the celeron is faster. It has on die L2 like a coppermine even though it is less cache the cpu runs 133 mhz faster than the PII 400 so It should be a little faster. Not a huge upgrade but a upgrade none the less if you wanted to max out your hardware. I don't think its a great upgrade.

For the most part the celeron will be far faster. The only time the Pii will shine of of its a 100mhz FSB model and your taxing the system buss. I can't see that happening at 533mhz. Maybe if your playing quake3 at higher res? 😕

I couldn't find a direct comparison online but from the gaming tests I read a Pentium II 400 was about 15% slower than a Pentium III 500. The Celeron 533 was about 30% slower than a Pentium III 500.

lost77 wrote:

I couldn't find a direct comparison online but from the gaming tests I read a Pentium II 400 was about 15% slower than a Pentium III 500. The Celeron 533 was about 30% slower than a Pentium III 500.

I remember the video comparison "Phils Computer Lab" did about PII 450mhz vs PIII 450mhz, the latter being just a little bit better (1 to 5 FPS) in most situations (era games).

But judging by what you stated above the PII 450mhz would be around 15% better than the Celeron 533mhz.

Thank you!

Why not try them both and run some benchmarks for science? 😀

Most people running the mendocinos would overclock them wildly so I'm not sure how they'll handle stock against a p2

I'd imagine compilers may favor the much larger cache of the pentium ii but games and basic software may favor the much faster cache and clocks of the celeron. The big question is how much will the lower bus speed hurt games. I have a feeling they'll come close in performance.

Also, does the board have any jumper controls for bus or core voltage? If you can overclock that celeron at all, it would be a notable gain.

Warlord wrote:

the celeron is faster. It has on die L2 like a coppermine even though it is less cache the cpu runs 133 mhz faster than the PII 400 so It should be a little faster. Not a huge upgrade but a upgrade none the less if you wanted to max out your hardware. I don't think its a great upgrade.

Thank you!

I suspected that would be the answer.
As this will be a present, I was also considering the fact a "budget" Celeron wouldn´t sound as cool as a "real, full fledged" PII.
The system is aimed at playing DX6 and below era games and some DOS. Therefore, I guess both CPU would do ok (DX7 era games would be too much for both maybe).

dan86 wrote:

For the most part the celeron will be far faster. The only time the Pii will shine of of its a 100mhz FSB model and your taxing the system buss. I can't see that happening at 533mhz. Maybe if your playing quake3 at higher res? 😕

Thank you!

No, no Quake III is planned, but Quake II, and Unreal are.

BeginnerGuy wrote:

Why not try them both and run some benchmarks for science? :) […]
Show full quote

Why not try them both and run some benchmarks for science? 😀

Most people running the mendocinos would overclock them wildly so I'm not sure how they'll handle stock against a p2

I'd imagine compilers may favor the much larger cache of the pentium ii but games and basic software may favor the much faster cache and clocks of the celeron. The big question is how much will the lower bus speed hurt games. I have a feeling they'll come close in performance.

Also, does the board have any jumper controls for bus or core voltage? If you can overclock that celeron at all, it would be a notable gain.

Thank you!
Yes, I could do that, I was just asking in case others have had this experience before.
I am reluctant to do overclocking, the heat sink and fan are not good quality. I would prioritize durability and stability.

Others have done these benches but what interests me is your ability to run both chips in the same exact board, there will be no question as to the "accuracy" of your benchmarks. Would be a nice reference to have when this question comes back.

Understood re overclocking 😀

Celeron 533 is slightly faster than PII 450, so it must be also faster than PII 400... but not by much. http://hw-museum.cz/article/5/cpu-history-tou … 1995---1999-/12

Hang on, don't forget this is an M741LMRT. That means SiS620 chipset and integrated VGA. The latter means your memory bus is shared between CPU and VGA core, and this isn't some advanced DVMT system, it's just 50/50. So memory bandwidth becomes a BIG issue. Iirc the SiS620 doesn't allow asynchronous buses, so 66MHz means ~533MB/s bandwidth and 100MHz means ~800MB/s bandwidth. Half of that goes to VGA, so with the Celeron you're left with about 266MB/s for the CPU vs 400MB/s with the Deschutes. Both will bottleneck terribly on the RAM, but I suspect that it will be worse with the Celeron. So in this case, I'd expect the P2 to be the less totally awful experience. If you can stick in PCI VGA and disable the integrated VGA, I'd go with the Celeron.

havli wrote:

Celeron 533 is slightly faster than PII 450, so it must be also faster than PII 400... but not by much. http://hw-museum.cz/article/5/cpu-history-tou … 1995---1999-/12

Excellent!
Thank you very much!

dionb wrote:

Hang on, don't forget this is an M741LMRT. That means SiS620 chipset and integrated VGA. The latter means your memory bus is shared between CPU and VGA core, and this isn't some advanced DVMT system, it's just 50/50. So memory bandwidth becomes a BIG issue. Iirc the SiS620 doesn't allow asynchronous buses, so 66MHz means ~533MB/s bandwidth and 100MHz means ~800MB/s bandwidth. Half of that goes to VGA, so with the Celeron you're left with about 266MB/s for the CPU vs 400MB/s with the Deschutes. Both will bottleneck terribly on the RAM, but I suspect that it will be worse with the Celeron. So in this case, I'd expect the P2 to be the less totally awful experience. If you can stick in PCI VGA and disable the integrated VGA, I'd go with the Celeron.

