The CPU is the single most important component of your PC, and CPU manufacturers have long been engaged in an all-out war for the coveted performance crown. The reigning champion is still the Intel Corporation, though AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) Inc. are making a strong bid for the crown with their K6-2 lineup, featuring a hardcoded set of instructions they call 3DNow! and  attractive pricing. 

CPUs from Intel

Intel is used to being the undisputed leader of CPU manufacturers. Up to now, they have enjoyed a market share close to 80% and have correspondingly priced their products slightly higher than those of their competition. With the emergence of AMD and their K6-2 lineup, Intel have adopted a new strategy by cutting prices and introducing CPUs for the low-end market. 

Pentium CPUs (P55C) using MMX technology debuted in late ‘96 and were an instant success for Intel. They then redesigned the architecture of the Pentium Pro processor ( P6 ) to include this technology and 512K of L2 cache running at of the speed of the CPU clock, the final product was called the Pentium II.

To support their CPUs, Intel usually had to release motherboard chipsets for their products until the motherboard manufacturers caught up. In the past, Intel supported their Pentium II CPU lineup by introducing the FX, the LX, the BX (released earlier this year, with the debut of the 100MHz FSB) and now the GX, to support their high-end Xeon CPUs. The BX chipset in particular has made a lasting impression, leading motherboard manufacturers to produce new and more efficient motherboard designs based on this chipset. 

Explaining MMX

MMX was first introduced to consumers in late ’96. Until then, conventional CPUs used the Single Instruction, Single Data (SISD) model, restricting themselves to one computing sequence at a time. With MMX technology, there were an additional 57 instructions to the x86 instruction set. This allowed a single instruction to be applied to multiple, independent data streams simultaneously, which was known as Single Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD) processing. As a result, MMX boosted the performance of graphics, video and sound by improving a processor's integer-based calculations. 

The Pentium II

The Pentium II is priced at about 30%-40% more than other sixth-generation CPU of it’s own clock speeds. As would be expected, the Pentium II is a high-performance CPU and is ideal for powerhungry users. In addition, Pentium II CPUs can be used with motherboards that support dual processors in operating systems such as Windows NT. 

While lower-end Pentiums are rapidly becoming obsolete, the high-end Pentium IIs, particularly the 350, 400 and 450MHz, are strongly recommended. These CPUs are still quite expensive, but prices can be expected to fall in time, and in any case, you’ll probably get your moneys worth. 

Current prices and our recommendations are given below.
 
 

Pentium II 350	$250	Recommended for home users with average budgets. For multimedia applications and gameplay.
Pentium II 400	$370	Recommended for corporate users and home users who require more computing power. For business applications, desktop publishing, graphics applications and 3D gaming.
Pentium II 450	$580	Recommended for professionals, who require all the power they can squeeze out of their CPUs and for the home user with an unlimited budget. For multitasking, video & sound editing, CAD, graphic designing, desktop publishing and next-generation gaming.

The Celeron

Intel introduced the Celeron as their bid for a share of the lower-end market. Early Celeron CPUs 
(the 266MHz and the 300MHz) were much cheaper than the Pentium II CPU because it omitted the L2 cache, and as a result, performance suffered when running business & multimedia applications. These CPUs offered performance comparable to a Pentium II of it’s own speed when running applications that require a lot of floating-point computations, (for example, games) because it featured the same FPU. Since this product was not very successful, Intel came up with a new Celeron based 
on a .25 micron core codenamed “Mendocino” similar to the Deschutes core used in higher-end (upwards of 333MHz) Pentium II processors and 128KB of L2 cache. The Pentium II has a L2 cache of 512KB. Which runs at half the speed of it’s CPU clock, but the new Celeron 300A and the 333 run their 128Kb L2 cache at the speed of the processor clock. For example, the Pentium II 300 has a L2 cache running at a speed of 150MHz, but the Celeron 300A runs its L2 cache at 300MHz. So, even though a Pentium II has four times the amount of L2 cache as a Celeron, it’s processor core spends many clock cycles idle while waiting for its cache memory to feed it data. The new Celeron's L2 cache feeds data to the processor core every cycle, so that the core is seldom forced to idle. This makes for a very efficient, very fast CPU, outperforming even Pentium IIs of its own speed. In addition, the .25 micron core produces much less heat than a typical Pentium, making it a great overclocking tool. 

Current prices and our recommendations are given below.
 
 

Celeron 300A	$110	Recommended for home users with low budgets and fanatical overclockers. For 3D gameplay, multimedia applications, business applications and desktop publishing.
Celeron 333	$130	Recommended for home users who require more computing power without spending the money for a Pentium II. For 3D gameplay, multimedia applications, business applications and desktop publishing.