This my first try in building a new budget computer! I hoping to keep the cost down to $500 for the CPU by getting a 2.6 ghz celeron. However, one my friends told me celeron sucks compared to Pentium 4. I really know if that true or not. But if it is I could spend $60 or on a pentium 4, BUT I DON'T want to get a cheap generic cpus like AMD. I really not don't want to trust generic hardware stuff, espicially since its my first time building a comp

Here is the configuration I was planning on:
2.6 ghz celeron
Asus 865P Motherboard P4P8X
Nvida 5200 128 vid card
Buffalo DDR 2700 512 MB
seagate 80 GB HD 7200
CD-RW/DVD combo
Evermax Case with powersupply

A) Celeron sucks. Whatever you do don't buy one.
B) Nvidia FX 5200s suck. Either buy a ti4200 or spend a little more money on an ati 9600pro, but don't buy the 5200.
C) AMD makes good chips, but if you are dead set against them get a P4. If you want to see how bad the celerons are head over to anandtech (sorry, at work and don't have time to grab the link) and take a look a their bugdet cpu article "battle of the 'rons" or something like that. Personally, were I to build a $500 system I would go AMD.
D) Make sure that that case comes with a decent power supply for the system you decide to build.

No,never get a celeron,they're real performanance is around .6-.65 of their clock speed.

"However, one my friends told me celeron sucks compared to Pentium 4. I really know if that true or not. But if it is I could spend $60 or on a pentium 4, BUT I DON'T want to get a cheap generic cpus like AMD."

Amd is not cheap and generic anymore and the "cheap" amd athlon xp+bartons perform about as well as the non-800 fsb p4s;but they're hard to install.

AMD is not generic that's why they are called AMD. You are sadly mistaken in your interpitation of AMD. The fact is the cheapest amd or duron chip for sale today will best the top celeron out there.

You don't have to like amd but it does seem your only fooling yourself cause you could get a much better amd cpu for the price of the celeron.

If you can afford it or even if you have to save for a while get the p4 and avoid the celron they are junk.

If I glanced at a spilt box of tooth picks on the floor, could I tell you how many are in the pile. Not a chance, But then again I don't have to buy my underware at Kmart.

If I were you, I'd probably spend some more cash on a 800Mhz FSB P4 (like the 2.6Ghz P4... this is a great processor). This is roughly equivalent in performance to a 3000+ Barton from AMD, and has HT... as a bonus. That's what I'd do.

<font color=red><b>M</b></font color=red>ephistopheles

They are NOT hard to install.

To the original poster. Celerons suck arse. A p4 is a good choice, but not for a budget pc. Get the AMD 2500+. It's cheap, fast, OC'ible. Can't do better for a budget CPU.

<font color=blue>If the <font color=yellow>laurel</font color=yellow> is to big for your head, it becomes a hoola-hoop, and you have to keep your butt really busy.</font color=blue>

"They are NOT hard to install."

Actually,a lot of people have problems installing them and their HSF and damage them when doing it;but you can see the correct way to do it at tiger direct.

The Celeron really is that bad. The best Celeron is slower than the P4 1.8. The "slowest" current P4 is the 2.6C, but you might find deals on outdated speeds.

Tigerdirect had some closeouts on older P4's. You would be best serviced to look around. Also, the 5200 is a terrible card, the old GeForce4 Ti4200 is a much better performer.

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<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

If money is really tight, get a 2.4 or 2.6 P4 and an 865 board with integrated graphics and sound. You can get a nicer card at a later point. You could also scrimp and get 1 stick of RAM, then go dual channel later.

Hmm, I looked around and found AMD was real company. But is kind of usual that everyone I know has NEVER heard of amd cpu, I didn't even hear of AMD myself till I started to look around about how to build new comp. But,are you guys sure AMD is good company though? I was just looking at thier 3200 cpu and found out its only 2 ghz!!! Don't see how a 2 ghz cpu could even complete with a 2.6 ghz celeron. I just had look notebook 3000 review vs a 1.7 ghz pentium at this website. 1.7 ghz did win some and lose some in the test, but it seem like the 3000 and 1.7 ghz were even! How the heck could AMD put something as 3000 when it performs like a 1.7 ghz pentium??? IT SEEMS LIKE AMD IS RIPPING PEOPLE OF BIG TIME!!!

