Relative CPU Speed

[eldaveo]

I've currently got a media PC running Windows 7 on an old Athlon XP 2600+, which clocks at 2.1GHz, with 2GB DDR1 (not sure what speed) and a Radeon 9600 Pro 512MB. Basically an old gaming rig. It still runs Windows 7 fairly decently, given the age of the hardware, but XBMC has some graphical lag and stuttering in the menus. The CPU runs pretty close to maxed even playing standard def videos though. The motherboard was high-end at the time (Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe), so I could overclock the CPU, but I'm not sure that's a good idea with a computer that's supposed to be quiet.

I've come into possession of another computer, which has a Celeron D 3.2GHz (unknown specific model), 512MB of RAM (which I would upgrade, because that's really low...), and an ECS P4M900T-M motherboard with integrated video (which I would also have to upgrade, because I need something besides a VGA output; the new MB is PCI-E and the video card in the current media PC is AGP). Basically this was a "how cheaply can I get a computer?" system when it was bought back in 2008.

My question is, would the intentionally-gimped Celeron still run faster than the Athlon, since its clock speed is so much higher, and the model is ~4 years newer?

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

The model of the processor that you have is the Intel® Celeron® D 350, 350J, 351, or 352 (based on the information that you gave). You can look up the information on this processor at http://ark.intel.com/Compare.aspx?ids=27126,27127,27128,27129,. So would the Intel Celeron D 352 run faster than the AMD Athlon XP 2600+? I would think so but it is not that much of an improvement. The Celeron D is using the Netburst archutecture (Prescott), same as Intel Pentium® 4 Until you moved up into processors based off the same architecture as the Intel Core 2 Duo that we really see improved performance.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

 

[Wizlem]

I'm pretty sure the only thing gimped on a celeron is cache and clockspeed. I'd bet the Celeron still has equal or more cache because it lookes like it probably has 512kb of L2 and thats all the Athlon could have.

Since you have both, why not just try running whatever you want to on the celeron and see if its faster.

 

[sm625]

Celeron D is a single core. It is only going to be marginally faster at best. XBMC is trash and it will probably NEVER work right no matter what kind of cpu you have. Within reason - it probably runs just fine with a 2600k but that's just retarded. You know what works well? VLC player and a desktop with shortcuts. You know what doesnt work right: everything else. People who say otherwise are cracked out of their gourd. VLC player works fine on a 800 MHZ undervolted sempron 140 running with no fan.

 

[eldaveo]

It's still NetBurst even though it's a Socket 775 chip? Odd. I'd probably be better off sticking with the Athlon then, since a small performance increase is likely not worth the cost for new memory/video card. I'm still going to test it though, just out of curiosity.

A desktop full of icons and a no-frills media player doesn't work that great when you're sitting on a couch 10 feet back with a Media Center remote. A graphical menu system of some sort is pretty much mandatory for a home theatre setup.

 

[sm625]

A desktop full of icons and a no-frills media player doesn't work that great when you're sitting on a couch 10 feet back with a Media Center remote. A graphical menu system of some sort is pretty much mandatory for a home theatre setup.

My htpc pc at home isnt on so I cant grab a rdp screen shot of it. But it has really big icons. I just use a mouse, and magnifier if I need it. If I had a nice remote, I would work on intercepting the keys and reassigning them to do what I want within the basic windows GUI. These guys writing XBMC and other crap are insane imo because they dont have the slightest clue on how to code the most basic tasks without 2 billion cycles of bloat. It is just flat out ridiculous and I want no part of it. There is just no excuse for how slow those programs run.

 

[tweakboy]

You can HTPC with a 8600 GT or 8800GT probably for 40 bucks. thx

 

[eldaveo]

Yeah, it'd probably be around $50-60 to upgrade it. But if it's going to be a minor difference, I'm not sure it's even worth that much! I don't suppose that line of Celerons overclocks well, do they? It's got a stock cooler. I think I saw at least some basic OCing options in the BIOS when I was in there yesterday. I'll check in a bit what it lets you do.

I'm going to guess it's the latest of those models of Celeron D's (the 352), since it was built in 2008. I would assume the computer store sold a lot of those CPUs for their low-end systems and wasn't still holding onto stock from years earlier.


That's how my remote works. It came with my Hauppauge capture card, and there's a program that runs in the tray that translates remote button presses into customizable combinations of key presses. It's fiddly (no GUI for editing, just an ini), but you could even set it up to just use what key shortcuts Windows uses by default.

I suppose you could use folders and stick all the videos in there on the desktop, but that seems like a lot of work renaming everything to a user-friendly title. As opposed to only needing to have the show's title and something like S09E12 in the file name and let a scraper download all the info like episode synopsis, banner art, episode thumbnails (ones that aren't just a frame from the first five seconds into the video, which is usually a 20th Century Fox logo ) from someplace like thetvdb.com and dump it into a database for you. To each their own, I suppose.


EDIT: There's an option to change DRAM Frequency, CPU Frequency, mem and CPU voltage, something about auto-detecting DIMM/PCI clock, and Spread Spectrum (not sure on that one). Seems like there's all I need to OC it, if I wanted.

