Computer speed

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jmonahan

Can someone give me a comparison of an Athalon XP 2800 and my celeron
466? What I am asking is the Athalon 6 times (approx) faster or is
the 2800 merely marketing hype? If so, what would be a fail
comparison to my 466? I am tryiing to get my head around what to
expect from an total upgrade, and what to upgrade to. I don't have
unlimited finances, but I would like some newer toys.
Thanks,
Jim
 
Can someone give me a comparison of an Athalon XP 2800 and my celeron
466? What I am asking is the Athalon 6 times (approx) faster or is
the 2800 merely marketing hype? If so, what would be a fail
comparison to my 466? I am tryiing to get my head around what to
expect from an total upgrade, and what to upgrade to. I don't have
unlimited finances, but I would like some newer toys.
Click to expand...

Uhm... moving from a 466Celeron to an AMD 2800 is a COMPLETE replacement...
I guess you could keep the floppy drive. The hard drive will be SLOW but
most likely still work, as would the CD. Not much else though.

The speed difference will be night vs. day...
 
Can someone give me a comparison of an Athalon XP 2800 and my celeron
466? What I am asking is the Athalon 6 times (approx) faster or is
the 2800 merely marketing hype? If so, what would be a fail
comparison to my 466? I am tryiing to get my head around what to
expect from an total upgrade, and what to upgrade to. I don't have
unlimited finances, but I would like some newer toys.
Thanks,
Jim
Click to expand...


Yes, for CPU intensive tasks it will be multiple times,
sometimes a little under 6X but others over 6X faster.

However, for most common tasks (especially considering how
old your system is) the more significant factor is how much
memory the system has, but especially the hard drive speed.

So far as what to upgrade to, it depends quite a bit on the
budget. If you're not doing anything particularly demanding
(which I presume not, having a Celeron 466 box at the
moment), you'd find any modern system leaps and bounds
faster, but might not fully reap the benefits of, say an
Athlon XP3200 opposed to an XP2500. For typical
office/email/websurfing, adding a new hard drive to your old
system would negate a lot of the performance difference, an
entirely new box might only feel 2-3X faster at the most
common of tasks, and yet, given a system that no longer
takes ages to do something more demanding you may find
yourself doing more.

On the other hand if you're inclined to again use the system
for several years, it might be best to spend a bit more for
a PCI Expess based platform, as it will have more support
for future upgrades (if needed/desired) and may come with
more features built in. Again the budget must be considered
and even so there's no easy answer there except that, yes,
you'll certainly benefit with multiple times your current
performance levels.
 
Thanks korny, that's what I wanted to know. I know I have a dinosaur
but I have been reading some of the posts, and I got the impression
that the numbers following the AMD chips, ie XP2600, weren't really
describing a chip running at 2.6ghz, but something else. I see that
the FSB can greatly affect the computer benchmark as can the video
card depending on what the program is.
Thanks Again,
Jim
 
Thanks korny, that's what I wanted to know. I know I have a dinosaur
but I have been reading some of the posts, and I got the impression
that the numbers following the AMD chips, ie XP2600, weren't really
describing a chip running at 2.6ghz, but something else. I see that
the FSB can greatly affect the computer benchmark as can the video
card depending on what the program is.
Thanks Again,
Jim
Click to expand...

yes, the Athlon XP nomenclature is meant to be a performance
index. Originally it was claimed to compare to the older
Athlon Thunderbird, because the XP chips had higher
performance per same MHz speed. It was also used by some
(rightly so) to contrast that per each MHz, an Athlon does
more "work" than a P4. As the P4 Mhz were so much higher
and the areas in which each excelled where different, the
end result was mostly one of it being a marketing tool to
use the XP naming scheme instead of straight MHz names.

FSB is indeed a performance factor, but with each generation
of CPUs having higher performance themselves, the FSB also
goes up, not always proportionally but somewhat in line with
the chipsets and memory of the era can support. Generally
speaking it's best to just buy the newest technology that
the budget allows, which would generally have the highest
FSB among same price tiers (a consideration since the budget
CPUs run on slower FSB even when they're new models).
 
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