Anyhow I guess I will spend $60 more and get a p4 2.6 ghz cpu. Also I looked and it seems like I will get ti 4200 for $25 like you guys suggested. About the case thing, how do I if the case has good power supply? I though evermax made good cases? Anyhow thanks for the help!

Since you admit that you don't know much about computers, then don't come in here saying that AMD's CPUs are "cheap and generic". What is that supposed to mean? Every CPU (except the Celerons!) are good, according to each person's budget. And in case you don't know, AMD holds the performance crown right now clever boy!

Anyway, in case you are on a really tight budget as you said, then your best choice would be a 2500+ Barton. But if you want to go for a Celeron then be my guest!

On the other hand if you have a little more money then you can pick the Pentium 2.6c as others suggested but I don't think that a CPU like that fits into your budget.

Re: IT SEEMS LIKE AMD IS RIPPING PEOPLE OF BIG TIME!!!

You have no idea how stupid that is!

If I glanced at a spilt box of tooth picks on the floor, could I tell you how many are in the pile. Not a chance, But then again I don't have to buy my underware at Kmart.

Here is the link Bandikoot was talking about at anandtech

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1927" target="_new"> Click this link </A>

Good luck

If I glanced at a spilt box of tooth picks on the floor, could I tell you how many are in the pile. Not a chance, But then again I don't have to buy my underware at Kmart.

It sure seems like they are. Back in my computer class in my high school we learned that CPU performance is measured hertz. So, I can't see how AMD can claim thier CPU is 3200 or 3000 when its really only around 2 ghz! Thier stupid rating system is just confusing people like me

Oh yeah going back to idea where i got AMD was generic company goes back to my comp class. The only CPU, my teacher mentioned was intel and said thier other small companies just copy intel's product and sell it cheaply. He didn't mention AMD in name, but that just sound like what generic drugs companies do. So i though other companies were just making generic CPU too. Anyhow, i do know AMD isn't really generic company at least!...

Trust me no one here is trying to fool you. All the advice you have been given is solid. Read that link I gave ya. Read all of it and you will see things different.

If I glanced at a spilt box of tooth picks on the floor, could I tell you how many are in the pile. Not a chance, But then again I don't have to buy my underware at Kmart.

Note: my last post was before I was drak's link.

Anyhow it does seem like AMD is killing celeron with less mhz actually! My main question is HOW? I though cpu performance is measured in ghz, so higher the ghz isn't its supposed to better? That what I learned in my comp class...

Hmm, I didn't think of it before but that also reminds me of the p4. How come they are also better than celeron with same clock speed. I think I am missing some important piece of information here! Anyhow I am just really learning about all these stuff, so i guess sound very dumb Any explanation would be helpful.

Another thing, guess I could get the AMD now. Any suggestion on motherboard for it?

It has to do with how many instructions per cycle, IPC, the processor has. If a PII 400 did 2 IPC, but a PIII 800 did 1 IPC, they would run programs the same speed.

The P4 needs lots of cache to keep it's data pipeline full. The P4 based Celeron has very little cach, hence many of it's cycles are wasted doing no work at all. It's a fairly technical problem that has to do with how many "stages deep" the "pipeline" is.

AMD based there XP rating system on the performance of early, poor performing P4's. The P4 has been improved several times since. So an XP 3200+ is about as fast as a P4 2.6C, but operates at a much slower speed.

Clock speed is only an accurate measure of performance when you're comparing the same chip at different speeds, say the P4 2.6C to the P4 3.2C. It hasn't been since the 486 days that you could do direct comparisons between AMD and Intel.

AMD has been around forever, they used to make CPUs for Intel!

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<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

Noob is not a strong enough word to describe someone like you. In fact, I can think of a couple of more adjectives right now but it wouldn't be polite to post them here! Posts like yours really piss me off because guys like you are not interested to learn. They just stick a few things inside their head and that's it, they know everything. Well trust me (and I believe everyone in here can confirm this), it is more than obvious than you don't have a clue about computers. And I don't mean that you don't know much, I really REALLY mean that you don't know ANYTHING! If you are really interested then start studying and reading otherwise go buy a 2.6GHz Celeron that rips the Athlon XP 3200+ apart (or the A64 3200+ [freq: 2.2GHz] for that matter) and save us some time from reading your posts.

Not that I disagree with what you said but ...

Ok, everyone admits that the Athlon XPs don't stand up to their PR against 800MHz FSB Pentium 4s but 2.6c = 3200+? I think you are exaggerating a little bit here, 2.6c = 3000+ would be more accurate.