celeron e1200 vs cel 440.pdf

Celeron E1200: Dual-Core Processor Almost

for Free

On January 20, 2008 Intel starts selling their first dual-core processor in the budget Celeron family. Will this

cause a revolution in the low-end processor market? To answer this question we carried out an extensive test

session of the newcomer in our today’s review.

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

01/14/2008 | 05:11 PM

Last week we started talking about the new processors Intel launched to refresh their product line-up. We

discussed the new Core 2 Duo E8000 processor family also known as Wolfdale. However, these processors

based on new CPU cores manufactured with 45nm process are far not the only new CPUs that we will be talking

about in the near future.

A little later the long awaited quad-core Yorkfield processors should arrive into the market, although in the

meanwhile their mass supplies have been delayed for a couple of months. The changes will also happen in the

low-end market segment. While the top of the price-list will be occupied by the 45nm processors, the older 65nm

cores will be transferred to inexpensive CPUs priced below $150. As a result, we will definitely see new faster

solutions in the Core 2 Duo E4000 and Pentium Dual-Core E2000 processor families.

But this is not all yet. Very soon we will witness another remarkable event: the launch of the first Celeron

processors with two computational cores. So, the price of Intel dual-core solutions will drop to inappropriately

low level of $50, which will indicate full and indisputable victory of the multi-core concept.

X-bit labs - Print version http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/print/celeron-e1200.html

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However, we shouldn’t hold only Intel responsible for introduction of dual-core CPUs into the budget segment of

the processor market. AMD did it a little earlier, as their youngest Athlon 64 X2 CPUs have long been selling at

ridiculously low prices. However, unlike AMD, whose processors have automatically become cheaper because

they couldn’t compete against dual-core processors on Core micro-architecture, Intel introduced inexpensive

dual-core CPUs on purpose having labeled them with the not very encouraging “Celeron” brand name.

Although Celeron processors have long been of no interest to computer enthusiasts, who regarded them as a

temporary “socket cap”, the new dual-core Celeron processors seem to be able to change the situation

dramatically. The thing is that this processor is based on Core micro-architecture (even though its core is

manufactured with not the very latest 65nm process), which implies that it may perform and overclock pretty

decently. Moreover, we know a lot of cases when Celeron processors appeared almost the best solution for

overclocking. Could we be that lucky this time? To answer this question we undertook a small investigation of

our own, which we are going to share with you today.

Better Safe Than Sorry

Intel stuck to its traditional tactics when launching the new Celeron processor on Core micro-architecture. As

always, they did three things when designing a budget CPU from a fully-fledged processor core: reduced the

clock frequency, lowered the bus frequency and made the L2 cache smaller. Moreover, the new Celeron

processor turned out deprived of even more features than the one step higher Pentium Dual Core, which can also

be regarded as a cut-down Core 2 Duo. The clock frequency of the only currently available representative of the

dual-core Celeron processor family – Celeron E1200 – is set at 1.6GHz, the bus frequency – at 800MHz and the

shared L2 cache is 512KB big.

Since there are a lot of processors on Core micro-architecture these days, we put together a table with the

primary specs of the Intel’s dual-core CPU types that should help to avoid confusion:


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Note that Intel is actually shipping only four types of processor semiconductor dies these days: Wolfdale,

Conroe, Allendale and single-core Conroe-L. They manage to ensure greater variety of processor modifications

by combining different pairs of dies, just like with quad-core CPUs, or by disabling part of the cache memory on

the existing semiconductor die. Dual-core Celeron processor is an excellent example of this approach. It is based

on Allendale core that theoretically features 2MB L2 cache, however, only one quarter of this capacity is

available to the user. From the economical prospective unification turned out more efficient than die size

reduction.

However, there is nothing surprising about it, because Intel doesn’t expect this inexpensive dual-core solution to

become popular very rapidly, as it will not terminate the life span of the single-core Celeron processor family on

Conroe-L core. Old single-core budget solutions will be available at least until 2009, and until Q3 2008 they will

continue to dominate over their dual-core counterparts.

Closer Look at Celeron E1200

Since we are very well familiar with the specifications of CPUs on Core micro-architecture, Celeron E1200

specs will seem pretty evident. Smaller L2 cache and reduced clock frequency are the only features

distinguishing this new budget dual-core processor from the Core 2 Duo E4000 and Pentium E2000 CPUs.

