What specs do you think a 20th Anniversary Celeron(s) will have?

[dullard]

No you were talking in circles. I get what you want to get across, but Optane is a waste as a "fast drive" and isn't feasible as a memory solution for desktop users. People don't need to purchase a 32GB cache drive to "sample" Optane as a highly constrained OS drive. They aren't saving money by doing so versus a larger drive because the management effort that would go into keeping that drive usable isn't worth it (have you looked at the installed size of Windows, without patches, even if you turn Hibernate and the swap file off?). It will be lovely 5 years down the road when Optane Memory caches become a thing on desktops (if it ever is) but you are dreaming if you think Optane is a product anyone should be interested in now and while I know that not purchasing Optane would likely seal its doom before it has a chance to hit it's prime, but suggesting that people get it "because" when it has no real viable use case to those who have the ability to use it is disingenuous.

Going from well it's most cost effective because it's cheaper than a 128-256GB SSD, to bouncing into how much better it for a bunch of specific tasks, is talking in circles, because the only real advantage it has over NVME is in having a 32GB drive for those that only need that. But again the only realistic use for those drives is as a spindle drive user to use as cache.

This isn't some future proofing discussion. A Optane drive isn't like adding more cores, or a big video card so you don't have to worry in a couple years. An Optane drive purchased now, will have all the same performance, the same restrictions, the same nearly useless for Desktop users characteristics no matter how useful the tech becomes in future years. You can't be future looking about a device that will never help you in the future.

Again, why are you concerned with 32 GB drives? Optane is not and will not be just 32 GB. Optane usage is also seamless, it does NOT have to be just an OS drive. Put Optane in front of your SSD and be amazed.

Also, buy one Optane module once, and you can use it again and again in future computers in future years.

From your posts it seems that you have not read up as to what Optane is or how it can be used.

 

[Topweasel]

Put Optane in front of your SSD and be amazed

You brought up using it as an OS drive. But I have been focusing on the 32GB version because it is the only one with value. Telling me to put it in front of my SSD and i'll be amazed kind of amazes me. If you think that helps your system out to a point where it is noticeable fine. While I have not purchased a Optane drive (and realistically couldn't if I wanted to), overall at least of the numbers I read, very little potential for me to be amazed. Hell the "feels" of a NVME drive are quite limited to that of a Sata SSD. That's personal but again nothing any review I have read on Optane presented it as anything greater than a really fast SSD. IOPS aren't nearly as important once you get to the level SDD's (sata or NVME) are at that Optane till you get into the servers outside one or two tasks. To tell anyone you don't know the workload on that they will be "amazed" again is seriously disingenuous.

lso, buy one Optane module once, and you can use it again and again in future computers in future years.

That assumes a bunch of things including things like Optane staying the way it is in the future (would be disapointed in that), that Intel continues to support it in it's current format, and that their isn't a normal Nand solution that would work as fast as these first gen Optane's even in those circumstances where Optane performs better.

To me it seems more like maybe you only read the pre release material with Optanes insane goals before it came down to earth with its release and comes off more as a an extremely IO friendly nand alternative and not a memory and nand replacement it was tagged as. Future is bright, this an Xpoint will help push boundaries that Nand just doesn't seem able to keep up with. But that isn't what Optane is right now and when it isn't the hardware we purchase today isn't going to be capable of it. It is what it already is and will never be anything better.

 

[LTC8K6]

Supposedly you can use Optane to accelerate your spinning data drives now, and supposedly it's impressive?

https://www.techspot.com/news/74122-intel-rolling-out-core-cpu-bundles-optane-memory.html

 

[Insert_Nickname]

People don't need to purchase a 32GB cache drive to "sample" Optane as a highly constrained OS drive. They aren't saving money by doing so versus a larger drive because the management effort that would go into keeping that drive usable isn't worth it (have you looked at the installed size of Windows, without patches, even if you turn Hibernate and the swap file off?).

Its about 16GB, with hibernation file disabled, swap file turned down to 1GB, and windows image compression turned on. The "management effort" consists of cleaning windows update regularly, which can be automated easily. So its no big deal.

Is it for everyone? No, of course not. But at least I enjoy tinkering with stuff like this, there is at least a bit of a challenge in keeping a full Windows 10 installation holed up on a 32GB drive...

