Celeron, Duron, or Samuel II

I dunno...I get the feeling that the low-cost PC arena has kind of reached critical mass. There are a whole lot of $400 machines out there right now, and with the MSN internet rebate, they're basically free. Would cutting the cost from $400 to $200 make that much of a difference?

Another point: I have a hard time seeing how costs could realistically be cut down to $200. The only way I could see it happening would be on a very very stripped down computer (running an alternative OS with no floppy, integrated everything and a small hard drive). And that, to me, sounds an awful lot like one of these "Internet Appliances" that companies keep releasing but no one is buying. That said, I think that market is where you'll be seeing Sammy the most.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Arcadian:
Well something that interested me concerning VIA's new chip is a proposed system that will cause in total $199. Even if it performs like crap, I think a lot of people will be interested in buying something that dirt cheap. What do you think?

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Before we look at specs lets look at the three companies first. Intel has made a few blunders as of recent and has shown that even giants can easily mess up. Their chip the Celeron, was a big marketing tool and for awhile it worked. But it has been left alone for the most part, while Intel looks at bigger things. For that reason the Celeron will not be king of value cpus. Via a big mobo maker is using its reputation as a good chipset maker to gain support for their chip. But Via to me at least is not making a good move, why alienate AMD and Intel just to make a value cpu. Also Via is not a cash cow like AMD and Intel so they wont be able to sustain a successful aggressive campaign against AMD and Intel. Now this brings us to AMD, who has been given some advantages through Intel's blunders. AMD was able to use this to further their consumer base and to jockey themselves into a neck and neck tie with Intel. This is why AMD will be the champ of the value cpu market. Again these are just my views.

Duo

Quote:

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Originally posted by Arcadian:
Well something that interested me concerning VIA's new chip is a proposed system that will cause in total $199. Even if it performs like crap, I think a lot of people will be interested in buying something that dirt cheap. What do you think?

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WOW! That's quite a pricepoint https://www.sharkyforums.com/images/.../2005/06/5.gif It would be nice to have internet access in a few other areas in my home - bathroom, kitchen, etc.. https://www.sharkyforums.com/images/.../2005/06/6.gif

I was at Best Buy the other day and saw that Compaq iPac(?) - they want $ 600.00 for that tiny thing with limited functionality - probably mostly for the LCD cost..

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If all of the information that Tom Pasbt (sp?) has had on his website on the Samuel I and II is correct, it is below the Celeron performance in practically every single benchmark. It's FPU, in the tradition of Cyrix, is pitiful. It's integer is okay, but not impressive. In the extremely cheap pc (sub $500) realm, it might not be bad, but I sure wouldn't buy a system built around it.

The Celeron II could be saved from some of the wrath that it has be receiving from all of the online reviews if it receives a boost to it's FSB. This will give it a significant boost to its performance, but it has not been able to consitently defeat the Duron at similar clock speeds. Sometimes, it will lose to a lower clocked Duron, especially in the FPU benchmarks. This does not bode well for those of us who actually read and look at benchmarks. It's price is also considerably higher than the Duron. Not good....

The Duron, as has been shown and cheered about all over the web, is currently the low-cost performance champ. This is not in dispute. Performance-wise, I don't think that the Duron will lose to the Celeron anytime soon, especially on a clock-to-clock basis. Now, the Duron has two primary problems that is being held against it.
1) The lack of an inexpensive integrated motherboard with very good stability. This is what OEM's are looking for. If this condition was met, we'd see the Duron name splashed on a great number of non-Dell boxes. https://www.sharkyforums.com/images/.../2005/08/2.gif
2) Name recognition, or the lack thereof. People know the name Intel, and apparently think that automatically means a really good and great performing chip. While this was true, the Celeron is now showing its slacking performance to anyone who is willing to look and listen. The general public does not want or simply will not do this research, otherwise the T-Bird would be backordered in the order of months.

Now that is out of the way, my personal feelings is that the Celeron will be the low-cost champ in the next year, or at least part of it. The Duron will be the performance low-cost champ, but I believe that the Celeron will be much more prevalent (sp?) in the low-cost sector. It makes me sad to say this, but I believe that this is the way that it will be. I do not think that the Samuel II has even a snowball's chance in hell or even a snowball's chance on the hot side of a 2000W peltier.