That´s very interesting information I was not aware of. Thanks a lot!

The motherboad is far from ideal, no doubt about it. Only one PCI and one ISA slot, if you use one you can´t use the other. No AGP slot.
Since the onboard audio (CMI-8738) is somehow decent for DOS, I was planning to, as you said, adding a PCI card. The onboard video is good enough for 3D DOS titles (tried Blood and Duke Nukem 3D, for instance) but not good for DX6, DX7 Windows titles.

What you commented, leads me to ask you all about a recommendation for the mentioned PCI video card. I was thinking about an ATI 7500, 7000 or Rage 128 Pro. When it comes to Nvidia there´s not much legacy (TNT, TNT2 or maybe GF2) PCI cards around, at least at a reasonable price. What would you say is the best option for this system. Power supply is 200W, only one HDD.
Thank you all again!

Con 2 botones wrote:

[...] […]
Show full quote

[...]

That´s very interesting information I was not aware of. Thanks a lot!

The motherboad is far from ideal, no doubt about it. Only one PCI and one ISA slot, if you use one you can´t use the other. No AGP slot.
Since the onboard audio (CMI-8738) is somehow decent for DOS,

SiS+CMI8378 is an interesting combination, but for DOS compatibility (DDMA) you might need some software not quite written yet - but possibly arriving in the next few weeks. Take a look here:
Cmedia CMI8738 - maybe its Biggest Secret

I was planning to, as you said, adding a PCI card. The onboard video is good enough for 3D DOS titles (tried Blood and Duke Nukem 3D, for instance) but not good for DX6, DX7 Windows titles.

This really isn't the board for a wide range of stuff, the integrated video (not onboard, onboard implies a separate chip with its own RAM and none of these bandwidth issues) is fine for DOS or Win9x desktop stuff, but not for DX gaming. The audio is great for Win9x, but DOS may be touch&go. Given the very limited expansion options you have to choose one of two to fix...

What you commented, leads me to ask you all about a recommendation for the mentioned PCI video card. I was thinking about an ATI 7500, 7000 or Rage 128 Pro. When it comes to Nvidia there´s not much legacy (TNT, TNT2 or maybe GF2) PCI cards around, at least at a reasonable price. What would you say is the best option for this system. Power supply is 200W, only one HDD.
Thank you all again!

Power supply isn't an issue with PCI cards, the bus can't supply enough to seriously stress a PSU. That said "200W" is just the sticker on it. What brand? And how heavy?

As for VGA - it really depends what you can find and I don't have a clue what's (relatively) easily available in Uruguay. Here in NL I'd say TNT2-M64 and GF2MX cards are probably the easiest sort-of-decent-performing PCI cards to find - or Voodoo3 3000 PCI, but that one doesn't come cheap. If you don't want the GPU to be the bottleneck, a PCI Gf2MX (or Radeon 7000) is probably the best option - but to avoid the huge memory bottleneck with integrated VGA, *any* card will do - even a 1MB 1995-era thing.

Con 2 botones wrote:

Thank you! Yes, I could do that, I was just asking in case others have had this experience before. I am reluctant to do overclo […]
Show full quote

BeginnerGuy wrote:

Why not try them both and run some benchmarks for science? :) […]
Show full quote

Why not try them both and run some benchmarks for science? 😀

Most people running the mendocinos would overclock them wildly so I'm not sure how they'll handle stock against a p2

I'd imagine compilers may favor the much larger cache of the pentium ii but games and basic software may favor the much faster cache and clocks of the celeron. The big question is how much will the lower bus speed hurt games. I have a feeling they'll come close in performance.

Also, does the board have any jumper controls for bus or core voltage? If you can overclock that celeron at all, it would be a notable gain.

Thank you!
Yes, I could do that, I was just asking in case others have had this experience before.
I am reluctant to do overclocking, the heat sink and fan are not good quality. I would prioritize durability and stability.

And the Mendocino 533 is probably the least probable Mendocino to go near 100 MHz FSB .. Already 75 MHz would end up with 600 MHz, being in the ballpark of the architecture's limits ..

dionb wrote:

This really isn't the board for a wide range of stuff, the integrated video (not onboard, onboard implies a separate chip with i […]
Show full quote

Con 2 botones wrote:

[...] […]
Show full quote

[...]

That´s very interesting information I was not aware of. Thanks a lot!

