Strategy

The Covington series in the Intel Celeron family debuted at 266 MHz. The Covington lacks a Level 2 cache memory, and thus it was marketed as an entry-level processor. The Covington also introduced the 370-pin socket PPGA format (PGA 370) in hopes of lowering production costs. Being a socketed processor, the Celeron does not require the expensive Slot 1 interface board as does the Pentium II. A traditional Slot 1 design was retained to ensure legacy support among Intel's OEM partners.

The internal core matches the Pentium II, so this chip retains the powerful processing capabilities of its larger brother. All but the earliest Celeron models feature locked multipliers. Front-side bus overclocking offers the best performance return for the Covington: the increase in memory bandwidth can compensate, to some extent, for the absence of an L2 cache.

The Celeron Covington generally offers better overclocking potential than the Pentium II. The lack of a Level 2 cache eliminates the possibility of cache memory chips failing due to extended overclocking attempts. The Celeron C266 offers great potential for front-side bus overclocking at 100 MHz, yielding a 400-MHz core operating speed. Systems with motherboards lacking 100-MHz support will be limited to 333 MHz, though any increase in front-side bus speed will improve the Covington's performance.

The Intel retail series heatsink cooler should prove acceptable for moderate overclocking in the 300 to 333 MHz range. All Covington models up to 433 MHz feature a maximum thermal rating of 85° Celsius; thus, extra cooling is only required when overclocking is above 400 MHz.