Celeron

  • Thread starter Thread starter bob
  • Start date Start date
B

bob

Some guy in Best Buy was trying to tell me that, if I got a Celeron, I
couldn't play most cool 3d games. Why would this be true?

If I got a 2.8GHz Celeron, I should be able to play recent 3d games,
right?

Thanks.
 
Some guy in Best Buy was trying to tell me that, if I got a Celeron, I
couldn't play most cool 3d games. Why would this be true?

If I got a 2.8GHz Celeron, I should be able to play recent 3d games,
right?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Oh, you'd be able to play them. But the frame rate (the rate that
the screen updates) would be like a slide show. Have a look at
boxes that are designed as gaming platforms, and see what they use
for a processor.

The cheapest gamer here uses a Pentium D 930 dual core at 3GHz.
The Core2 Duo E6400 runs at 2.13GHz and you multiply that number
by about 1.5 to get an "equivalent" speed number of 3.2GHz or
so. The Intel Core2 Extreme processor X6800 at 2.93GHz gives
an equivalent performance of 4.4GHz or more. The video card performance
of each model is scaled to match the higher performance processor.
For smooth Oblivion performance, either of the two systems on the
right would be in order.

http://www.gateway.com/products/gconfig/prodhmseries.asp?seg=hm&gcseries=fx510&clv=LNav

This Dell system has similar options. The P4 670 runs at 3.8GHz.
The Pentium D 930 is a dual core at 3GHz. The Core2 Duo's are
powerful gamers as the examples above show. No Celerons here.

http://www.dell.com/content/product...0?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~section=specs#tabtop

The 7500 gaming machine here uses a Core2 Extreme at 4.4GHz equiv.
http://www.alienware.com/product_pages/desktop_all_default.aspx

It is a shame that this Tomshardware chart doesn't have more
game titles in the charts. There aren't any Celerons in the
charts, but if you were to place a Celeron 2.8GHz on this
chart, it would be at the bottom of the chart. I highlighted
the P4 520 as an example of a 2.8GHz processor, but it has
more cache than a Celeron, which adds 200-300MHz more equiv
performance.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html?modelx=33&model1=433&model2=463&chart=165

I use a P4 2.8GHz to play the Battlefield 2 Demo, and it is
playable, but all video settings must stay at the minimum
detail for it to work. And my monitor is not running at its
native resolution while the game is playing. Using a Celeron
at 2.8GHz might just break that. I think I also tried the Doom3
demo on that machine, and it was unusably slow for a first
person shooter type of game. If you want to enable at least
some of the detail settings in your games, you'll need to
apply a bit more power than a Celeron 2.8.

Paul
 
Some guy in Best Buy was trying to tell me that, if I got a Celeron, I
couldn't play most cool 3d games. Why would this be true?

If I got a 2.8GHz Celeron, I should be able to play recent 3d games,
right?
Click to expand...

It's a complicated equation, A lot comes into play with 3d game
performance. Graphics card, RAM, chipset, drivers, and processor all
matter different degrees to different games. That said, If a game says
it requires p4 2.8 or equvilent, keep in mind that a celeron 2.8 does
NOT equal a p4 2.8. It barely equals a p4 2.0. Maybe a little less.

Best buy advised you truely, If you want to play games, Go with the p4,
and not the celeron.

If you already bought the celeron, you will have to constanltly adjust
system requirements.
 
Some guy in Best Buy was trying to tell me that, if I got a Celeron, I
couldn't play most cool 3d games. Why would this be true?
Click to expand...

It's true because he's pulling your leg to sell the faster
system.


If I got a 2.8GHz Celeron, I should be able to play recent 3d games,
right?
Click to expand...

Yes, though whether it's significantly slower than same
speed & family Pentium depends on where the bottleneck is.
You would have to have a midgrade or better video card in
the system to see a difference on *most* games. Often a
system that comes with a Celeron doesn't have a separate
video card at all, but then some Pentium systems don't
either which seems a bit of a mismatch in some cases.

So if gaming is important, make sure a significant portion
of the budget goes towards the video card... the video will
end up costing more than the CPU for a reasonably balanced
gaming system, but of course you still have to have the
other basics too such as ample memory (1GB is prudent, 2GB
on higher end w/dual-channel).
 
Back
Top