[babytazz]

can someone help me out of the dark with this question. Right now i'm running an 866 MHZ Pentium3. i could have sworn Celeron processors were inferior to a Pentium3 about a year or 2 ago. Now i see Celeron processors in the 2.4+GHZ range. Keeping speeds up with a P4. Now there has to be something i'm missing here. Can i replace my P3 with a faster Celeron or should i shell out the big bucks and go for a P4. I dont really use my computer for much... Occasional Web surfing. online games (not high tech ones... but starcraft and such - older games)... so could someone knock some Processor sense into me?

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Well your P3 will have a different pins arrangement than the celeron or P4 in order to replace the CPU you will have to check your motherboard to see what pin type it supports and find a cpu to match.

[warriorscot]

Well your P3 will have a different pins arrangement than the celeron or P4 in order to replace the CPU you will have to check your motherboard to see what pin type it supports and find a cpu to match.

[Hemal]

Well the p4 would be a big power boost but if you dont want that high preformance out of your PC and want to stick to a budget then a celeron would be ok...just know that if you go with a celeron you will be limited with speed and the power of your PC

[warriorscot]

You will be looking at older P4s so they shouldnt be to pricey although that depends on your socket type alot. Not an intel fan so idont always keep up with them as much as i would like but i thought P3s were alot older than Celerons. But when i got into computers a few years ago the P4s were just out so they were all the buzz and i didnt really look at the older lesser cpus.

I would get a P4 myself because it wont need replacing to soon but if you are going to be replacing your pc within a couple of years you might think celeron on the cheap factor.

[audioboy]

the main difference between pentium and celeron chips is the multimedia functionality. celeron doesnt have any multimedia acceration or instruction sets, where the pentiums have full support for it.
celeron was designed to be a cheaper processor for simple home and office machines, and are great for that, as long as you dont try to do any heavy audio, video, or graphics work on them. they can do these things, but it is painfully slow.

if you simply want to upgrade your cpu, you will need to find what pinout your current cpu is, and what your motherboard will support. chances are you will be pretty limited with an older system like that.

based on what you said you want to do wtih your system, a celeron would be fine, but I would suggest a P4 in the sub-3GHz range. you could buy a whole system for not a lot of money looking in that range.

or if you decide to build, we can help with that too!

[babytazz]

thanks a bunch everyone! great info! now i'm not so in the dark