 

[Ketchup]

While I do not know exactly how your program works with different hardware, I think a couple minutes of Googling will give you an answer. The Celeron-D is quite a bit newer than the Athlon you have now, not to mention the ECS has PCI express. So, the Celeron D supports newer instructions for much better performance in your scenario, and the PCI-express slot means you can use a new video card. I would buy the nicest card in this latest generation that fits your price range. It will not only run better but it may pull more of the load from the Celeron. Lastly, as you stated, add some memory, and I think you will see a dramatic improvement in your HTPC experience.

 

[eldaveo]

Hmm, I forgot about the instruction sets. From what I can tell, I would be gaining SSE2 and SSE3. I don't know enough about those to know how much of a difference that would make though.

 

[JWade]

i would go for the skt 775 setup. more/faster ram, the celeron is faster, and you can get a much better video card on the cheap. one consideration would be a cheap dual core, on the forsale forums i saw a pentium D 840 for $25

 

[Gillbot]

i would go for the skt 775 setup. more/faster ram, the celeron is faster, and you can get a much better video card on the cheap. one consideration would be a cheap dual core, on the forsale forums i saw a pentium D 840 for $25

I've gotten S775 Pentium D's from the freebies thread before.

 

[yottabit]

Edited because I'm stupid

 

[eldaveo]

So theoretically, a older-gen entry-level video card should take most of the load off the processor, correct? As long as it has support for video decoding. I don't think the Radeon 9600 Pro has any sort of built-in decoding, because the processor usage is extremely high any time a video is playing.

So, between a relatively recent video card like a Radeon HD 4350 (which has UVD 2) and this Celeron D, I should see a significant performance increase, assuming I bump up the RAM as well. Right?

 

[toyota]

I can't believe some people are saying it's only going to be marginally faster. The 3.2 Ghz Celeron D will completely wreck the Athlon XP 2600+. You are comparing chips from completely different generations. Maybe if it was an Athlon 64 3000+ or something you'd have somewhat similar performance, but even then it's a stretch.

I think the performance difference will matter in practical applications too. That Celeron D should be fast enough to play back youtube videos in decent quality, etc whereas the XP won't be.

Here's my gimpy flowchart:
Athlon XP (Socket A) < Athlon 64 (Sckt 754) ~= Pentium 4 (Sckt 478) < Athlon 64 (Socket 939) ~= Pentium D < Athlon II ~= Core ...

no there is not much difference at all. even if there was a little difference back then its like saying an Nvidia 6600gt is faster than a 6600le. it does not even matter at this point.

EDIT: according to this a 3.2 Celeron actually looks worse than a Athlon XP 2400 never mind the 2600. http://www.cpubenchmark.net/low_end_cpus.html

 

[eldaveo]

Hmm, interesting statistics. I'm a bit amused that a CPU so ancient could still be so (relative to much newer models) competitive!

I'm wondering if I'd still get better performance out of it, even if raw benchmarks show the Athlon is more powerful? Just by virtue of the Celeron having more recent instruction sets, and being able to use newer hardware like a PCI-E video card, DDR2 memory and SATA? The CPU being only marginally faster (or slower) would be offset by the fact that the much newer GPU would be taking over many of the tasks my Athlon is currently performing, like video decoding/processing. Theoretically?

 

[pantsaregood]

I can't believe some people are saying it's only going to be marginally faster. The 3.2 Ghz Celeron D will completely wreck the Athlon XP 2600+. You are comparing chips from completely different generations. Maybe if it was an Athlon 64 3000+ or something you'd have somewhat similar performance, but even then it's a stretch.

I think the performance difference will matter in practical applications too. That Celeron D should be fast enough to play back youtube videos in decent quality, etc whereas the XP won't be.

Here's my gimpy flowchart:
Athlon XP (Socket A) < Athlon 64 (Sckt 754) ~= Pentium 4 (Sckt 478) < Athlon 64 (Socket 939) ~= Pentium D < Athlon II ~= Core ...

What are you talking about? In most cases, a 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 has no hope of being as fast as an Athlon 64 3000+. A 3.2 GHz Celeron D wouldn't even come close.

 

[yottabit]

What are you talking about? In most cases, a 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 has no hope of being as fast as an Athlon 64 3000+. A 3.2 GHz Celeron D wouldn't even come close.

Yeah I don't even know, I was completely wrong. My last experience was with a Celeron M and I had assumed the Celeron D was similar in performance to that, I didn't realize it was a straight up Netburst. I apologize

I am still surprised by the amount the celeron was getting hammered on the benchmarks posted... The best actual review I could find was from xbitlabs:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/celeron-d_15.html#sect0

Here it looks like in most tests (with a couple exceptions giving the Athlon the lead) the celeron d is blow for blow with the athlon xp of the same rating...

 

[Ketchup]

Yeah I don't even know, I was completely wrong. My last experience was with a Celeron M and I had assumed the Celeron D was similar in performance to that, I didn't realize it was a straight up Netburst. I apologize

I am still surprised by the amount the celeron was getting hammered on the benchmarks posted... The best actual review I could find was from xbitlabs:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/celeron-d_15.html#sect0

Here it looks like in most tests (with a couple exceptions giving the Athlon the lead) the celeron d is blow for blow with the athlon xp of the same rating...

I don't think CPU speed in older applications and games is necessarily the issue here. The issue is that the program used by the OP would run better with SSE2 and SSE3 added to the ability to use a much better graphics card.