Review: Overclocking Celeron D 2.93Ghz

Another old article I posted over at TPC, this Celeron D 2.93Ghz is cool overclocking chip, what you would expect with a processor based on Prescott core.

_{All materials ©2005 by DM, reproduction by permission only
Target Audience: O/B (N=Newbie, E=Hardware Enthusiast, O=Overclocker, B=Budget)}

I. Introduction

The boxed Intel® Celeron® D processor based on Intel’s industry leading 90nm process technology is now with 256KB L2 cache and 533 MHz front side bus. An ideal solution for the value-minded PC buyer, the Celeron® D processor based platform can provide an affordable and reliable PC for the home or office. With proven technology from the leader in microprocessors, the Intel Celeron D processor is able to handle everything from the Internet to educational programs, making the Celeron D processor an ideal choice at an exceptional value. In this short article, I'll be playing with this budget CPU and give some feeling of the CPU's overclocking headroom

II. Test Setup and Benchmark Suites

Components:

• Processor: Celeron D 340 (2.9Ghz) with stock Cooler
• Motherboard: Abit AA8XE i925XE
• Memory: 2x256MB Corsair XMS2 PC4300@DDR400@CL4-4-4-12(SPD)
• Video Card: Inno3D GeForce 6600 128MB/128bit
• Hard Disk: Seagate 80GB SATA (ST380817AS)
• Optical Drive: Samsung CDRW Combo
• Floppy Drive: Sony 1.44Mb
• Chassis: Thermaltake LanParty
• Power Supply: Antec Neo2 480w

Benchmark/Stability Test Suite:

• SuperPi
• PCMark02
• PCMark04
• PCMark05
• Sandra
• Everest
• 3dmark01
• 3dmark03
• 3dmark05
• Aquamark03
• Doom3

<sub>Note0: The choice of motherboard is just out of random. I could have used my Asus P5AD2, P5WD2, or Abit AW8, but it was the motherboard that's already on the chassis so I might as well fire it up =)

Note1: Currently, there's no Celeron D that has 14x multiplier. On LGA775, the lowest multiplier currently available is 19x, while on S478, 16x is currelty listed.

Note2: As for the video card, this is the fastest that I have (as you can tell, am not a gamer). So if you have complaints about this card and would like to see high end 3DMark01/03/05 benchmark results, I am accepting donations ;)...</sub>

III. Test Results

Stock Settings

On with stock settings benching for baseline comparison before and after overclocking.

Subsystem Testing

A glimpse of how the CPU performs...

Sandra CPU Arithmetic

Sandra CPU Multimedia

Sandra RAM Bandwidth

Sandra Cache and Memory

PCMark2002

PCMark2004

PCMark2005

SuperPi 1M

Everest RAM

Gaming

Some results with commonly used gaming benchmarks...

3DMark01/03/05

Aqumark03

Doom3

Overclocking

No voltage is adjusted, just pushing the FSB. After a few minutes (actually, hours), I found the Max Rock/Full Stable Overclock of 169FSBx22 or a very healthy 3.718 Ghz. On with the comparison, to check whether it's a futile effort to overclock or if there is really any gain.

Subsystem Testing

A glimpse of how the CPU performs...

Sandra CPU Arithmetic

Sandra CPU Multimedia

Sandra RAM Bandwidth

Sandra Cache and Memory

PCMark2002

PCMark2004

PCMark2005

SuperPi 1M

Everest RAM

Gaming

Some results with commonly used gaming benchmarks...

3DMark01/03/05

Aqumark03

Doom3

Keep in mind that this is a relatively high-clocked processor, so lower clocked processor may, theoretically, give you more overclocking headroom. To check the ceiling of this particular processor, I'll push the FSB until I encountered stability issues. I will not tweak the vCore as well since I'm running on a stock heatsink. Finally, I'll play around with the multiplier, just to give a feel of how this CPU can perform on low multiplier and high FSB. So here are the results:

• Max Benchmark Stable Overclock:: = 182FSB (4.01Ghz) CPU-Z


• Tweaked Rock Stable Overclock:: = 266FSB x 14 (3.733) CPU-Z

I didn't include the benchmark results for the 266FSB x 14 results since, as mentioned earlier, there's no Celeron D currently available with such low multiplier. But suffice it to say that performance improvement can be felt. Here's one screenshot of SuperPi 1M with 266FSB.
However, with a x19, which is the lowest currently available, 180FSB to 190FSB is reachable, and if with a decent cooler and vCore adjustment, 200FSB is doable. At 200FSB, that is a very healthy 3.8Ghz Celeron D.

IV. Conclusion

The Celeron D on LGA775 is a monster overclocker, capable of hitting more than 3Ghz which. At this speed, there's a noticeable performance gain both in gaming and multimedia capabilities. Subjectively, I can feel that my browsing (yay) experience is faster, websites load much faster. If you're on a budget, or just transitioning and saving, the Celeron D can tide you over till your next killer rig arrives.

_{All materials ©2005 by DM, reproduction by permission only}