INTEL CELERON E3300 REVIEW AND DISSCUSION !

[brianthesnail]

Hi guys
ive allways been a budget pc enthusiast,and like most of us i cant afford to go out and buy the latest core i7 processor along with a x58 chipset mobo and memory that comes with it
so when i decided my pentium D 915(2.8ghz) wasnt up to the job anymore i was looking for a reasonably priced processor that would be around twice the performance and power of my pentium D 915... and after some extensive research i came across the intel celeron E3300.....
now before you say "arghh celeron" stop.... this is nothing like the previous single core celerons which i will be the first to admit are slow and not that good... however the celeron E3300 has some impressive credentials... it uses a 45nm manufacturing process and has a capable 1mb level 3 cache.. and in passmark cpu list it racks up 1665marks compared to just 715 for the pentium D 915 ... so its more than twice the performance of the pentium D 915 which is what i wanted

retailing at just £39 this is a excellent budget processor and using a asrock g41m-gs motherboard and 2gb geil pc2-6400 memory this cost me just over £100... and i also used a XFX GTS250 and a cool-it eco water cooler for cpu cooling.... all this was installed in a NZXT M59 midi case..
i havent overclocked the celeron E3300 yet however its more than capable of 4ghz with the right cooling.. and by simply changing the fsb from its stock 200mhz fsb to 266mhz this will give you a 3.3ghz overclock without any cpu voltage adjustment .... infact 3.7ghz requires just a minimal increase in cpu voltage
in regards to gaming well i ran crysis at 1920x1080 at medium detail and managed 24fps... lowering this to 1280x1024 increased this to a playable 31fps....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBQboMf5lTU
so in reflection the celeron E3300 is a capable budget processor and armed with the right graphics card you can build a decent gaming system... and its also a great processor for overclocking... infact im buying another E3300 just for overclocking..... a sort of benchmarking pc..... however im going to use a asus or gigabyte motherboard since the asrock motherboards seem to be shy when it comes to overclocking... and allthough the oc tuner from asrock allows you to overclock i prefer overclocking via the bios
so if your after a budget cpu that wont break the bank then consider the celeron E3300....
peace !

 

[Cr416]

I have a mate who does this sort of budget overclocking stuff and he's managed quite a lot with Pentium D's & Core 2's (Some of the duo's go on forever!) and even the old Pentium 4 Prescott chips, I think he spends more on the coolers than he does on the majority of the core components though lol. Really puts a smile on our face to see what it can do compared to a modern day PC.

Have you got any pics? What cooler you going to run on the overclocked one? What kinda score do you get with PC Mark or Pi?

 

[BigBruiserAl]

I also read these could do 4 ghz when i was messing about so i got 3 different chips from 3 diff etailers guess what..shock horror none of them did 4ghz and were talking pq5 pro mobo which is more then capable. Good little chips but not chepo 4gz you read about

 

[iamtheoneneo]

Old chips are still pretty good but you will notice massive improvements by stepping up to a q6600 or above.

I think I have an 3300 in my htpc

 

[muon]

Problem is you can get E5xxx/E7xxx chips very cheap (£20-£50) second hand. Even chips like the e8400 has sold for sub-£50 in MM.

 

[brianthesnail]

thanks guys for all the feedback.... strangely enough i was working on my wifes acer aspire x3200 which uses a phenom x3 8550 and i noticed it has a base score of just 5.4... this is compared to the celeron E3300 which has a 5.9 base score.... this shows how good the E3300 actually is.... granted the phenom 8550 is one of the slower triple core processors....
the next budget cpu im considering is the Intel Pentium E6600 ( http://www.****.co.uk/Products/Comp...cket+775)+Processor+-+Retail+?productId=41216 ) ... not bad for £59

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

thanks guys for all the feedback.... strangely enough i was working on my wifes acer aspire x3200 which uses a phenom x3 8550 and i noticed it has a base score of just 5.4... this is compared to the celeron E3300 which has a 5.9 base score.... this shows how good the E3300 actually is.... granted the phenom 8550 is one of the slower triple core processors....
the next budget cpu im considering is the Intel Pentium E6600 ( http://www.****.co.uk/Products/Comp...cket+775)+Processor+-+Retail+?productId=41216 ) ... not bad for £59

For gaming an 2.1ghz X3 8450 is actually faster than a 2.6GHZ E5300 which has twice the L2 cache of the E3300:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/26?vs=98

The X3 8450 is also faster in video encoding too.

Also,the Athlon II processors are quite decent value for money too.

The Athlon II X3 450 can be had for £60 and is better value than a Pentium E6600.

 

[ZXSpectrum]

I have one of these in my server/downloader.. Runs all day every day with no issues at 3.75Ghz (300x12.5) on a gigabyte X48 board.. I will only be changing it for a quad in future for better transcoding..