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It all starts with Intel, Celeron, Pentium 4. Most people remember the bad talk about the Celeron when it first came out. That was due to the elimination of a small bit of memory from the CPU. A processor (CPU) has the core processor as well as some memory called cache, that helps like a buffer while accessing the System Ram. The system ram is rather slow to the processor, so if the info is in the cache, it doesn’t have to go look for it in the ram. This makes the processor be able to do its work without waiting around for the ram to deliver. There are different levels of this cache. Due to the expense of Level 1 cache, (thats the fastest level, and the closest to the processor) Processor manufacturers try to keep it small so we don’t have to pay so much for our computers. With the Celeron, (the original ones at least) Intel tryied to eliminate the cache from the processor, and use cache on the motherboard, which was too slow. It hurt the name of the Celeron eventhough the Celerons now have cache on them. The cache is even more important with the newest, fastest processors, because they are processing information so fast the ram can’t keep up, so the larger the Level 1 cache, the better the cpu can do its job. So if you get a cpu rated at 2.8 GHz and 1.0 MB L1 cache, it will most likely out perform a 3.0 with only 512KB cache. Many new cpus also have a Level 2 cache to buffer the information going from the Ram to the Level 1 cache, it is larger than the Level 1 cache, and also slower, not only is the cache itself slower, but the extra step is slower, so the increase in performance is smaller than the Level 1 cache, but an increase. The celeron generally has less cache than a Pentium 4 as well as smaller CPU ratings. So the Pentium 4 will provide the larger, faster processor. It also will take more power to run, which on a desktop system makes little difference, but when your running on batteries, there is a big difference. Intel has come out with what they call Centrino Mobile Technology, which is a complete package for laptops. It uses technology designed from the ground up for wireless notebook PCs, including a Pentium M cpu, integrated wireless Lan, and a chipset designed to save power, 855. This keeps the processing power up, and the battery drain down. They also have come up with Hyper-threading, which is a way to get more speed out of the cpu by doing more simultanous processing than before. The latest is Extreme Edition HT which is a Pentium 4 Processor with Hyper-threading, and 800 system bus speed.
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