[plug] Celeron vs Duron

[Dennis Plester]

Mike wrote:

>But you never said why he wanted to upgrade. The days when nonone ever had
a fast enough PC are history. Are you sure >the CPU is a priority?  First
consider more memory, if its swapping.

>Maybe get a bigger screen, faster 3D card, or DSL modem?
>Then if it aint broke ...
>[sorry I cant comment on Celeron/Duron :( ]

Just to clarify in response to Mike's questions,

My mate has 256 MB RAM and a GeForce2 GTS in this PC, piped into a 19"
monitor. There is no swapping, the monitor is amply sized and his 3D card is
the second fastest consumer card in existence (after the GeForce2
Ultra/Pro). With this config, there are still games that can not be run at
full detail as the 3D card is CPU bottlenecked, which we confirmed with some
simple benchmarks. (All the GeForce 2 cards only start to become CPU limited
in the 900 - 1000 MHz range in terms of Intel CPUs). As an example, No One
Lives Forever will only run full graphics and physics detail on a 700 MHz
CPU or greater without significant slowdown. Hitman is similar. There are a
number of new titles coming for both Win9x and Linux that will require these
faster CPUs for full detail, like Q3 Team Arena. Perhaps I should have spelt
this out earlier!

In response to the why upgrade query? When you are a LAN gaming, first
person shooter freak, your frame rate can never be fast enough...

Anyone out there who can comment from experience?

Dennis.