What would the typical frame-rate margin be using a Celeron D 2.93ghz w/256k cache, vs the Pentium 4 3ghz w/1mb cache? For example, both using an X800 graphics card playing Far-Cry, has anyone seen a comparison on the frame-rates between these two CPU's? The Celeron seems to be very similar to the P4 using 915G on-board video in day to day office stuff, i'm wondering if upgrading is even worth the extra $300
Not really. I mean sure the Celery's aren't great but most games aren't too CPU intensive so it will surfice for a bit yet. And you would only get like a 10% improvement anyway even with the cache increase (which is the only major difference really, though the P4 runs hot). If you've got an X800 you're pretty set. FEAR would do well with an upgrade but otherwise I'd save my money and upgrade this summer or something when dual-core becomes the norm.