The formal specifications of the new Celeron E1200 are given in the table below:

Note that Celeron E1200 brought not only multi-core design but also Enhanced SpeedStep Technology into thebudget processor segment. Although, it may have actually appeared because of the higher TDP of the new

processor: single-core Celeron on Core micro-architecture boasted typical heat dissipation of 35W. The new

dual-core Celeron features the same TDP as the other dual-core Intel CPUs.

Moreover, Celeron E1200 is overall more similar to other dual-core Allendale based processors than to oldersingle-core Celeron CPUs. In particular, it is even based on M0 core stepping that is currently used in Core 2


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Duo E4000 and Pentium E2000 processors. So, we shouldn’t expect the newcomer to work any wonders, really.

Therefore, it is not surprising at all that the dual-core Celeron looks exactly as the Pentium Dual-core. The only

difference is in the marking: the bottom of both processors is identical.

Celeron Dual-core engineering sample: top and bottom

And here is what we get from the informational CPU-Z utility about our new processor:


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We received a pretty interesting dual-core Celeron processor for our tests. It is a unit with E1600 model number

and 2.4GHz clock frequency. However, since Intel’s engineering samples have unlocked clock frequency

multiplier, we set it to 8x to get 1.6GHz frequency that corresponds to that of the only currently available

Celeron mode – E1200. The thing is that the frequencies of dual-core Celeron processors will rise to 2.4GHz

only by the end of the year that is why it doesn’t make much sense to test a processor like that today.

Overclocking

When we discuss Celeron processors, overclocking topic comes up immediately. Of course, on the one hand,

these processors feature very low clock speeds, but on the other, they are based on the same semiconductor dies

as the CPUs from the higher-end families.

To check out the overclocking potential of our Celeron E1200 engineering sample we put together a system

based on Asus P5E mainboards (Intel X38 chipset). It was equipped with two modules of Corsair Dominator

TWIN2X2048-10000C5DF DDR2 SDRAM and OCZ GeForce 8800GTX graphics card. The system also

featured Western Digital WD1500AHFD hard disk drive. To dissipate the processor heat we used Zalman

CNPS9700 LED air cooler.

First of all we decided to find out what would be the maximum frequency for our dual-core Celeron test

processor at nominal voltage, which was in our case equal to 1.28V.


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The CPU overclocked to 2.96GHz. The result is overall quite logical, considering that top processors on M0 core

stepping feature clock frequencies of 2.6GHz.

The second overclocking experiment was performed with the processor Vcore increased to 1.5V.

In this case the CPU remained stable at 3.4GHz frequency. This is a typical and expected result, because the

Core 2 Duo E4000 and Pentium E2000 processors based on the same core overclock to pretty much the same

frequencies. As for the temperature, Celeron CPU working at this speed heated up to 64ºC under full workload.

Note that we overclocked our dual-core Celeron processor with 8x clock frequency multiplier. We chose this


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particular multiplier, because it is standard for the only Celeron E1200 model available in the today’s market.

During this experiment the bus frequency was increased to 425MHz, which is not too high to hit against FSB

Wall.

So, overclocking of dual-core Celeron E1200 processors may bring you doubling of their nominal clock speed,

which is highly positive for its relative performance level. However, you shouldn’t forget that overclocking raises

only clock and bus frequency, but doesn’t allow increasing the L2 cache memory. And it means that the

advantage of overclocked dual-core Celeron processor over higher-end Intel CPUs is quite questionable at this

point. Let’s find out what the real state of things is from our performance tests.

Testbed and Methods

During this test session we decided to check out the performance of the already available dual-core Celeron

E1200 processor and that of the upcoming Celeron E1600 that we managed to get our hands on. We also

couldn’t help testing its performance after overclocking to 3.4GHz (obtained as 8 x 425MHz).

Celeron E1200 will be competing against other CPUs from the same price range: single-core Celeron 440 and

dual-core Athlon 64 X2 4000+ that is currently selling for less than $60.

We have also included faster and more expensive processors into this test session that will help us analyze the

results of the Celeron E1600 and overclocked to 3.4GHz CPU. As a result, we used the following computer

hardware:

AMD Platform:

CPUs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ (Socket AM2, 2.1GHz, 2x512KB L2, Brisbane);

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ (Socket AM2, 2.7GHz, 2x512KB L2, Brisbane).

