Re: [gentoo-user] OT worth upgrading hardware ?

[Folken <folken@chaostreff.ch>]

On Sun, Oct 02, 2005 at 08:12:56AM +0100, Dave S wrote:
 
> The GHz sound impressive but I know neither chip is a very powerful, I 
> believe they 'water down' the internals !. I cant find anywhere a 
> comparison between my PIII & these two possibilitys.

I found a comparision between (almost) your target cpus: 
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=61

(note the celeron is actually the 2.8 GHz Model) 

> My PIII is old technology, these two are newer technology with faster 
> clock speeds but engineered to a price, would the speed increase be 
> noticeable ? Any comments ?

The 512 MB Ram will defently noticeable when you work with KDE. KDE is
very ram hungry and I wouldn't recommend to run it with less than 512.
(Although speed / memory consumption seem to have improved miles with
the latest versions of kde)

> Intel Celeron 2.4GHz 128K 400MHz Socket 478 CPU OEM - 512MB RAM
> AMD Sempron 2800+ 2.0GHz (333FSB) 256K Cache Socket A OEM - 512 MB RAM

As to the processors, I'd go for the Sempron. Celerons are IMO castraded
pentiums and really not great for compiler runs. The halved L1 cache
really hits on the performance in general. Since you are on a contrained
budget I'd even more strongley urge you to amd, since they usually give
you more performance for the buck.  

(That being said.. i'm no fan of intel. Therefore take this with a grain
of salt.)  

Oh btw.. you may ignore GHz numbers now.. they are no longer an
indicator of how "fast" processors are.  

- Folken
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