The folks are having a computer built by Dell (please hold all Dell vs. other competitor comments), I need some opinions on which Intel processor for them to get....Celeron or Pentium. It will only be used for internet surfing, email, a few minor internet games, some word processing and a few spread sheets.

So, would you go with an Intel Celeron or a Pentium?

What's the price difference between the two?? That's the biggest thing as far as I'm concerned...if there's not much of a price break going with the Celeron...then I would go ahead with the Pentium.

The Celeron is a Pentium with a smaller cache and may very well be just a chip that didn't quite make the grade and was downgraded to a slower speed(at which it does just fine!). So give us a little more info about the differences in the packages you are looking at and we can make an intelligent choice.


Paul

The price difference is about $10 -$12 more a month.

Intel Celeron 2.4GHz w/ 400MHz front side bus

Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz w/ 533MHz front side bus

I'm a Pentium fan over Celeron myself...

I've not heard good things about the Celerons.

Rule of thumb is buy the most you can afford right now...because it'll be a while before you replace it...and the better the system now...the longer you can stand it until you NEED to replace it!

So I'd go with the faster machine...because in just a couple of years...it's gonna be the 386 in the corner!! Also, with the faster buss...there will be things you can do to keep the machine current for longer...thus saving you money in the long run!

Paul

The Celeron is the 2nd grade compared to the Intel, and with so many changes ahead in the near future, your better going for the Intel you described as it has enough to cope with what's coming on to the market.

FWIW, my last three processors were Intel Celeron's. All three were or are overclocked and I've never had a problem with any of them. The 1.2 I have now benchmarks out even or faster than the equivelant P4 or AMD running roughly the same speed.

Yeah...that's true...but he's talking about his parents!! They need something that doesn't need to be tweeked or "played with"! Plug-N-Play is the watch word here...may they NEVER hear the term "Registry"!!

Paul

I remember you telling us that before Bob, and how much you liked them. The reason i still picked Intel here was simply because if you cannot overclock or prime it to your needs then a straightforward Intel might be just better in this case. If money is a consideration then certainly there's nothing wrong with Celeron.

Mac33 wrote:

I remember you telling us that before Bob, and how much you liked them. The reason i still picked Intel here was simply because if you cannot overclock or prime it to your needs then a straightforward Intel might be just better in this case. If money is a consideration then certainly there's nothing wrong with Celeron.

But Celeron is Intel, just a smaller cache. As for the tweaking, there is no tweaking required. It's the same processor, and Windows recognizes it as the same thing. His parents would never know that it was a Celeron.