Celeron with 512kB cache?? Sue Best Buy?

Pyromania42

Junior Member
Aug 26, 2003
6
0
0

Hi,

so I bought a Toshiba Satellite A15-S157 laptop from Best Buy, and I noticed that in their specs they claim that it has a 2.2GHz Celeron with, hear ye hear ye, "Cache Memory: 512KB integrated on die Level 2."

False advertising or did I get myself an uberCeleron? I assume the true figure is still 128kB?

Link to Best Buy Product Specs

If it is indeed wrong, can I do anything about it (like, say, make Best Buy give me a P4 chip with the right amount of cache?), or is it my fault for shopping at crappy Best Buy?

Thanks!
A.

 

chilled

Senior member
Jun 2, 2002
709
0
0
For NetBurst architecture:

Mobile Celeron has 256KB L2 cache.
Desktop Celeron has 128Kb L2 cache.

I doubt they'll give u a P4. They'll offer a refund at best I guess.
 

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,596
19
81
Download and run WCPUID to see what cache you actually have. I checked Intel's site; the highest cache in a Celeron is 256KB L2, plus a total of 32KB of L1 cache.
 

Pyromania42

Junior Member
Aug 26, 2003
6
0
0
Originally posted by: GonzoDaGr8
False advertising or did I get myself an uberCeleron?
No, You got a typo, Not an uber Cely. You should have known better..

Oh no, I did know better, just curious. I bought the laptop for all the other specs. A pretty sweet deal w/ all the rebates ($900 after rebates and a free printer).

Another small curiousity: why are a measly 256kB of cache memory so expensive to pop onto a chip? Is it because of the chip's size? Does Intel really save so much money by adding less to Celerons than to P's, or is it mostly marketing?

Thanks for the other replies!
A.
 

magomago

Lifer
Sep 28, 2002
10,973
14
76
Originally posted by: Pyromania42
Originally posted by: GonzoDaGr8
False advertising or did I get myself an uberCeleron?
No, You got a typo, Not an uber Cely. You should have known better..

Oh no, I did know better, just curious. I bought the laptop for all the other specs. A pretty sweet deal w/ all the rebates ($900 after rebates and a free printer).

Another small curiousity: why are a measly 256kB of cache memory so expensive to pop onto a chip? Is it because of the chip's size? Does Intel really save so much money by adding less to Celerons than to P's, or is it mostly marketing?

Thanks for the other replies!
A.


Welcome to Anandtech!


They do that because this way they can make their P4s cost more. That is the main reason the Celeron line came out - to justify higher prices of the Pentium4 line.
 

FishTankX

Platinum Member
Oct 6, 2001
2,738
0
0
You can't think it in terms of is it more expensive to put 256KB of cache into a celeron.


The correct train of thought is..

'Is Intel suposed to throw out a perfectly good P4 that has defective blocks in it's cache, but can still function perfectly with half the cache?'.

Now, depending on demand, they might put a good P4 into a celeron's package and disable half of the cache. But from what I gather, it's really P4's that have defective blocks in their cache that get dubbed 'Celeron'. This allows Intel to provide cheap CPUs for almost no cost to themselves, as they would have been thrown out anyways. Get it?
 

Davegod

Platinum Member
Nov 26, 2001
2,874
0
76
why would anyone even think of suing a company because they wrongly advertised it as 512kb cache on a cpu? wouldnt you just inform them of the error, or if it made you dissatisfied with your purchase, just go get a refund?

celerons are basically P4's with defective cache or P4's with cache disabled. main marketing reasons for them are to make money from otherwise defective parts, for market segmentation and to try to price them on par with AMD. The latter is to try and convince Clueless Idiots that they must therefore be of the same quality, hence making AMD's appear of a substandard quality to Clueless Idiots, and suddenly AMD isnt a competitor to P4, its a competitor to the lowly Celeron.
 

modedepe

Diamond Member
May 11, 2003
3,474
0
0
It was a typo. Forget about suing, you shouldn't have been looking at that celeron in the first place :p
 