Mainboard: ASUS M2R32-MVP (Socket AM2, AMD 580X).

Memory: 2GB DDR2-800 with 4-4-4-12-1T timings (Corsair Dominator TWIN2X2048-10000C5DF).

Graphics card: OCZ GeForce 8800GTX (PCI-E x16).

HDD: Western Digital WD1500AHFD (SATA150).

OS: Microsoft Windows Vista x86.

Intel Platform:

CPUs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 (LGA775, 2.66GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 4MB L2, Conroe);

Intel Core 2 Duo E4700 (LGA775, 2.6GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2MB L2, Allendale);

Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 (LGA775, 2.2GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2MB L2, Allendale);

Intel Pentium E2160 (LGA775, 1.8GHz, 800MHz FSB, 1MB L2, Allendale);

Intel Celeron E1600 (LGA775, 2.4GHz, 800MHz FSB, 512KB L2, Allendale);

Intel Celeron E1200 (LGA775, 1.6GHz, 800MHz FSB, 512KB L2, Allendale);

Intel Celeron 440 (LGA775, 2.0GHz, 800MHz FSB, 512KB L2, Conroe-L).

Mainboard: ASUS P5E (LGA775, Intel X38, DDR2 SDRAM).

Memory: 2GB DDR2-800 with 4-4-4-12 timings (Corsair Dominator TWIN2X2048-10000C5DF).

Graphics card: OCZ GeForce 8800GTX (PCI-E x16).

HDD: Western Digital WD1500AHFD (SATA150).

OS: Microsoft Windows Vista x86.

When we measured the performance of the overclocked dual-core Celeron processor its 3.4GHz frequency was

obtained as 8 x 425MHz. The memory in this case was running at 850MHz with 4-4-4-12 timings.

512KB Cache: Is It Really That Bad?

Most computer enthusiasts will hardly take dual-core Celeron seriously because of its considerably less attractive

features than those of the top processors. The biggest cause for concern poses extremely small L2 cache: even

Pentium E2000 processors with 1MB L2 cache yield considerably to fully-fledged Core 2 Duo CPUs in some

applications. So, what can we expect from Celeron that has an even smaller 512KB L2 cache? To estimate how


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the dramatic reduction of the L2 cache size affects the performance of dual-core processors on Core micro-

architecture, we undertook a small test involving Core 2 Duo E6850 processor compared against dual-core

Celeron working at the same clock frequency (3.0GHz = 9 x 333MHz).

It is true, 8 times smaller L2 cache does have a serious effect on the performance. It is especially noticeable in

games, where dual-core Celeron turns out more than 1.5 times slower than its competitor, or to be more exact –

36.6% slower. However, besides games there are very few tasks where the budget processor falls behind as

dramatically. For example, a CPU with 512KB L2 cache is only 15% slower than the CPU with a 4MB L2 cache

during final rendering. In audio and video content encoding tasks the situation is even better: Celeron running at

3GHz speed is only 7% behind Core 2 Duo E6850.

In other words, smaller cache memory is far not a universal means of reducing the performance. While in some

applications the performance may drop significantly, other ones hardly feel it at all. That is why Celeron has not

only smaller L2 cache but also lower clock frequency. These two measures taken at the same time ensure that

the performance of this budget processor will be much lower than that of the mainstream solution.

On the other hand, overclocking may make up for lower clock frequency. And as a result, the new dual-core

Celeron processor may still become a pretty attractive choice for some type of applications that we are going to

single out in the next section of our review.

Performance

General Performance

The SYSmark 2007 benchmark we picked uses typical work scenarios to test the systems performance in the

most popular real applications.


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All in all, the new Celeron E1200 processor turns out much slower than CPUs from other families built on Core

micro-architecture. Even Pentium E2160 priced only $11 more (according to the official price-list), outperforms

dual-core Celeron E1200 by about 17-18% on average. Nevertheless, if we compare the dual-core newcomer

against previous generation Celeron processors featuring only one core, we will definitely see some progress.

Celeron 440 is about 12% slower than the new Celeron E1200. In other words, the transition of budget

processors to dual-core design was right in time, because most contemporary software has already learned to

take advantage of the few computational cores working in parallel.

