Celeron/Pentium/Athalon/Duron and Centrino .. WHAT?

Question

Hello there everyone im trying to learn more about computers. i want to buy a new laptop and am trying to figure out if someone can explain to me the difference between Celeron, Pentium, Athalon, and Duron. I have no idea what the differences in them is. I just know when i bought my 1st one 2 years ago i thought Pentium was the best cause i had heard from someone (who knew nothing about computers) that its the fastest, now is that true?? i dont know thats why im hoping you guys can help me understand the differences between them.

Also another thing what is Centrino>>? i heard something about it dealing with wireless netwoking but im not sure so if someone can explain theat to me also that would be AWSOME!!

PLease serious answers. its really important for me to find out the differences in them. Thank you guys for your time. i hope you guys can help me understand the differences. Thanks again! :]

Answer 1

There is a ton of info all over the net, but for starters, Wikipedia is a good place to learn the basic differences. Go to www.wikipedia.org and search on each term. You'll find a good summary, and some entries will describe a comparison or two between the types you mentioned.

In general, The Pentium and Athlon are the top models from Intel and AMD respectively. The Celeron is like the Pentium, except that it is the cheaper version with less bells and whistles. The Duron is the same way to the Athlon, and was recently replaced by the Sempron. It's more complex than that, of course, but that's the general idea. Many users are happy with their Celerons, Durons, or Semprons when their main use of a PC is to surf the web or use Microsoft Office. Power users, on the other hand, will actually care about the difference a Pentium or Athlon makes in other areas such as video editing or gaming.

The Centrino is a mobile CPU (real name is Pentium M). It's actually an old Pentium III that has been redeveloped by Intel and highly improved to run at low temps and pack more power per MHz. The Centrino eventually turned into the "Core Duo", which is just two Centrinos on one CPU die. The Core Duo was translated to the desktop PC called the "Core 2 Duo", which is now the latest and greatest from Intel.

_____________

Update:
Like the next poster mentions, L2 cache is one of the main factors. I was trying to avoid getting too technical about it, since Wikipedia has an entire page that explains it. In addition, there are many other factors that separates a Celeron from a Pentium, such as FSB (frontside bus) speed. Yep, good-old Wiki explains that too.

Bottom line: Read Wiki and "search" on the net!!!

Answer 2

Basically it all comes down to a thing called L2 cache.

And for people who do not know what L2 cache does. The more you have.... The better the CPU will perform (to a certain point)

For example a Celeron (of the same architecture) is the same as a Pentium (of the same architecture)... But the celeron is just a crippled version of the Pentium because it does not feature as much L2 cache as the Pentium. Hence the reason that the celerons are cheaper/do not perform as well as pentiums.

Answer 3

celeron, pentium,athalon are different kind of processors. celeron and pentium belongs to intel. celeron performance is lower than pentium but celeron is cheaper than pentium.

Now if u want to buy desktop pc means i can suggest you to buy pentium dual core 2(64-bit) which has four processors. and virtually 8 processors. it can peform well.

atholon is processor by AMD. if u want to use amd atholon processor the computer room should be fully air conditioned. in non A/c room it wont perform well. But pentium will perform in both conditions



centrino is the technology for laptop computers. if u want to buy laptop you have to get intel pentium mobile centrino processor.
Because centrino is technology designed for the laptop computers. i suggest to buy pentium centrino processor for laptop computers