Celeron (Seventh-Generation)
In May 2002, Intel shipped a new series of seventh-generation Celeron processors. Just as the original Celerons were Pentium II and Pentium III variants with smaller L2 caches and slower FSB speeds, the new Celerons are Pentium 4 variants with, you guessed it, smaller caches and slower FSB speeds.
Confusingly, Intel uses the Celeron name for two entirely different series of processors. Like the sixth-generation Celerons, seventh-generation Celerons are positioned as entry-level processors with lower performance than Intel’s mainstream processors. Intel walks a fine line with these processors because they must be fast enough to satisfy the price-sensitive entry-level market and compete successfully with low-end AMD processors, yet not be fast enough to cannibalize sales of the more profitable Pentium 4 processors.
Seventh-generation Celerons fit Socket 478 motherboards. Some Socket 478 motherboards do not support the Celeron, and those that do may require a BIOS upgrade. The first seventh-generation Celeron models used a modified 0.18μ Pentium 4 Willamette core called the Willamette-128 core, which has 128 KB of eight-way set associative L2 cache, half that of the Willamette-core Pentium 4. Willamette-128 Celerons were made in 1.7 and 1.8 GHz versions, which shipped in May and June 2002.
In September 2002, Intel began producing Celerons with a modified 0.13μ Pentium 4 Northwood core called the Northwood-128 core. Intel has produced Northwood-128 Celerons ...