hello i was hoping some one could explain some thing to me i have a friend who keeps saying you should of brought a "pentium 4" well i did not iv got what according to him is a very basic & simple computer it is an intel celeron the motherboard is a "648 max (ms-6585) i have a "nvidia-geforce 2" graphics card my question is how do you decide what a good computer is i thought my very basic & simple computer was fairly decent am i wrong to think that what is so special about a "pentium 4" surely there must be a way to shut him up.

pentium 4's are a lot faster but unless you're playing really new games that require good graphics cards and fast processors, you're fine. i bet your friend uses windows, in which case he or she has got to have a fast processor for it to even work alright. that's the beauty of linux - you don't have to have a new computer and it'll run just as fast as a new computer on windows if you configure linux right.

as a general rule of thumb, the more expensive the computer, the better it is.

Just as sether said. P4 is much better than a Celeron but if your not Gaming or video editing or something like that and just doing basic websurfing and worprocessing then a celeron is just fine.

A P4 (or P3) works out about 40-50% faster than a celeron for the same clock speed. But if you want a hot games box then AMD is a good way to go

As said, it depends on what you want to do with it... My wife in happy with her celeron 666, but my daughter's p3-550 is faster - tho I don't think she would notice. One son has a celeron 1000 which work okay and is about the same speed as my pentium 3-700. The older son wanted a hotter box and has an AMD 2400+ which is quite quick.

As said, you get what you pay for, tho at times you can pay too much for cheap hardware. Celeron's are a lot cheaper than a P4... But AMD, esp the new semprons but even the XP's, are better value IMO.

I think AMD processors are good for gaming. At least I've heard a lot of people say so. But they have that nasty habit of overheating especially if you're living in a warm climate.

I've never used an Intel product in my life (except my first computer waaay back in time which was a 80486 machine with a 630 MB hard disk and 4MB RAM ) so I cannot speak for the Pentium 4s.

I have always had Pentium Processors, from my old Compaq 166 MHZ to my Pentium IV - 2GHZ. Never have had a single problem with any of those machines. One of them, a Dell with P2 - 400 MHZ not even has a fan.

I have also a AMD Duron 800 MHZ. That machine has given me nothing but problems and had to be replaced twice because the mother board or the processor had burned. Luckily, I had warranty.

Now, I'm not saying to do not buy an AMD, but as Harishankar said, make sure to have a good cooling system... which I didn't with my Duron...

My AMD Athlon XP 2600+ at 1667 MHz runs constantly at a temperature between 60-70 degrees celcius. Now that is hot by what a lot of people say. Luckily, till now, (by the grace of God) I haven't had any problems related to the CPU till now.

It's difficult to switch from P4 to Athlon XP or vice versa later because once you buy your motherboard, it's built for only a particular type of CPU. So once you buy a Mobo with an Athlon socket, you cannot buy a P4 or vice versa.

In my opinion, the most careful choice one must make when buying a PC is not your processor but your motherboard.

The cooling thing is old news now. The new athlons run a lot cooler, and the new semprons use less watts then the celerons. The p4 is the new hot boy I think

Temp isn't a big worry these days... Unless you overclock maybe.

Note that all the PC's in this house - like 8 - are pentium and celeron - from 166 to 350 to 550 to 700 to 1000 etc... but the latest box was a AMD and well worth it. My next upgrades will all be AMD for a while til intel sorts itself out a bit - esp re future 64 bit and such.

Anyway, I don't think the original poster wants any advice about AMD.

I think the question is more about Celeron vs. P4.

No doubt P4 wins out in terms of performance and Celeron wins in terms of economy. It all depends on which of the two you want.

"My AMD Athlon XP 2600+ at 1667 MHz runs constantly at a temperature between 60-70 degrees celcius. Now that is hot by what a lot of people say. Luckily, till now, (by the grace of God) I haven't had any problems related to the CPU till now."

The last 2600 I built runs about 40-50 in the tropics while gaming without major cooling. I think you need a better cooling system - tho it will run at that temp fine.

I got the impression he just wanted to shut his friend up about 'PENTIUM 4's' and a good way to do that might be to say AMD is better anyway

As for celeron economy, yes I think it works that way if a P4 is twice the price for just 50% more performance... But you still probably get better value with a sempron.

amosf are you saying a pentium 3 is even better than my celeron when i brought this comp
the book that came with it says "msi mainboard designed for intel pentium 4 processors"
i took that to mean my celeron was on par with the "p4" i guess iv still got a way to go befor im a computer genius thanks 4 ur replys

I think it's exaggerating to claim that a P3 competes with a modern Celeron. I don't think they're that bad. Just think of them as what they are: cut-down P4s. They have less cache and probably a slower bus speed. One thing's for sure: the price difference is *much* greater than the performance difference. Celerons are good value.

No, Nobody said a P3 was better than a p4 based celeron. You can only compare CPU's of the same or similar freqency... ie a P3-700 = celeron 1000. Likewise a 2.4gig P4 might be 40-50% faster than a 2.4gig celeron. My last point was that sempron of the same performance would be better value.