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Intel%squots Celeron-266: Great Price, But Weak Performance

Intel is battling to take control of the entry-level PC desktop market. But if Andy Grove wins, you could lose.

By Bill Snyder, PCWorld   

Intel hopes that will change beginning April 15, when the company introduces the Celeron, a stripped-down Pentium II-class chip aimed squarely at the fast-growing market for entry-level PCs. The good news: Continued competition at the high and low ends of the market will force manufacturers to slash prices and push performance further. The bad news: Celeron falls short of the mark.

The new chip, whose name is based on the word celerity (a fancy synonym for speed), will be rushed out of the factory to hold off cheap CPUs from rival chip makers Advanced Micro Devices, Cyrix, and Centaur. But the first road test of the processor, by the PC World Test Center, indicates that Intel%squots rivals are still ahead. Simply put, the Celeron fails to live up to its name.

PC World obtained a preproduction PC built around a 266-MHz Celeron with 64MB of system memory and an 8MB video card; it%squots expected to sell for under $1000. We measured it against a range of systems--some with less main memory--and found that the Celeron%squots performance on business applications didn%squott match the promise of its high clock speed. (The system%squots manufacturer asked to remain anonymous.)

Celeron Tanks in Testing

The Celeron system earned a PC WorldBench 98 score of only 106, compared to the 126 posted by a similarly configured PC using a 233-MHz K6 chip from AMD, which is widely available in $999 systems. The Celeron system%squots performance on business applications was worse than that of low-price Cyrix-based systems and systems running on the chip the Celeron is meant to supplant--Intel%squots Pentium MMX-233, which can be found in PCs costing about $1100. In fact, the Celeron could barely keep pace with PCs running on Intel%squots PMMX-200, which is used in systems that cost as little as $799.

In fairness, we should note that our tests were conducted on one early Celeron-based system. Its chip was very close to the final version, but sources close to Intel say that the shipping version of the chip may offer somewhat better performance.

Anybody Home?

When sales of sub-$1000 PCs started to skyrocket, Intel realized it needed to find a way to compete in an area it had previously ignored. But finding the right recovery strategy hasn%squott been easy. Intel got caught in the midst of moving its entire product line from the familiar pin and socket arrangement to a more complex (and proprietary) set of cartridge-based designs. The new arrangement--called Slot 1 and Slot 2, and first used by the Pentium II--mounts the CPU on a card inside the cartridge.

Observers disagree about why Intel chose to adopt this design. Intel and some independent analysts contend that Socket 7, the old arrangement, had become a roadblock to increased system performance. Skeptics reply that Socket 7 had plenty of life left and suggest that the main reason Intel moved to Slot 1 was to make life difficult for the competition--which it did.

Locked out of Slot 1 by a web of patents, AMD and Centaur (Cyrix has the right to license Slot 1 technology) find themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to depend on a rapidly shrinking universe of motherboard and chip-set makers willing to support Socket 7. And they have to convince PC makers that supporting two different basic designs is worthwhile.

From Pentium II to Celeron

Enter Celeron, which is based on the same form factor as Pentium II. In essence, Celeron is a Pentium II-266 that fits into a Slot 1. But to save money, Intel removed the outer package and dispensed with the original chip%squots secondary cache. That will allow Intel to sell the chip to computer vendors for $155 when it ships in volume this spring, compared to the current price of $375 for a true 266-MHz Pentium II. But there%squots a performance trade-off.

Secondary cache is an extra bit of memory outside the core of the CPU. Composed of chips faster than those in main memory, it gives the CPU a place to look for data before having to search in main memory. Without the secondary cache, system performance drops dramatically--as we found on our PC WorldBench 98 suite of business productivity tests.

PC World has not yet tested the Celeron on multimedia tasks using sound, graphics, and video. Intel maintains that its performance in those areas should be relatively better than its business productivity performance because the chip retains design features that make the Pentium II a strong choice for multimedia.

But Celeron-based PC buyers should not plan on upgrading a Celeron system to a standard Pentium II: The Pentium II cartridge won%squott fit on the new Micro ATX motherboard that will ship with most Celeron systems.

The Bargain War

Meanwhile, AMD expects to roll out a new chip to compete against mainstream Pentium IIs: The K6-3D will debut at 300 MHz and reach 350 MHz and possibly 400 MHz by the end of the year. Cyrix, now part of National Semiconductor, will keep building highly integrated versions of its low-cost MediaGX chips, pushing them into the lowest end of the market.

Even as the battle for the low-end consumer market unfolds, Intel and its two main competitors will be fighting on a second front: high-end systems equipped with a 100-MHz system bus. So the stage is set for a crucial battle. If AMD and Cyrix actually deliver the products on their respective road maps, the outcome could be a big win for consumers. If not, only the paranoid may survive.

For the complete story, see Bill Snyder%squots %dquotIntel%squots Celeron-266: Great Price, But Weak Performance%dquot in May%squots PC World magazine.