Celeron D Question

[trusty]

I've searched the forums but came up empty so here goes -

I want to get my 14 year old son a basic gaming system and found some machines out there for around 500 bucks. The thing is, they are all Celeron based.

I've built many machines but they have all been high end AMD or Intel machines. With the economy in the toilet, cash nowadays is thinner than it has been in the past. My question is: Whats the 'skinny' on Celeron procs? My only understanding is they lack math-coprocessing. Even then, I could be wrong.

Will they run today's games with no issues?
Video is onboard, will upgrading to a higher end video cards freak them out?

Just not sure when it comes to Celerons.

Shawn

[saphalline]

The Celeron D is based on the P4's Prescott core, except it only has 256KB of L2 cache, a 533MHz (133MHz quad-pumped) FSB, and no hyper-threading. Those are the only differences. So, what does this mean? :rolleyes:

This means that the Celeron D, being true to its Celeron roots, was designed as a value CPU, but still packs a good punch. For a gaming system on a budget, I think a Celeron D is fine, except for...

Most systems built around a Celeron D are likely to be totally non-upgradable. All of them that I've seen from the big OEM's (Dell, HP, etc) have onboard video, most have no AGP slot, have only 2 slots for RAM (vs 4 for most P4 systems), have smaller wattage PSU's, and otherwise are generally not as good as a P4 machine.

If you can get one customized so that you can upgrade to a P4 and an AGP vid card in the future, I say go for it. There's nothing really wrong with buying a Celeron. But, if you get stuck with a Celeron system from HP, you're sunk! How able are you to attempt to build your son his PC?

[trusty]

Building a machine would be no problem. But what I've been finding is that nowadays, it's cheaper to actually buy a new system! Granted I could probably build one a bit cheaper than most of the high end Dell's HP's etc. But I just wanted to get the skinny on those Celerons.

There is no way I could build a gaming rig for 500 bucks!

I gotta tell ya, the fact that there is no AGP slot in most of those machines concerns me. Thanks for the info!

[saphalline]

There is no way I could build a gaming rig for 500 bucks!
Well now, that depends on what you put in it, what you have laying around, and what Dell would be putting in it. If Dell were to sell you a Celeron D system with 256MB of PC2100 RAM and onboard video, then you could certainly build a comparable one for $500. And if Dell's system didn't have an AGP slot, then the home built one would be infinitely better for gaming.

I just spec'd out a nice Celeron D system with onboard video and 512MB of PC3200 for around $500. Is that good enough for now?