I will still sit back and cheer on the Duron though. Go AMD!

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"I don't think so", said Rene Descart. Just then, he disappeared.

is that 200 bucks with the monitor? thats a deal that i would take in a second, even if it is a via/cyrix chip inside.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by zombor:
is that 200 bucks with the monitor? thats a deal that i would take in a second, even if it is a via/cyrix chip inside.

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Man, $200 for an entire computer. Jeeze, I just blew $300 for a video card....

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"I don't think so", said Rene Descart. Just then, he disappeared.

Quote:

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Originally posted by zombor:
is that 200 bucks with the monitor? thats a deal that i would take in a second, even if it is a via/cyrix chip inside.

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I don't think so. But I have seen 15" monitors at Best Buy for $100 after rebate. So it's possible that total system cost for the VIA system would be on the order of $300-$350. Not bad if you already own a computer and just want a second online station like Adisharr was saying. Also, there are tons of people that are simply looking for a dirt cheap internet terminal (they are not interested in lots of programs or games... they just want the cheapest online possible). These are the people that will be buying the VIA system.

It depends. The Duron easily beats the Celeron clock for clock, and if you have an unlocked Duron with a mobo that is able to adjust the multiplier clock, you can get 300-350 more mhz out of it. I haven't heard much about VIA's Samuel II (does the "II" indicate there has been another Samuel?) but if its only $199 there will be a few ways to look at it.
1) This is a piece of crap computer that I have to stay away from - a techie or gamer will mostly follow this rule.
2) "Let's get this computer for Billy's 7th birthday!"
3)We can't afford a $1,000+ computer, lets go with this because its within our budget.
In other words, I'm saying that it will appeal to some people, but definitely not all.

Keep talking: I don't have much money
or a fast computer . I don't have the brains
or education you guys have but I am learning
a lot about computers from you. My next
computer (mine is about 5 years old)will be
bought from information found here.Just wanted to say Im here watching the few people posting to this forum and have been for some time now . Bet a lot of other people are too.
Keep talking and Thanks for the info

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Make your own path and let him follow you.

i honestly think most of you are cuttting the VIA chip no slack.. i mean do you have any clue how a processor would perform with a chipset made to meet its exact needs. i mean, right now VIA is making chipsets for intel boards, and most the board manufacturers are just making generic chipsets that take both celerons and p2/p3's or some boards are for athlon/duron, etc... now what about the next VIA CPU... it will be closely coupled with a motherboard chipset made for it... Granted, intel makes most the chipsets for their boards, but they have so many CPU's it has to be backward compatible with.

I still wont look down on the VIA CPU till i see how it actually performs...

Quote:

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Originally posted by CaTaLyST:
i honestly think most of you are cuttting the VIA chip no slack.. i mean do you have any clue how a processor would perform with a chipset made to meet its exact needs. i mean, right now VIA is making chipsets for intel boards, and most the board manufacturers are just making generic chipsets that take both celerons and p2/p3's or some boards are for athlon/duron, etc... now what about the next VIA CPU... it will be closely coupled with a motherboard chipset made for it... Granted, intel makes most the chipsets for their boards, but they have so many CPU's it has to be backward compatible with.

I still wont look down on the VIA CPU till i see how it actually performs...

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I just wanted to say thanks, CaTaLyST, for being the first administrator to respond in this forum https://www.sharkyforums.com/images/.../2005/06/5.gif. You guys should have the most current opinions to technology discussed here, and as a result I would like to hear your opinions. You should reply to more of the posts here, too, and encourage the other administrators to respond as well.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Galen_of_Edgewood:
If all of the information that Tom Pasbt (sp?) has had on his website on the Samuel I and II is correct, it is below the Celeron performance in practically every single benchmark. It's FPU, in the tradition of Cyrix, is pitiful. It's integer is okay, but not impressive. In the extremely cheap pc (sub $500) realm, it might not be bad, but I sure wouldn't buy a system built around it.

The Celeron II could be saved from some of the wrath that it has be receiving from all of the online reviews if it receives a boost to it's FSB. This will give it a significant boost to its performance, but it has not been able to consitently defeat the Duron at similar clock speeds. Sometimes, it will lose to a lower clocked Duron, especially in the FPU benchmarks. This does not bode well for those of us who actually read and look at benchmarks. It's price is also considerably higher than the Duron. Not good....

