The End Of Semiconductor Development

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  • GrendelGrendel All that is fear... Join Date: 2002-07-19 Member: 970Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, NS2 Playtester
    edited October 2004
    <!--QuoteBegin-Hawkeye+Oct 20 2004, 07:09 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Hawkeye @ Oct 20 2004, 07:09 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> On the contrary, I heard something different for the source of Celeron chips (or other low end models).

    Celeron is a marketing ploy to get people that don't have as much money to still be able to buy from them.  All a celeron chip is is simply a high order chip that has been "underclocked" to speeds less than normal.  The early celeron chips could be overclocked quite a bit (and it was because of this very reason).  Intel obviously saw this as a problem, so they took measures to prevent it from being overclocked.

    This is for the convenience of Intel to not have to keep some factories outputting lesser chips and other factories outputting higher chips.  This way, they upgrade all the factories to the best design, and downgrade some chips to be sold at a cheaper price.  I don't think these chips have problems on them, or at least if they do, they are very subtle and wouldn't conflict with the speed of the processor much if at all. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
    They don't "downgrade" them.

    Manufacturers test equipment they make and then grade it depending on performance. This happens with chips, rifles and a host of other devices. Yeah, you may come across chips that has been rated at, for example 600Mhz which actually will run at 900+, but it's much less commonplace than people think.

    If you have to whack extra cooling on a chip to make it reach the higher clockspeed, then it isn't "underclocked". If you can make a chip run at a much higher speed <i>without additional cooling</i>, <b>then</b> you have a chip that has been under-rated, but tbh, that's rare, give or take a few MHz.

    And Celerons are cheaper to manufacture because they only have a very small level 2 cache on the die, a quarter of the equivalent Pentium.
  • HawkeyeHawkeye Join Date: 2002-10-31 Member: 1855Members
    I have to disagree with that. The memory on a chip does not dominate cost. A celeron chip vs a Pentium 4 chip are very close in cost. The downgrade in a celeron chip is purely due to the fact that it is a marketing ploy.

    Perhaps they make a few cheap cutbacks on celeron chips, but they are essentially Pentium 4s. When Pentium 5s come out, celeron chips will be downgraded pentium 5s.
  • TheWizardTheWizard Join Date: 2002-12-11 Member: 10553Members, Constellation
    <!--QuoteBegin-Hawkeye+Oct 21 2004, 11:56 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Hawkeye @ Oct 21 2004, 11:56 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I have to disagree with that. The memory on a chip does not dominate cost. A celeron chip vs a Pentium 4 chip are very close in cost. The downgrade in a celeron chip is purely due to the fact that it is a marketing ploy.

    Perhaps they make a few cheap cutbacks on celeron chips, but they are essentially Pentium 4s. When Pentium 5s come out, celeron chips will be downgraded pentium 5s. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
    Intel saved money by excluding the memory.

    It did not affect fabrication costs but it drasticaly lowered design costs. Design costs are averaged out over the chip production lifecycle.
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