Celeron and other budget Processors - opinions?

CeleronPopsicle · #1 01-18-2010, 06:42 AM

I would like to gather some opinions on the general user experience of using Celeron or other budget processors in OS X x86 machines.

Here's my specs:

MB GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L
CPU INTEL|CELERON E1500 2.2GHz
MEMORY 2G DDR2 800
DVD BURN SAMSUNG|SH-S222A
GPU SPARKLE | GeForce 8400 GS
2 HARD DRIVEs @ 500G|WD SATA
10.5.8 / Win 7

This is a very budget system built for $650 including 24" monitor, genuine apple keyboard, mouse, ethernet adapter, and Altec Lansing speakers.

Overall this has been a great machine. I am not a gamer, but I have rendered some video and audio on this machine and it seems pretty speedy. I thought the Celeron and it's 512k cache would be a real show stopper, but I have to say that it seems as responsive as my 2.1 GHz C2D iMac.

I would love t o hear some of your stories of budget builds and what you've been able to do with them.

Also, if anyone knows of any good (free) benchmarking utilities, I'd love to try them and I'd love to see your results!

lanceomni · #2 01-18-2010, 02:05 PM

Your Conroe based Celeron have much more horsepower than the Atom on my netbook. Im able to use it very efficiently for everyday tasks. If you plan to process large images or video you will find it much slower than one of its big brothers. I would keep an eye out for motherboard CPU combos that use the same speed memory. You may find an unbelievable deal a few years from now. For everyday use web browsing writing email and viewing photos it should be pretty quick.

Try Xbench http://www.xbench.com/ They have an excellent test program. Try it both on your iMac and your budget rig.