Going from well it's most cost effective because it's cheaper than a 128-256GB SSD, to bouncing into how much better it for a bunch of specific tasks, is talking in circles, because the only real advantage it has over NVME is in having a 32GB drive for those that only need that.

Specific tasks? No. Optane is particularly suited to exactly desktop use, because its really strong points are random 4K performance at very low queue depths. Which is what most common applications like.

You brought up using it as an OS drive. But I have been focusing on the 32GB version because it is the only one with value. Telling me to put it in front of my SSD and i'll be amazed kind of amazes me. If you think that helps your system out to a point where it is noticeable fine. While I have not purchased a Optane drive (and realistically couldn't if I wanted to), overall at least of the numbers I read, very little potential for me to be amazed. Hell the "feels" of a NVME drive are quite limited to that of a Sata SSD. That's personal but again nothing any review I have read on Optane presented it as anything greater than a really fast SSD. IOPS aren't nearly as important once you get to the level SDD's (sata or NVME) are at that Optane till you get into the servers outside one or two tasks. To tell anyone you don't know the workload on that they will be "amazed" again is seriously disingenuous.

Does it "feel" different from a high-end SSD? No it doesn't, but that's not the point. I use both. And el cheapo drives like the 600p, which doesn't feel different in normal use from a 960evo.

I don't think I could distinguish either of those in a blind test, unless I'm allowed to benchmark them.

The point is simply that a cheap drive using only a couple of Optane dies can keep up with, and in some cases exceed, a performance monster like the 960pro. Either way you slice it, that's pretty impressive.

To me it seems more like maybe you only read the pre release material with Optanes insane goals before it came down to earth with its release and comes off more as a an extremely IO friendly nand alternative and not a memory and nand replacement it was tagged as. Future is bright, this an Xpoint will help push boundaries that Nand just doesn't seem able to keep up with. But that isn't what Optane is right now and when it isn't the hardware we purchase today isn't going to be capable of it. It is what it already is and will never be anything better.

Optane is a NAND alternative. It has pros and cons like everything else. I like competition. Samsung also has their V-NAND (SLC 3D NAND...?), but I haven't tried that yet.

 

[cbn]

An atom based 20th Anniversary Celeron would be interesting as well.

Looking at Newegg Celeron Laptops, the atom processor falls into two categories (Windows Streambooks and Google Chromebooks):

https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100006740 600003943 8000 4814&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&order=RELEASE

https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100167750 8000 4814&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&Order=RELEASE&PageSize=36

With that noted, I think a third category (performance tuned factory Linux laptops) would be great to have as well.

PowerTOP is a Linux tool to diagnose issues with power consumption and power management.

In addition to being a diagnostic tool, PowerTOP also has an interactive mode where the user can experiment various power management settings for cases where the Linux distribution has not enabled these settings.

P.S. Manjaro even comes with a desktop launcher for Office Online as well as having Steam preinstalled (which can be used for game streaming from a Workstation or gaming machine).

SIDE NOTE: 16GB Optane M10 would be interesting to see paired with this.

 

[cbn]

Supposedly you can use Optane to accelerate your spinning data drives now, and supposedly it's impressive?

https://www.techspot.com/news/74122-intel-rolling-out-core-cpu-bundles-optane-memory.html

Yes, the Intel Optane software now allows that bundled 16GB Optane memory to be used on data drives in addition to primary drives.

However, one thing to consider is that the 32GB Optane has the advantage of file level caching (in addition to the strictly Block level of the 16GB Optane ). Also I have read elsewhere certain OS files are whitelisted and preloaded into the 32GB Optane at start-up (giving an immediate boost for systems where a 32GB Optane is used with the OS/primary drive).

http://surprizingfacts.com/what-is-intel-optane-part-1-optane-memory-blog-of-intel-surprizingfacts/

Secondly, while the RST system is running, the driver will continuously generate caching. And here there is one important difference between Optane Memory modules of different capacities: on a 16GB device, only block level caching is supported, on a 32GB device, block level caching and file leveling (both work simultaneously). In the case of block caching, the decision to cache a block occurs instantly at the time of the I / O request. In the case of file caching, the driver monitors the frequency of access to files and puts it all in a special table, which then (at the time of system downtime or according to the user's schedule) is used to determine which files are left in the cache, which are deleted and which are added.

