Pentium 4 vs Celeron/AMD

[Dsg]

I am thinking of buying a new PC. Is there much difference between the various processors available ? Thanks.

[shouston]

Pentium 4 is the fastest proccessor Intel sell for the commercial market. Leading computer suppliers such as Dell, compaq, HP etc will use this for most of there range. In comparison the Celeron is cheaper but slower. AMD's equivalent is the Athlon (P4) and Duron (Celeron). You can find out exact comparisons/bench mark tests by visiting their respective web sites.

[GeordieSteve]

You can pick up a 1300mhz Duron for about �30 these days. I always like AMD processors though. The XP's are well priced but can confuse on their speed ratings

[Cactus]

I run an Athlon CPU, and this will probably surprise you to hear that i'm going to recommend an Intel P4. At the moment, Intel have the upper hand in the CPU speed market, but they cost a fortune to buy seperately compared to AMD. If you're buying a ready built PC though, you can get some P4 bargains at the moment. Also, AMD processors run very hot. They take a lot of cooling, you can spend ages trying to lower the ambient temperature of your case, installing various fans. Pentium 4 need less cooling, and are faster. So which would you choose? I built my own PC, and i chose an AMD processor simply because it was fast AND cheap. :)

[sft42]

I have used a good few different computers in the past few months and my current processor is a P4 at 2.53ghz. But more important than just raw speed is what your going to be using your PC for. Money might be better spent on a high end graphics and sound card if your a gamer and if it's just for surfing & perhaps downloading MP3's then your money would be better spent on a faster connection ie broadband.