Vocabulary

AMD – Advanced Micro Devices – компания AMD – производитель микропроцессоров и принадлежащая ей торговая марка;

low-end CPU – низкобюджетный, недорогой, любительский;

to replace – заменять , замещать (by, with – чем-л./кем-л.); подставлять; вытеснять; занимать чьё-л. место;

to compete – состязаться, соперничать, конкурировать;

to coin – измышлять, выдумывать, замышлять; создавать неологизмы (новые слова и выражения);

to base – базировать, обосновывать, строить;

core – ядро (процессора);

to equip – снаряжать; экипировать; оснащать, снабжать; оборудовать (for; with);

socket – гнездо, сокет;

interface – устройство сопряжения; связующее звено, интерфейс (между человеком и ЭВМ или машиной; between; with);стык, область контакта, взаимодействия;

L2 cache – кэш второго уровня (для ПК на базе всех Интел-совместимых процессоров), внешний кэш; вторичный кэш;

bus – шина;

to introduce– внедрять, учреждать, вводить;

to cease – переставать (делать что-л.), прекращать(ся) (from); бросать привычку; приостанавливать, положить конец, останавливать (часто с герундием);

current – текущий, данный, современный;

to include – заключать, включать в себя, содержать в себе (among);

to reduce – ослаблять, понижать, сокращать, уменьшать;

feature – особенность, характерная черта; деталь, признак, свойства, особенности, общий вид; функция, функциональность, опция.

CELERON

A Celeron is any of a large number of different budget microprocessors produced by Intel and marketed as a budget CPU line. The Celeron family complements Intel’s higher-performance and more expensive Pentium CPUs family. Introduced in August 1998, the first Celeron was based on the Pentium II core. Later versions were based on the Pentium III, Pentium 4, and Pentium-M.

As a product concept, the Celeron was introduced in response to Intel’s loss of the low-end market, in particular to Cyrix’s 6x86 and AMD’s K6 because Intel’s existing low-end product, the venerable Pentium MMX, was no longer performance competitive.

The first Celeron codenamed Covington was essentially a 266MHz Pentium II manufactured without any secondary cache at all. Although clocked at 266 or 300MHz substantially higher than the old Pentium MMX, the cacheless Celerons were a good deal slower than the parts they were designed to replace. Substantial numbers were sold on first release, largely on the strength of the Intel name, but the Celeron quickly achieved a poor reputation both in the trade press and among computer professionals.

The initial market interest faded rapidly in the face of its poor performance and with sales at a very low level, Intel felt obliged to develop a substantially faster replacement as soon as possible.

Intel was well aware of the poor reputation of the original Celeron and determined not to make the same mistake twice. As the result the new Mendocino core Celeron was a good performer from the outset. Indeed, most industry analysts regarded the first Mendocino- based Celerons as too successful. Its performance was sufficiently high to not only compete strongly with rival parts, but also to attract buyers away from Intel’s high-profit flagship, the Pentium II.

The key to the new Celeron’s performance was cache. Where the old model had no secondary cache at all, the new part included 128KB of L2 cache as part of the chip itself.

The first Mendocino core Celeron was clocked at 300 MHz but was almost twice as fast as the old cacheless Celeron at the same clockspeed. The Mendocino also came in a mobile variant, with speeds 266, 300, 333, 366, 400, 433, and 466 MHz.

The next generation Celeron was the Coppermine-128 sometimes known as the Celeron II. It was a derivative of Intel’s latest high-end part, the «Coppermine» Pentium III and was released in March 2000. Like the Mendocino, the Coppermine-128 used 128 KB of on-chip L2 cache and was restricted to a 66 MHz bus speed. It was identical to the Pentium III expect for the smaller secondary cache and the much slower bus.

The next series of Celerons were based on Pentium III Tualatin core. They were nicknamed Tualeron. The series began with 1000 and 1100 MHz parts and the line continued with 1200, 1300, and 1400 MHz chips.

Tualerons were identical to their fully-fledged Pentium III sibling, except that Tualerons used a 100 MHz bus rather than the 133 MHz bus of the Pentium III processors.

The Celeron D processor is based on the Prescott core and has a larger 256 KB cache. It also features a 533 MHz bus.

Their clock speed range was from 2.13 GHz in the model 310 to 3.2 Ghz in the model 350.