One of my friends, Yuan, called me and asked if I could build her a computer for less than $500 early in the year 2008.  The Intel Celeron 352 was just released and I was curious about how it would perform in a micro ATX motherboard so I accepted the challenge.  Can a 3.2 Ghz 512Kb Celeron processor blaze through web pages or will it be a cumbersome Intel chip designed to force the user to upgrade?

For me building computers has become a training exercise that I use to learn new chipset technologies.  I have a list on the wall next to my office calendar of people who need computer work.  My computer building hobby started in 1993 and has led to a deep base of customers who are actually friends that trust me to give them the best hardware for the dollar.  The Intel socket 775 chip in 2009 is being phased out in favor of the new socket 1369 chip which promises support of eight core chips but as of now none have been released or even shown in product demonstrations to the press.  The socket 775 has been shown to operate at front side bus speeds in excess of 1333 mhz with some enthusiast chips and overclockers reaching far higher speeds.

With all of the promise of higher operating speeds, I felt that a 533 front side bus Intel Celeron would be a cost effective purchase.  The reality was a cumbersome system that left me wondering where the problem was.  I saw several problems facing me.  First, the Microstar PM8M3-V motherboard was only utilizing DDR memory and it was not operating in dual channel mode.  Dual channel memory in a real world implementation can mean as much as double the bandwidth for the processor.  However, since the computer was only designed for web browsing and photo storage, I did not feel the extra memory bandwidth was needed. 

Operation
The 65nm processor with 512Kb of cache running on the stock CPU cooler was only able to reach a temperature of 125 degrees Fahrenheit while benchmark testing the system.  The system was configured as a small desktop case with a rather poor circulation pattern so I was very impressed to see the temperature only reach 125 degrees Fahrenheit.  I have seen computers in full desktop towers with high performance processors reach temperatures as high as 177 degrees Fahrenheit.

My biggest problem with this micro system and Celeron 352 processor was the slow response time while browsing the internet and opening digital photos.  I believe this could be attributed to the VIA P4M800LE chipset because it uses single channel DDR memory and a less than ideal file system. 

Performance Testing
To give you an idea of the performance of this processor, I used three different benchmarks:  Super Pi, BOINC Manager and MCS 2008 CPU benchmark.  Each of these benchmarks stresses unique aspects of the processor and are heavily dependent on the supporting hardware around the processor like the memory, hard drive and motherboard chipset.  The Celeron 3200 Mhz processor was installed in an Intel VIA motherboard with 768 Mbs of memory operating in single channel mode.  The motherboard chipset is very important because most chipsets in the socket 775 series support dual channel memory and can even pull fewer watts of power to increase the reliability of the system as a whole.

As an added benefit to this review, I am including the benchmark results from a MSI MS-7528 motherboard with this processor installed.  The motherboard features, DDR2, dual channel memory architecture and a faster Intel based G31 chipset which can handle front side bus speeds as high as 1333 FSB.  In testing, I was able to overclock the Celeron 352 processor to 3.6Ghz.  The processor’s multiplier is to low to allow faster overclocking without decreasing system stability.  However, a testament to the 65nm process, the Celeron never broke 135 degrees Farenheit even while processing SETI workunits.

Super Pi V1.1 is an application that extrapolates the specified digits of PI into a text file.  Since the task is both processor and file system intensive it can give you an idea of how fast your cpu is.  Processors with large on-die cache sizes and high bus speeds tend to do better in this benchmark.  The problem is the calculation is single threaded in this version so you only see the performance of one processor. 

Here are the results of three runs to 1,000,000 digits on the Microstar PM8M3-V motherboard:
56 seconds
57 seconds
56 seconds

Results on the MSI MS-7528 motherboard:
45 seconds
44 seconds
45 seconds

The Boinc Manager benchmark is designed to stress every available thread on your computer to see how many computations per second it can perform.  With the results, the Boinc Manager automatically assigns distributed computing projects to your processors.  The benchmark has been improved by scholars at academic institutions over the period of several years and is now a very reliable metric of modern computing performance.

Here the results of three runs on the Microstar PM8M3-V motherboard:
#1; 1638 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per cpu, 2585 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per cpu
#2; 1634 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per cpu, 2538 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per cpu
#3; 1636 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per cpu, 2546 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per cpu

Here the results of three runs on the MSI MS-7528 motherboard:
#1; 1639 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per cpu, 2575 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per cpu
#2; 1631 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per cpu, 2555 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per cpu
#3; 1635 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per cpu, 2545 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per cpu

The MCS CPU Benchmark 2008 will test the entire system to give you an overall score based on CPU and file system performance.  The benchmark uses all available cpu cores and the result is a combined score from the processors.

Here are the results of three runs on the Microstar PM8M3-V motherboard:
#1; 3197
#2; 3197
#3; 3196

Here are the results of three runs on the MSI  MS-7528 motherboard:
#1; 3881
#2; 3882
#3; 3881

The pathetic performance of this processor can be partially attributed to the VIA P4M800LE chipset.  The P4M800LE was intended as a low power northbridge that could be used in micro ATX motherboards.  The Microstar P4M8M3-V motherboard only has one channel of DDR ram onboard as well.  The 512kb cache size does play a part in the low scores.  For example, a Pentium 630 processor with 2mb of cache in the same motherboard crunches Super Pi in 45 seconds and has an MCS score of 3213.  

Summary
The Celeron 352 and Microstar P4M8M3-V were a poor combination that limited my friend, Yuan to only web browsing on her new micro computer.  Recently, I helped her upgrade to an Intel Pentium 4 640.  The new processor made up for the slow speed of the Celeron and allowed her daughter to play video games online.  If you decide to use this processor, please make sure you at least have a dual channel DDR2 motherboard to take advantage of the increased memory bandwidth.

The 3.2Ghz Intel Celeron Socket 775 has little to offer anyone in the market for a new computer.  The processor can be overclocked to speeds of 3.6 ghz but my testing has shown little benefit in benchmark results.  I caution overclockers to stay away from this processor since the Celeron 356 can easily be bought on Ebay for less than $25 and will reach speeds in excess of 4.0Ghz easily with air cooling.  Additionally, the 533 front side bus translates into slow Windows XP performance that becomes painfully evident while browsing webpages.  If you wish to play video games on your computer or attempt programming an application in Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, get ready for a cumbersome experience as you wait for the applications to load using the single core.  Instead, I recommend purchasing a Pentium 640 or Pentium D 940 chip to take advantage of the higher front side bus speeds and larger 2mb of cache onboard.

Recommended: No