CompTIA A_ Certification All-In-One Exam Guide, Seventh Edition - Michael Meyers [83]
Celeron processors based on the Pentium 4 appeared first using Socket 478, but LGA 775 versions were eventually released. Over time, these Pentium 4-based Celerons borrowed more and more advanced features from their desktop counterparts, including support for SSE3 extensions and Intel-64 addressing.
Figure 5-57 Pentium II Celeron
Processors designed to rival AMD’s Sempron series chips were also released under the Celeron brand. At first, these chips were based on Intel’s Yonah architecture, but Intel released Celerons based on the Core microarchitecture shortly thereafter. Many processors from the latest generation of Celerons are available in dual-core models.
Figure 5-58 Intel Celeron
An entire line of Celerons for mobile computers also exists. Traditionally these chips went by the names Mobile Celeron or Celeron-M. However, Intel dropped that nomenclature with the latest mobile releases, simply referring to them as Celeron.
Intel Pentium Dual-Core
Intel resurrected the Pentium brand in 2006 with the release of the Pentium Dual-Core. Although similar in name, the Pentium Dual-Core is not the same processor as the Pentium D. The Pentium Dual-Core was originally a 32-bit processor based off the Yonah core, but Intel quickly followed that processor up with a 64-bit Pentium Dual-Core based off of the Core microarchitecture.
The Pentium Dual-Core line contains both mobile and desktop processors, and recently, just as with the Celeron brand, Intel has started referring to them simply as Pentium. These Pentiums constitute a middle-of-the-road series of processors for Intel, more powerful than the Celeron line but less powerful than the Core 2 line.
Intel Xeon Processors
Just as the term Celeron describes a series of lower-end processors, the term Xeon (pronounced “Zee-on”) defines a series of high-end processors Intel built around the P6, NetBurst, Core, and Nehalem microarchitectures. Both the Pentium II Xeon and the Pentium III Xeon used a unique SEC package that snapped into a Xeon-only slot called Slot 2 (Figure 5-59). With the release of the Xeon based off of the Pentium 4, however, Intel moved to PGA packaging, such as the Xeon-only 603-pin package depicted in Figure 5-60.
Figure 5-59 Intel Pentium III Xeon
Figure 5-60 Intel Pentium 4-based Xeon (photo courtesy of Intel)
Xeon processors add large L2 caches and, especially with more recent Xeons, L3 caches as well. Although a few Xeon processors can only work alone, most are carefully designed to work together in sets of two, four, or more. Today’s Xeon processors themselves can contain 2, 4, and even 8 CPU cores per package. Put those two elements together, and modern Xeon systems can contain 32 CPU cores, each with hyperthreading, to support 64 simultaneous threads.
Intel and their partners are working on delivering configurations that will allow for even more CPUs, facilitating even greater processing power. Although expensive, the Xeon’s immense power lets them enjoy broad popularity in the high-horsepower world of server systems.
Installing CPUs
Installing or upgrading a CPU is a remarkably straightforward process. You take off the fan and heat-sink assembly, remove the CPU, put a new CPU in, and snap the fan and heat-sink assembly back on. The trick to installing or replacing a CPU begins with two important questions: Do you need to replace your CPU? What CPU can you put in the computer?
Why Replace a CPU?
The CPU is the brain of your system, so it seems a natural assumption that taking out an old, slow CPU and replacing it with some new, fast CPU will make your computer run faster. No doubt it will, but first you need to consider a few issues, such as cost, cooling, and performance.
Cost
If you have an older CPU, there’s a better than average chance that a faster version of your CPU is no longer available