The motherboad is far from ideal, no doubt about it. Only one PCI and one ISA slot, if you use one you can´t use the other. No AGP slot.
Since the onboard audio (CMI-8738) is somehow decent for DOS,

SiS+CMI8378 is an interesting combination, but for DOS compatibility (DDMA) you might need some software not quite written yet - but possibly arriving in the next few weeks. Take a look here:
Cmedia CMI8738 - maybe its Biggest Secret

I was planning to, as you said, adding a PCI card. The onboard video is good enough for 3D DOS titles (tried Blood and Duke Nukem 3D, for instance) but not good for DX6, DX7 Windows titles.

This really isn't the board for a wide range of stuff, the integrated video (not onboard, onboard implies a separate chip with its own RAM and none of these bandwidth issues) is fine for DOS or Win9x desktop stuff, but not for DX gaming. The audio is great for Win9x, but DOS may be touch&go. Given the very limited expansion options you have to choose one of two to fix...

What you commented, leads me to ask you all about a recommendation for the mentioned PCI video card. I was thinking about an ATI 7500, 7000 or Rage 128 Pro. When it comes to Nvidia there´s not much legacy (TNT, TNT2 or maybe GF2) PCI cards around, at least at a reasonable price. What would you say is the best option for this system. Power supply is 200W, only one HDD.
Thank you all again!

Power supply isn't an issue with PCI cards, the bus can't supply enough to seriously stress a PSU. That said "200W" is just the sticker on it. What brand? And how heavy?

As for VGA - it really depends what you can find and I don't have a clue what's (relatively) easily available in Uruguay. Here in NL I'd say TNT2-M64 and GF2MX cards are probably the easiest sort-of-decent-performing PCI cards to find - or Voodoo3 3000 PCI, but that one doesn't come cheap. If you don't want the GPU to be the bottleneck, a PCI Gf2MX (or Radeon 7000) is probably the best option - but to avoid the huge memory bottleneck with integrated VGA, *any* card will do - even a 1MB 1995-era thing.

I´ve tried several DOS games, not that bad so far (Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis as well as Day of the Tentacle sound is "broken", though). The most important game I need to work properly is Moonstone and it seems to sound ok. I confess I got a bit lost with some of the technical details in that post you shared related to the CMI-8378. Maybe that W.I.P software mentioned will only make things better for it in the future.

About the availability of legacy video cards in the local market, it is not good at all, the only PCI card currently available (local equivalent to eBay) is a Radeon 7000 64bits and the seller have not tested it. But that´s not really a problem because I always buy from USA eBay and a courier service brings it here with almost no wait. So, that´s where I´ll be searching for the card. Despite its reputation, for this system in particular a TnT2-M64 will be a good improvement and GF2MX will do for sure. If I happen to find a PCI 3DFX, to be honest, I´ll keep it to my self 😁 (this is a system I will pass to a friend).

When it comes to the PSU, I haven´t paid much attention to it I must admit, my mistake. It is probably a no name barely decent one, but somehow it managed to survive all these years (20?). A nice detail, maybe, is that the fan blows air to the CPU area.

So you are from the land of "Victor Bart", great channel. "Uncle Awesome" is not bad either. Thank you very much for all the help.

Regards!

H3nrik V! wrote:

Con 2 botones wrote:

Thank you! Yes, I could do that, I was just asking in case others have had this experience before. I am reluctant to do overclo […]
Show full quote

BeginnerGuy wrote:

Why not try them both and run some benchmarks for science? :) […]
Show full quote

Why not try them both and run some benchmarks for science? 😀

Most people running the mendocinos would overclock them wildly so I'm not sure how they'll handle stock against a p2

I'd imagine compilers may favor the much larger cache of the pentium ii but games and basic software may favor the much faster cache and clocks of the celeron. The big question is how much will the lower bus speed hurt games. I have a feeling they'll come close in performance.

Also, does the board have any jumper controls for bus or core voltage? If you can overclock that celeron at all, it would be a notable gain.

Thank you!
Yes, I could do that, I was just asking in case others have had this experience before.
I am reluctant to do overclocking, the heat sink and fan are not good quality. I would prioritize durability and stability.

And the Mendocino 533 is probably the least probable Mendocino to go near 100 MHz FSB .. Already 75 MHz would end up with 600 MHz, being in the ballpark of the architecture's limits ..

Good to know, thank you!
Considering the role this system will play, I frankly don´t see the point in overclocking.

I'm guessing that, whether or not you use the integrated video, the 400MHz PII will come out ahead of the Celeron on that particular motherboard. The much larger cache--even though it's external--and the 100MHz FSB should soften the blow of that chipset's piss poor memory performance.

Now on a BX motherboard, sure, go for the Celeron.

Standard Def Steve wrote:

I'm guessing that, whether or not you use the integrated video, the 400MHz PII will come out ahead of the Celeron on that particular motherboard. The much larger cache--even though it's external--and the 100MHz FSB should soften the blow of that chipset's piss poor memory performance.

Now on a BX motherboard, sure, go for the Celeron.

Thank you!

Then, given the discrepancies, doing what "BeginnerGuy" suggests, is what needs to be done.