PC Hardware in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Celeron

The sixth-generation Celeron—we keep saying “sixth-generation” because Intel also makes a seventh-generation Celeron based on the Pentium 4—was initially an inexpensive variant of the Pentium II and, in later models, an inexpensive variant of the Pentium III. Klamath-based (Covington-core) Celerons shipped in April 1998 in 266 and 300 MHz versions without L2 cache. Performance was poor, so in fall 1998 Intel began shipping modified Deschutes-based (Mendocino- core) Celerons with 128 KB L2 cache. The smaller Celeron L2 cache runs at full CPU speed, and provides L2 cache performance similar to that of the larger but slower Pentium II L2 cache for most applications. Mendocino (0.25μ) Celerons have been manufactured in 300A (to differentiate it from the cacheless 300), 333, 366, 400, 433, 466, 500, and 533 MHz versions, all of which use the 66 MHz FSB.

With the introduction of the Coppermine-core Pentium III processor, Intel also introduced Celeron processors based on a variant of the Coppermine core called the Coppermine128 core. Celerons based on this 0.18μ, 1.6v core began shipping in 533A, 566, and 600 MHz versions soon after their announcement in May 2000, and were eventually produced in speeds as high as 1.1 GHz, which approaches the limit of the Coppermine core itself.

Coppermine128-core Celerons have half of the 256 KB on-die L2 cache disabled to bring L2 cache size to the Celeron-standard 128 KB, and use a four-way set associate L2 cache rather than the eight-way version ...