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Win XP Pro on 800 MHz Processor?

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by jrosen

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I'm looking to upgrade RAM on some 5 year old computers so I can make an entire room Win XP Pro instead of a mishmash of XP and 2000. I know I'll need at least 512MB of RAM, but can anyone tell me if they have experience running XP Pro on 800 Mhz Pentium 3 and Celeron processors? Was it ok or a dog? I'm concerned with speed...I don't want the users to click and wait. Not running any huge programs - just browser windows and office apps mostly. Most of the time only 1 program at a time.

Thanks

13 replies

by tig2

My experience with all Celeron processors is that the are in general pretty poor in comparison with non Celeron processors. As I understand it, that is due to the fact that the architecture was based on a minimal L2 cache and the redesign was never as complete as it should have been. Regardless, I neither use or recommend them.

XP on an 800 Mhz P3 will not be a positive experience for your end users, but it is do-able.

Best recommendation is that you pull a machine and test the configuration. In other words, your mileage may vary. In general, I recommend against XP in the situation you have described.

Edit- typo

by animatech

I dont know about Celeron as I never had\used one before but I am running an XP box at home which is p3\750 that I use for internet and general office appications and I dont have anything against it as it works just fine.
Again You should test it and see if you are setisfied with the results as work is very different to home ;)

by animatech

I dont know about Celeron as I never had\used one before but I am running an XP box at home which is p3\750 that I use for internet and general office appications and I dont have anything against it as it works just fine.
Again You should test it and see if you are setisfied with the results as work is very different to home ;)

by peter johnstone

We used to run XP Pro clients on 256 MB of RAM and 800Mhz processors quite satisfactorily with a Win2k3 Sever in a Domain.
For normal Office apps and browsing it was fine. 512MB will give it the extra that will make it perfectly acceptable, as long as you don?t try to use hungry image editing apps etc.

In fact I still have a ?test domain? running the same clients and Win 2k3 Server with 512 MB RAM! Not rocket speed but OK for testing and compatibility trials.

Regards,
PJ

by hal 9000

Are and entirely different story particularly if you are using all in one M'Boards with Video on board.

They will be horrible to use and so slow that it will be painful for the users. Even with 1 GIG of RAM which was the most that many of these M'Boards could take with a Celeron you are looking at up to 30 minutes to open Windows and to open programs several minutes or longer depending on how processor hungry the application is.

If you are using an All In One M'Board anything short of a P3 will be way too slow for your needs. But on the plus side 1 GIG P 3's are cheap and freely available now so you could replace every CPU with a P3 1 GIG unit and have some decent speed out of the machines.

NB as the Copermines only go to 1 GIG if you look at the Tataliums which are faster than 1 GIG they will be destroyed on that M'Board most likely. This was something very common back in the day when these where new so if you stick to up to 1 GIG CPU's and at least 512 MEG of RAM though a GIG is better you'll be much happier with the outcome.

From previous experience I never use Celeron's as I find that they are worse than useless. But the P3's work a treat and you'll be unable to fault them once you have one running unless you insist on comparing it to a 3 GIG Dual Core unit which will naturally be faster.

Col

by jrosen

Thanks for those opinions. Any others?

by hal 9000

I would supply Video Cards and disable the On Board Video in BIOS so that you get the full ability of the CPU doing it's job and not being waylaid for GPU usage as well as having better & faster Video RAM available for generating Video.

But if you already have separate Video I would stick with just changing the CPU's to the fastest that the M'Boards can handle and upping the RAM to a reasonable amount.

Personally I find 1 GIG works very well with XP on a Dual P3 450 System or slower and a 64 MEG Video Card works a treat as an AGP but if you wish you can go to a 256 MEG PCI for better Video. If you have an AGP slot you'll need to look at it to see if it a 1X 2X 4X or 8X the 1,2 & 4 Sockets all look the same but the 8X AGP Sockets appear to be fitted backward to a conventional AGP Socket so you can go to an 8X Video card in one of those with up to 256 MEG of Video RAM but to be honest those 8 X AGP Sockets are rare as by then PCI Express was available and as it's better not too many 8X AGP M'Boards where made.

Some 8X AGP Video Cards where made with 2 slots cut in them so they could be used on both the 4X & 8X AGP sockets but if you have anything slower than 4X AGP they will be useless and not work correctly so if you say have a 1X or 2X AGP one of the 4X 64 MEG Video cards will work without a problem.

Col

by tonythetiger

especially on the Celerons, but more memory will help. You might also turn off the animation features in the display settings (appearance - effects).

by pr0t31n_w13

It's OK!

at here, there are 3 computer PIII 800Mhz memori 128Mb, onboard VGA ==> using XP Pro SP2 OS, Office 2003, Photoshop CS2.

slow? absolutely! :-) you must be more patient to wait the proses.

by pr0t31n_w13

It's OK!

at here, there are 3 computer PIII 800Mhz memori 128Mb, onboard VGA ==> using XP Pro SP2 OS, Office 2003, Photoshop CS2.

slow? absolutely! :-) you must be more patient to wait the proses.

by 3xp3rt

The weakest computer at my workplace running XP SP2 is a Pentium II 233 MHz computer with 128 MB of RAM. It work slowly but work. (It?s a dedicated computer, with hardware key and for this reason it wasn?t changed)

by supercell_doom

i used to have a 600mhz celeron, 128mb ram, and 8mb onboard video. (given this is a LAPTOP). anyway xp seemed pretty good, actually pretty fast for its speed, but then i put antivirus and i swear to god when i booted it up it took about 5-10min to get to start-up. (NO JOKE!) dont get a celeron for xp (their cache sucks and slows it down). so in the end i sold that laptop and bought the exact same laptop on eBay 2 months later (go figures) but this one has an 800mhz celeron, same ram , same vid. ill tell you how it turns out ;)

course right now this is my comp...

1.8ghz amd sempron
2gigs pc3200 ram
80gb hd
ATi Radeon X550 256mb pci-x16
Windows Vista Ultimate

With a PC this THIS maybe i got a little speed crazy and dont have the patinet for older computers, but then again im not a patient guy ;)

UPDATE: hers a bench mark test for comparision of speed... http://www.activewin.com/reviews/hardware/processors/intel/celeron850/bench.shtml

as you can see the 850mhz celeron is gettting 0wn3d by the 866mhz pIII. like it says celeron is a value cpu, but nowadays you can by anyone of those processors with the spare change in your pocket. itd go with the pIII without a doubt ;)

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