My Thoughts.
Agent
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k6 cpu??
I'd go Celery instead of K6.
At least when a Celeron gets old you can play around with overclocking it. AFAIK, you can't overclock a K6.
Mason McCuskey
Spin Studios
www.spin-studios.com
i would not recommend a celeron processor because it is a piece of shit. i would get a k6-2 or k63 instead or a plaing p2/p3
The K6 series is pretty solid, and very inexpensive. Last I checked you could get a K6-2 running at 450 mHz or so for under $100. The K6's are all faster than an equivalent pentium, but slower the the pentium 2's, especially in floating point. But you can't really beat the price 
It rocks. I have a k6-266, and it runs just fine and dandy.
It rocks. I have a k6-266, and it runs just fine and dandy.Jonathan
If your gonna get a processor, and your willing to pay enough for a Pentium III, get an Athlon instead. They are considerably better and cost the same price as the Pentium IIIs. If your trying to save money, a K6-2 or K6-3 is a good choice, but if your looking to upgrade to a Pentium II/III (Not an Athlon), a Celeron can fill in for the time being. But, basically, in all cases, the K6 series is slower than the Pentium II/III, however the Athlon kicks the shit out of both of them, including Intel's just released Coppermine.
Author
The only prob with anthlon is the price, they are more expensive than the pIII series..at least here in Mexico. So guess I'll go for a pIII, any advice on speed? are the 450mhz too slow or what?
Thanks to all!
My advice, if possible, is to wait for the new celerons (ie. cut down PIIIs) next year. Failing that, get a PII, Celeron, or a PIII. The K6 is an okay chip, but its FPU is SLOW. It does have 3DNOW, but my neighbour's K6 (450 Mhz) runs considerably more slowly than my Celeron-A 450 Mhz on almost everything. The K6-2 is an improvement, but its FPU still sucks. The Athlon is a nice chip, although personally I'd stear clear of it because of compatibility woes - until recently, TNT2s for example had serious problems in an Athlon-based system.
Might look into waiting to see what next year brings out, we are really close to 1ghz chips, and 64-bit buss speeds.... It might be worth your time to wait.... Just my take on the subject.
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LostSoul
Ok, first, there are reasons to go with EACH of the availible processors. There is not a correct choice, although WITHIN each product line there is a sweet spot for price to performance.
Second, I have to correct some misinformation stated here, and give some information that i know, personally, to be true.
For the HIGH end computer where money is no object. Clock for Clock the Athlon beats the PIII in ALL tests EXCEPT for SSE accelerated floating point. Also, the Athlon beats the PIII the MOST in standard floating point tests, so you need to look at what software you run to find out if it is SSE accelerated or not. Also, all but the 750Mhz Athlon are CHEAPER than the equivelent PIII (in the US). Athlon motherboards are not currently as high quality as BX PII MBs, and are more expensive (by about $40 US), so look around before you buy.
For the LOW end. For low end computers, the USE of the computer will have a BIG impact on your decision. Contrary to Vore's statement, the K6-2 beats the Celeron clock for clock on SOME tests, and the K6-3 beats the Celeron on ALL NON FLOATING POINT tests (by a fair margin), BUT the K6 line is REALLY slow at floating point (only about 65% as fast as a Celeron or PIII, or 75% of Pentium MMX), so that means a K6-3 450 is barely a Celeron 333 in floating point, but is about a Celeron 500 in integer applications ... BIG difference. Also, the K6-2 has slow (100Mhz) L2 cache, where the Celeron and K6-3 have full clock speed cache. The Celeron's cache is 128K, and the K6-3's is 256K.
The cache speed and size make almost NO difference in game performance, but a HUGE difference in productivity and programming apps. Conversely, the floating point makes almost no difference in productivity or programming apps, nor in 2D games, but it is the life of 3D games and 3D rendering apps (as well as many sound editing and effects tools).
So the key is, decide if this machine is a development machine, gaming machine, content creation machine, etc.... or what mix of those, then choose the right chip for the job (and the price).
My Summary: (best low pirce, best high price)
3D Game Machine - Celeron, Athlon
2D Game Machine - K6-2, ANY
Programming Workstation - K6-3, ANY, Athlon
Graphics Workstation - Celeron/PIII, Athlon
I do not recommend the PIII over the Celeron in any case except one, a graphics workstation (because the PIII uses a 100MHz bus which matters only when processing large files such as when doing image and sound editing), but otherwise the Celeron is clock for clock equivelent to the PIII.
Happy Hunting
[This message has been edited by Xai (edited December 19, 1999).]
are you guys aware of the fact that the celeron HAS NO floating point instructions and NO 3d instructions its just a striped down number cruncher that cant hack the floating point
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