Celeron 566

Enter: Celermine

Yes, Intel has finally released its new Coppermine based Celerons! The new Celeron core is based on the P3 Coppermine core, but only has half the cache. While the P3 has 256KB of on-die cache, the new Celerons only have 128KB. The new core does bring SSE to the Celeron along with the new .18 micron manufacturing process.

The smaller process allows for higher clock speeds and lower voltage requirements. In fact, the default voltage for the new Celeron is 1.5v. The default voltage for the Coppermine P3 is 1.6v. Halving the cache would probably do that.

In addition to halving the cache, Intel also kept the Celeron on the 66MHz bus to ensure that the Celeron would be inferior to the P3 (at least to the average consumer). This 66MHz default is actually a blessing in disguise for frugal overclockers.

Current P3 processors operate on the 100MHz and 133MHz FSB speeds. This makes overclocking difficult, because increasing bus speeds above 100MHz and 133MHz requires high quality PC133 memory not to mention peripherals that can handle the overclocked speeds or a motherboard with the proper bus dividers. The Celeron's 66MHz bus allows users to go all the way to 100MHz without a problem -this is also one of the main reasons why the original Celerons were such great overclockers.

Our Chips

Our friends at KnowledgeMicro were kind enough to supply us with two Celeron 566 chips for testing. The 566 has a 8.5X multiplier and a 66MHz bus speed (8.5 x 66MHz = 566MHz). We used an Abit BE6-II for our overclocking tests, and after dabbing on a little thermal paste and slapping on a fat fan, we started overclocking our first processor. The FSB speeds flew by as we went higher and higher. The CPU was still stable when we hit the magic 100MHz FSB for a 850MHz clock speed. Eventually we got the FSB up to 106MHz for a 901MHz clock speed, but we had to up the voltage to 1.7v. The other chip could only reach 866MHz with a 102MHz FSB.

901MHz and 866MHz!!!! It's looking good so far, now let's take a look at how the new Celerons perform!