The Duron, as has been shown and cheered about all over the web, is currently the low-cost performance champ. This is not in dispute. Performance-wise, I don't think that the Duron will lose to the Celeron anytime soon, especially on a clock-to-clock basis. Now, the Duron has two primary problems that is being held against it.
1) The lack of an inexpensive integrated motherboard with very good stability. This is what OEM's are looking for. If this condition was met, we'd see the Duron name splashed on a great number of non-Dell boxes. https://www.sharkyforums.com/images/.../2005/08/2.gif
2) Name recognition, or the lack thereof. People know the name Intel, and apparently think that automatically means a really good and great performing chip. While this was true, the Celeron is now showing its slacking performance to anyone who is willing to look and listen. The general public does not want or simply will not do this research, otherwise the T-Bird would be backordered in the order of months.

Now that is out of the way, my personal feelings is that the Celeron will be the low-cost champ in the next year, or at least part of it. The Duron will be the performance low-cost champ, but I believe that the Celeron will be much more prevalent (sp?) in the low-cost sector. It makes me sad to say this, but I believe that this is the way that it will be. I do not think that the Samuel II has even a snowball's chance in hell or even a snowball's chance on the hot side of a 2000W peltier.

I will still sit back and cheer on the Duron though. Go AMD!

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I'm new in the 'Highly Technical' forum, so bear with me https://www.sharkyforums.com/images/.../2005/06/5.gif

I'd agree with most everything Galen_of_Edgewood said here... but, there are a couple things wrong or that i just disagree with in what he said. Everything he said about the Samuel II is fine. Its between the Celeron and Duron where i think there needs to be some adjustments https://www.sharkyforums.com/images/.../2005/06/5.gif

First, he said that if the Celeron II got a boost in FSB, the performance still wouldnt quite match that of a Duron. And, the price for the Duron is still less than a Celeron (or any Intel for that matter). So far, so good.

When he talked about the Duron, he said that the two problems with the Duron. He said that the Duron doesnt have a low-cost, stable, integrated board. Well, Amptron and Alton (Daughter companies of PC-Chips) both make an inexpensive, integrated, and stable board called the 805L. I sell many of these boards and i havent had any calls back about them, meaning that they are working. Second, you said that the Duron wont be the low-cost performance champ because it isnt recognized. Well, i agree and disagree with you. People (usually ones that dont know much about performance and computers in general) just naturally go towards Intel just because of their recognizable name. But, i think the Duron is where AMD gets its name up there. In the next year, AMD's name will rise up to Intel's because of their newer processors that are out and still coming out. Especially in the low-cost performance area, i think that AMD will rise above the rest... once people open their eyes https://www.sharkyforums.com/images/.../2005/06/5.gif

.02 https://www.sharkyforums.com/images/.../2005/06/6.gif

TJ

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If anyone knows where this Sam2 is coming from it might be you, Catalyst. If it's the same as that Centaur garbage, then I'll be sceptical until I see otherwise. good point with the chipset though... that will be interesting.

Depending on advertising and general awareness the Duron will be the king of the cheapies. It has superior architecture all around. If the masses continue to assume intel is the best because they see the intel name the most then the Celery will have a chance.

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killing all those who opposed them.

i got a question:
what advanced features (mmx, SSE, 3dNow, ect) will the samuel have, and how much of an affect will this have on benchmarks.

also, if q3a works better on Intel machines because of the fact that the compiler prefers them, shouln't ID release seperate versions for AMD and Intel chips (they could go in the same box)?

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Hey now guys...aren’t we being a little tough on the new kid? He hasn't even arrived on the block and he's got a bloody nose that his cousin (Cyrix) gave him.
In all seriousness it wasn't that long ago that this discussion couldn't have existed because there was only one contender. I was skeptical that AMD could catch Intel and they proved me, and a whole lot of others, wrong. Sure maybe sammy II won't beat the Durons or the Celerons, but who knows what time will bring.
It'll be interesting to see another chipmaker in this. More competition is good for everyone (except maybe Bill Gates).

With that said, I really don't see how it could be possible for via to play with the big boys this year. If they hit it big with the Internet appliances then maybe they'll be more inclined to up R&D and go after AMD and Intel. Of course all that takes years, but in this business a lot can happen in a few years.
Just my thoughts...