4 can have up to 2 MB of cache. The amount of L2 cache memory makes a big difference on performance.
Clock speed
The clock speed is how fast devices that are connected to the system bus operate. Pentium 4 chips run at a higher clock speed than Celeron chips. The fastest Pentium 4 might be 60 percent faster than the fastest Celeron. The fastest Celeron chip to date is a 2.8 GHz while the fastest Pentium 4 is up to 3.8 GHz.
Bus speed
Bus speed is the speed at which the data on the motherboard moves. Celerons have bus speeds up to 400 MHz while Pentium now have up to 1066 MHz bus speed
Pentium 4s also offer features like Hyper Threading Technology which allows multiple threaded applications to run simultaneously which makes one physical CPU appear as two logical CPUs to increase performance.
Even though the Celeron is based on the Pentium 4 core, it is no Pentium 4.
Related Tip:
Hyper-threading Processors
