Celeron 420 vs P4 630?

[tabdapaki1]

Just a quick question for you guys...

I recently ordered a Dell Inspiron 530 desktop w/ a 24" LCD, just for the LCD since the total package came out to only $590. I was planning to sell the PC since its very low-end, but then I was thinking it might still outperform what I have now, which is a Dell E510.

So my question is...
Will the Celeron 420 (1.6ghz) chip outperform the P4 630 (3.0Ghz) chip? I'll have 2GB RAM plus a nVidia 7600GS in whichever machine I keep. I'll use it just for basic gaming (CS Source), photoshop, and maybe HTPC. Which one should I keep?

Thanks!

 

[Arkaign]

They will be fairly equal. I'd go for the P4 though, because of the HT and likely C2D upgrade path. At the very least, you're nearly sure to be able to put a 65nm Pentium D in there (2x2MB L2)

 

[swtethan]

WHOA THATS A SMOKIN DEAL! Sell the pc for like $400!


and you got yourself a $200 24"! I gotta check out dell!

 

[GEOrifle]

Where did you find deal like thise?

 

[tabdapaki1]

Found the deal at Dell =P
j/k..it was a limited deal, where I applied a $350 off $999 + $100 off (DPA) coupon. Total came out to $586 Keeping my fingers crossed that it comes through!

Thanks Arkaign for the input. So any other opinions? P4 630 or the Celeron 420. I heard the Celeron even outperforms the original dual cores because of the Conroe based architecture.

 

[Accord99]

A Celeron 440 is comfortably faster than a Celeron D 365 here:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...l-preview_3.html#sect1

So most likely they will be about equal. However, the Dell 530 supports every C2D model, so you can upgrade to a quad-core at some time in the future while the E510 only appears to support P4s.

Plus the 630 probably uses 5-6X more power under load compared to the Celeron 420.

 

[A554SS1N]

Regards Celeron 420 (1.6ghz) versus P4 630 (3.0Ghz), the performance in games will be fairly similar, but as said it'd be nicer to have a much lower power consumption Celeron, which would be the main strength to tip the choice in that direction.

 

[daveybrat]

I'd take the celeron, lower power consumption and better upgrade options available.

 

[kmmatney]

If you have the know-how, you should be able to pin-mod the celeron to a 266 Mhz FSB, so it will run at 2.1 Ghz, which should outperform the P4, and still run nice and cool.

 

[hans007]

i actually have the celeron 420 in a server. got it just for the lower power use. it probably will save 20 watts idle and maybe 50 watts at load.

i think it probably will be a bit slower but like the others said the mobo in the 530 would be upgradeable to core 2 quad or dual later or even pentium E2000s. the 530 uses a g33 chipset so you have 1333 bus support.

also the new 530s are micro atx and the not micro btx like the e510 so you can even upgrade motherboards.

 

[tabdapaki1]

Thanks guys for all your input. You brought up points that I didn't even think of.
Looks like I'll be keeping the Celeron 420 over the P4 630, unless someone convinces me otherwise

Do you know which program I can run to run benchmark tests on both the PCs? Something that will give me numbers as to which one is faster. Thanks

 

[A554SS1N]

Try the 3DMark CPU tests maybe? That might be most relevant to game performance.

You could also try general things, like compressing a file, or encoding a test video, and timing it.