Hello,

Is 1.2 GHz Celeron 256k L2 Cache a server grade processor? - is it acceptable etc. - I know that intels P III 1.2 GHz is better but it's more expensive. Hoping for some input.

Thanks
John

I've heard of people using it. I personly wouldn't. If I had the choice, I would rather go with a Xeon processor. They cost more, but are well worth it. But that is just my opion.

There are celeron's with L2 cache, since when? The whole point of a celeron was removing the l2 cache, and shortern the number of operations per cycle so the chip will use less power and run cooler. If you want to save energy costs then yes by all means go with a celeron...but if you want performance go with the real deal. As I was typing this out I went o the intel site and got some info:

Level 1 Cache: 32K (16K for infrastructure and 16K for data)
Level 2 Cache: 128 KB Advanced Transfer Cache on frequencies 1.10 GHz and below.
256 KB Advanced Transfer Cache on the 1.20 GHz frequency parts

I suggest you read some articles:

Duron Vs. Celeron

http://www.digit-life.com/articles/celeron1300mhz/
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/02q1/020103/
http://www.pcmech.com/show/cpucompare/46/

durons blow celerons out of the water.

heavy celeron reading:
ftp://download.intel.com/design/celeron/datashts/29859604.pdf


celeron vs pii and p4 specs:
http://www.intel.com/home/desktop/comparison.htm

good benchmark: - read-
http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1622&p=5

amd's version:
http://athlonxp.amd.com/compareThePerformance/index.jsp

My suggestion is you go with a real p3/4 or even better with an amd athlon xp :D

Unless you have a really CPU-intensive application, you can't go wrong with any current Intel or AMD chip. While the Celeron is the slowest of the current choices, at 1.2GHz, even a Celeron is blazingly fast. Your performance worries should be focused on disk I/O, memory and bandwidth.

Unless you have a really CPU-intensive application, you can't go wrong with any current Intel or AMD chip. While the Celeron is the slowest of the current choices, at 1.2GHz, even a Celeron is blazingly fast. Your performance worries should be focused on disk I/O, memory and bandwidth. Ah, finally, a voice of reason. Good recommendation. Unfortunately, overkill seems to be the norm around here.

Thanks for all the input :D - I've been told since that the main difference between the celeron and a P3/P4 processor is it is lacking the cache which is mostly used for gaming, sounds, and sometime program compiling which none of these will be done frequently on my server - so it'll probably do it for now.

John

Originally posted by PixyMisa
Unless you have a really CPU-intensive application, you can't go wrong with any current Intel or AMD chip. While the Celeron is the slowest of the current choices, at 1.2GHz, even a Celeron is blazingly fast. Your performance worries should be focused on disk I/O, memory and bandwidth.

Not necessarily when it comes to Win2K servers. In our experience, any Celeron even the new 478 pin 256K cache showed significantly poorer performance on a loaded Win2K Server than the Pentium III Tualatin 1.2 GHz. Our cost for a Celeron 478 pin 1.2 GHz is $94.00; P-III Tualatin 1.2 GHz is $116.00. To us the $22 difference is no big deal, when it comes to deploying a server for a customer who is going to generate a $2400 Annual Revenue!

For us it is just P-3 and P-4. If you are planning to use Windows, my receommendation is to avoid Celeron. BTW, Intel just released P4 based Server boards with integrated RAID!!

The article dk2 linked above from tomshardware.com states


Compiling Linux: Suse Linux 7.3 / Kernel 2.4.13

Celeron 1300
==================== 263 Seconds
Celeron 1200
===================== 279 Seconds
Duron 1200
========================= 314 Seconds

time in seconds "less is better" (click link to see actual graph) (http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/02q1/020103/images/image020.gif)

When it comes to compiling the latest Linux kernel, the Celeron 1300 is several steps ahead of the competition from AMD. It needs a mere 263 seconds, whereas the Duron 1200 needs 314 seconds to compile the same kernel.

Get a Duron if you want to put a Geforce 4 in your server and play quake on it.

*BUT*

If your want to have a stable server that doesn’t over heat then your best bet is with Intel.



;)

We have quite a few servers running W2K server on Celeron 600-800s and they work fairly well. It is all relative to the amount of traffic and scripting you use and also depends on the server's use.

I think they will do their job for simple static requests and normal mail traffic, but if you want to host dynamic webpages, run mysql-servers or something else you should invest the 100 bucks and buy a Tualatin...

Andre

Both with amd and intel. The more expensive models are just a little bit more than the cheaper models ( celeron, duron ) so you could just spend a little bit more for peace of mind of having more cache on the processor.

But I think the Duron would be a better solution than the Celeron. You only may get a problem if you want to put the Duron in a 1u case because amd cpu´s get really hot in these small cases.

dk2: The Celeron has had an L2 cache since the Celeron 300MHz A. And, no, the point of the celeron was not to remove the cache to reduce power consumption, etc.

The point of the Celeron was to reduce cost. With the original PIII, Intel had to attach the CPU core to an external board where the cache was stored. If there was a problem with this process, then they had to throw the whole thing out. Often times, the problem was with the connection to the cache -- some of the cache worked properly, and some didn't. Thus the Celeron was born -- if the problem was with the cache, disable half of it, and sell the part as a 'low end' processor!

This continued with the modern Pentiums, even though the cache is on board -- a lot of the cache can still go bad during the fab process, and instead of throwing out all such parts, recycle some of them into lower end products!

Enough with the history lesson, and on to the real question -- will a Celeron work with a server? Sure. A Celeron is just a PIII with less cache.

But, unlike nogi said, it's not only important for multimedia stuff. Really, how much cache you will benefeit from depends on the working data set your application has. A small mathematical program which executes the same instructions over and over again doesn't need a huge cache, because most of the program will fit in a smaller one just fine.

However, servers are generally exactly the opposite -- most servers have large data sets, and this is why all the processors marketed as "server class" tend to have large caches. Look at Xeons, UltraSparcs, etc -- 2-8MB of L2 full speed cache is expensive, but quite common.

That being said, most people will do just fine with the 256KB on a modern Celeron -- Yes, there IS a difference when benchmarking, but benchmarks are unimportant -- will YOU notice the difference in production? For most people, the answer is no. Only people with the most demanding applications and/or highest loads are going to really see it.