Both types of caching use rather clever algorithms for caching decision making – I can not describe them deeply, but for general understanding I note that, for example, video files are not cached (yes, the driver looks at File extension), the size of the file is taken into account, the type of load is determined – caching preferences are given to random access rather than sequential, which makes sense due to extremely slow operation of hard disks in random access operations, etc. On the Internet, I met some negative comments on the topic that "the cache will be immediately overwritten with data," "16GB capacity is not enough for anything" and the like – usually reviews from people who have never tested Optane Memory. I have not yet heard negative feedback about the performance of this solution from any of our partners I work with.

So with that noted, I have been wondering how much the 32GB Optane can help with paging out (when coupled to a primary drive which is HDD) during internet browsing? This for for a low end Windows Desktop/Laptop system with hypothetical Celeron.

4GB RAM + 32GB Optane + HDD vs. 8GB RAM + HDD on various performance metrics? (My personal guess is that 4GB single channel RAM should be enough for anything compute related I would do with Celeron.....but 4GB RAM is not enough for semi-serious browsing)

 

[cbn]

What about a rather low-clocked / no-turbo 4C/4T CPU? That would blow some minds. Maybe blow Intel's product stack up too. I'm thinking something like AMD Sempron 3850 AM1 CPU, a 1.3Ghz quad-core. Only, 2.0Ghz for the Anniv. Celeron.

Gemini Lake? (IPC increased with Goldmont+, but not as high as Core)

SIDE NOTE: Perhaps the improvement in atom is another reason (besides the gap I mentioned in the OP) for transitioning a core based Celeron to 2C/4T?

 

[cbn]

From the Anandtech M10 review:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/1274...ry-m10-64gb-review-optane-caching-refreshed/9

On the other hand, it is clear that no amount of fast storage can make up for a system crippled by too little RAM, which is a disappointment in a time when SSDs are getting cheaper but RAM prices are still climbing. Optane SSDs may be the fastest swap devices money can buy, but they're no substitute for having adequate RAM. The 4GB low-end configuration we tested is simply not enough anymore, and for future storage caching tests we will consider 8GB as the absolute minimum requirement before any storage performance upgrades should be considered.

For a system with 4GB RAM (which actually is a typical amount of RAM for a Celeron system, but also up to a Core i3) Windows allocates (by default) a page file of only 1.3GB.

That is not a lot space for page file.

In order to help the Optane work better (particularly with a hard drive) the Intel software (by the time of a 20th Anniversary Celeron) should have an option (at set-up time) to increase page file. (This when both the 16GB* and 32GB (and greater) Optanes are used).

*16GB mentioned because it is currently only block level cache (see post #56)..

P.S. I mention this mainly for internet browsing, but It would be interesting to see how the system (with large page file) would also work for more compute intensive tasks that would page out.

 

[eek2121]

Personally if I was Intel I would just drop the Celeron line completely and release a 25th Anniversary unlocked Coffee Lake Pentium running at 4Ghz.

Oh I believe you missed the Celeron in it's heyday. It was quite a beast compared to the Pentium III.

 

[scannall]

Oh I believe you missed the Celeron in it's heyday. It was quite a beast compared to the Pentium III.

The first two generations were a laughingstock. Really bad. But they did improve after that. Helped a lot to actually add a little cache in there.

 

[whm1974]

Oh I believe you missed the Celeron in it's heyday. It was quite a beast compared to the Pentium III.

Actually the Celeron was slow until Intel added 128KB of Level 2 cache to it.

 

[bbhaag]

Perhaps it's best that Intel just let the anniversary of the Celeron go by without any special announcements. It has never been a particularly special series of cpu's. Most if not all of its life has been relegated to the low cost OEM segment.
IMO one chip gained a little bit of fame in the late '90's but that is it. Why celebrate mediocrity...

 

[cbn]

For a mobile version perhaps they could even use their baseboard strategy.

So for mobile maybe it is not just a CPU and Optane (+ software), but a motherboard as well? (And please definitely Windows and regular Linux versions)

 

[bbhaag]

nevermind

 

[kwalkingcraze]

0% chance. Don't think about it.

 

[cbn]

Amber lake.

(+ Optane memory)