Megatomic

Lifer
Nov 9, 2000
20,127
6
81
HardOCP tried the suing Best Buy option a few years back. It didn't quite turn out if I recall correctly. :)
 

rickon66

Golden Member
Oct 11, 1999
1,824
16
81
For general purpose computing on a laptop there is nothing wrong with a celeron. Why put a high powered P4 in a cheap laptop that probably has a crappy video chip and a pitiful slow harddrive
 

Macro2

Diamond Member
May 20, 2000
4,874
0
0
RE:"For general purpose computing on a laptop there is nothing wrong with a celeron"

True except most people here like to play a game every now and then and I've heard (cough) a Celeron just might be a bottle neck on some popular games.

Mac
 

EeyoreX

Platinum Member
Oct 27, 2002
2,864
0
0
Originally posted by: Lyfer
Originally posted by: Sid59
Originally posted by: Budmantom
Yeah, sue Bestbuy.
rolleye.gif


Puh-leaze. I really hope none of you is serious (hard to tell). I suppose you have never mistyped something? <sarcasm>Of course not. How silly of me to ask.</sarcasm> Of course, if you don't mind loosing both the case and money for a lawyer (one that would think of taking this case, probably wants cash. Upfront. No refunds). Especially, if as the original poster said, he knew better than to think he was getting some "uberCeleron".

\Dan
 
Aug 18, 2002
176
0
76
As with most online retailers, most chain stores that sell expensive equipment do have disclaimers that the merchandise advertised is either subject to change in price or subject to errors which they are not "responsible" for; responsible meaning you can not sue them.
 

apoppin

Lifer
Mar 9, 2000
34,890
1
0
alienbabeltech.com
Originally posted by: Macro2
RE:"For general purpose computing on a laptop there is nothing wrong with a celeron"

True except most people here like to play a game every now and then and I've heard (cough) a Celeron just might be a bottle neck on some popular games.

Mac

Not in a notebook
rolleye.gif
 

JulesMaximus

No Lifer
Jul 3, 2003
74,553
942
126
Originally posted by: Pyromania42
Hi,

so I bought a Toshiba Satellite A15-S157 laptop from Best Buy, and I noticed that in their specs they claim that it has a 2.2GHz Celeron with, hear ye hear ye, "Cache Memory: 512KB integrated on die Level 2."

False advertising or did I get myself an uberCeleron? I assume the true figure is still 128kB?

Link to Best Buy Product Specs

If it is indeed wrong, can I do anything about it (like, say, make Best Buy give me a P4 chip with the right amount of cache?), or is it my fault for shopping at crappy Best Buy?

Thanks!
A.

They are idiots. Most retail stores that sell computers and computer equipment know diddly about the products they sell (with the exception of locally owned and operated computer stores). I was talking with a sales dork at Circuit City about laptop computers and it was painfully obvious that this guy didn't know what the hell he was talking about. I asked a guy at Fry's if they carried Lian-Li cases...He looked at me like I had 10 heads. I had to repeat myself three times and finally walked away annoyed.

I seriously doubt that you are going to get anywhere by suing or even threatening to sue. They'll just say it was a misprint.
 

Pyromania42

Junior Member
Aug 26, 2003
6
0
0

Wow, I can't believe people really thought I was going to sue Best Buy.

I guess in my future posts I'll have to make sure sarcasm is marked clearly as such. Maybe it was just a deep wish for people to see the miserable store go down in flames. Except I don't think that would happen with the kind of lawyer I can afford... let's face it, I can only afford a CRAPPY CELERON ;-)

I was just asking whether I had missed something and all the sudden Intel was producing 512kB Celeron chips, which indeed wouldn't make much sense, but one can still wonder. Apologies for the confusion. Entertaining confusion though!

Thanks to all of you for explaining the idea behind the Celeron to me. I would agree that the Toshiba in question is not the fastest machine in the universe, but for a starving grad student with $900 to blow it sure works just fine! Even for a few procrastination games...