I would like to stress that the new Celeron E1200 processor runs pretty slow in almost all scenarios. However, in

some cases this processor’s smaller cache has more influence on the performance. For instance, the biggest lag

behind the leaders can be seen in E-Learning scenario that emulates creation of a tutoring web-site with various

media content and in 3D scenario that uses AutoDesk 3ds Max 8 and SketchUp 5 to create an architectural

presentation.

I would also like to point out one more thing to you. Despite the transition of Celeron processors to dual-core

architecture, Athlon 64 X2 will remain very attractive budget solutions. At least in our test session Athlon 64 X2

4000+ is indisputably faster than Celeron E1200, and the upcoming Celeron E1600 cannot outpace Athlon 64

X2 5200+.

3D Games


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The results of the new Celeron E1200 in games should be not very encouraging for the gaming fans. Its

performance is truly below any acceptable level because of the small L2 cache. Even overclocking doesn’t help.

Dual-core Celeron processor working at 3.4GHz performs as fast as Core 2 Duo E4600 with the 2.4GHz nominal

clock speed. So, Celeron E1200 is absolutely not suitable for gaming. Although it is considerably faster than its

predecessor, Celeron 440, Athlon 64 X2 4000+ priced identically can boast a much higher fps level in games

these days.

Media Content Encoding


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The situation with media content encoding is exactly as we have expected. We have already pointed out that

cache memory size doesn’t matter that much in this type of applications. Therefore, the performance of

dual-core Celeron processors is primarily determined by its clock frequency. You can clearly see it from the

results demonstrated by the CPU overclocked to 3.4GHz: it is much faster than even Core 2 Duo E6750.

When working at the nominal 1.6GHz, Celeron E1200 of course cannot compete against its elder brothers with


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higher nominal clock frequencies. However, two computational cores allow it to outperform single-core Celeron

440 on Conroe-L core, and Core micro-architecture ensure great results against the background of Athlon 64 X2

4000+.

Final Rendering


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Dual-core Celeron processor performs quite well during final rendering. Although it yields again to “fully-

fledged” CPUs in performance, overclocking helps it catch up with Core 2 Duo E6750, which is not bad at all.

Other Applications


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The situation in other applications also turns out different. Adobe applications hardly depend on cache memory.

Celeron E1200 is just a little behind its elder counterparts there outperforming Athlon 64 X2 4000+. In

Mathematica Celeron E1200 is defeated by Celeron 440, because this application is not well optimized for

dual-core configurations. And in WinRAR its small L2 cache tells a lot, although the new dual-core Celeron still

manages to outperform its single-core predecessor.


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Conclusion

New Celeron E1200 doesn’t aim too high. It is the slowest dual-core processor in Intel’s today’s lineup. Which is

actually not surprising at all, as it is the cheapest CPU at this time, too. Nevertheless, Intel made a significant

step forward by introducing dual-core architecture into their budget solutions. In most cases Celeron E1200

turned out faster than the top single-core representative of this processor family, Celeron 440. Most software is

already optimized for multi-threaded applications, which allows Celeron E1200 to show its real advantages in

full.

However, despite all those things we have just said we can’t proclaim the new Celeron E1200 the best choice in

its price segment. The thing is that dual-core AMD processors priced the same provide higher performance.

Athlon 64 X2 4000+ outperformed Celeron E1200 in our tests in all tasks except those dealing with image and

video processing that are not sensitive to L2 cache size.

All in all, our measurements suggest that cutting the L2 cache of the dual-core processor down to 512KB does

have a serious negative effect on the performance. And overclocking will not be the remedy in this case.

Although dual-core budget processors from Intel can more than double their speed as a result of successful

overclocking, their gaming performance can hardly hit the level of Core 2 Duo E4600 even at 3.4GHz clock

speed. That is why the new dual-core Celeron processors will hardly be of interest to gaming enthusiasts.

Moreover, for only $11 more you can get Pentium E2160 that can guarantee about 25% faster gaming

experience.

At the same time, the new dual-core Celeron E1200 can find its niche. For example, when overclocked these

processors cope very well with video and audio encoding and pretty well with rendering. That is why dual-core

Celeron processors from the E1000 series can be used in a much broader range of tasks, while their predecessors

could fit only for office and simple home systems.


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celeron e1200 vs cel 440.pdf

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