lewmur Posted April 7, 2005 Share Posted April 7, 2005 Has anyone here had much experience with the Sempron line? How do they stack up against the XP line in day to day operation in a business vs gamer environment?When they announced the line, I thought they said they were supposed to replace the Durons but it seems they are priced more in line with the Athlon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ross549 Posted April 7, 2005 Share Posted April 7, 2005 My understanding is that they are like the celeron CPU's.... budget type. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jar92380 Posted April 7, 2005 Share Posted April 7, 2005 yeah it is the same as the celeron line. Except it does have a cache, not very much of one though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b2cm Posted April 7, 2005 Share Posted April 7, 2005 The Semprons are Bartons with chopped L2 cache (256kb instead of 512kb). They have 128kb L1 cache and run at 333mhz. They are better than Athlon XP Palominos or Thoroughbreds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b2cm Posted April 7, 2005 Share Posted April 7, 2005 The newer Semprons are AMD 64 chips without the 64-bit instruction and a 256kb L2 cache. I read somewhere that the L2 cache is actually 512kb but half of that is disabled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lewmur Posted April 7, 2005 Author Share Posted April 7, 2005 (edited) The newer Semprons are AMD 64 chips without the 64-bit instruction and a 256kb L2 cache. I read somewhere that the L2 cache is actually 512kb but half of that is disabled.<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Tigerdirect has Sempron 3000+ on sale for $59 after rebate. Their specs claim it has 512kb of cache and 333mhz FSB. An Athlon 3000+ has the same FSB and cache but sells for $139. I was just wondering if anyone had any "hands on" experience with the Sempron that could give me the benifit of their "side by side" comparison. Edited April 7, 2005 by lewmur Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbdietz Posted April 7, 2005 Share Posted April 7, 2005 Tigerdirect has Sempron 3000+ on sale for $59 after rebate. Their specs claim it has 512kb of cache and 333mhz FSB. An Athlon 3000+ has the same FSB and cache but sells for $139. I was just wondering if anyone had any "hands on" experience with the Sempron that could give me the benifit of their "side by side" comparison.<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Sorry, no hands on with Sempron, but the cache sizes are correct.One primary difference between the above CPUs -Sempron 3000+ = 166 Mhz front side buss.Athlon XP 3000+ = 200 Mhz front side buss.Source: AMD CPU Summary Chart tomshardware.comIf you're not editing video or heavily into gaming, you'd probably be better off spending the money on more memory and/or a faster HD(larger 8MB HD cache).Here are some links you may find useful. AMD's AthlonXP + The Athlon64 = Sempron tomshardware.com The Mother of All CPU Charts - Part 2 tomshardware.com AMD Core Overview Chart tomshardware.com Hello Sempron; AMD's ''Always-Ron'' CPU anandtech.com AMD Sempron: A Fresh Take on Budget Computing anandtech.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rons Posted April 7, 2005 Share Posted April 7, 2005 redietz makes a valid point. For the majority of computing tasks the Sempron will be just fine. And more memory will be a definite advantage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbdietz Posted April 7, 2005 Share Posted April 7, 2005 I should have said.Sempron 3000+ = 166 Mhz maximum front side buss.Athlon XP 3000+ = 200 Mhz maximum front side buss.Actual Front Side buss speed will depend on the chipset/motherboard and the speed of the RAM installed on the MB.Some unsolicited advice regarding building a new machine from scratch.Maybe someone like Nathan Williams of N-Line computers will come along and provide better advice. (HINT) Don't skimp on the case and power supply! Choose the mother board and CPU as a matched set.Motherboard selection is more important than CPU selection -be sure the motherboard manufacture is good about BIOS updates and support.It's relatively simple to drop-in a newer faster CPU as constrained by the motherboard/chipset/bios. Don't skimp on RAM. Choose quality brand with a lifetime guarantee. The hard drive is the slowest portion of the system that will be in near constant use.If you have to choose between size and speed, choose speed. You can always add more storage (see point 1). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lewmur Posted April 7, 2005 Author Share Posted April 7, 2005 [*]The hard drive is the slowest portion of the system that will be in near constant use.If you have to choose between size and speed, choose speed. You can always add more storage (see point 1). <{POST_SNAPBACK}> How about "striping" two HD's in Raid 0 config? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbdietz Posted April 7, 2005 Share Posted April 7, 2005 How about "striping" two HD's in Raid 0 config?<{POST_SNAPBACK}> No hands on with RAID 0, but my understanding is:Read speed increases quite a bit.Write speed has modest increase.Cost per MB of storage doubles.Failure rate doubles. (If one drive fails, data on both drives is gone unless backed-up.*)Hardware Raid 0 must be setup prior to installing Windows.Software Raid 0 (Windows NT/2K/XP) must be done at installation of Windows.Some rather old Raid 0 info. http://arstechnica.com/reviews/4q99/fasttr...sttrak66-2.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GolfProRM Posted April 7, 2005 Share Posted April 7, 2005 No hands on with RAID 0, but my understanding is:Read speed increases quite a bit.Write speed has modest increase.Cost per MB of storage doubles.Failure rate doubles. (If one drive fails, data on both drives is gone unless backed-up.*)Hardware Raid 0 must be setup prior to installing Windows.Software Raid 0 (Windows NT/2K/XP) must be done at installation of Windows.Just a quick note, and you're mostly correct, but the cost per MB doesn't double with RAID 0. Since the data is striped, if you have 2 80Gb harddrives in RAID 0, you essentially have 1 160Gb harddrive, so it doesn't double the cost. Normally it would be cheaper to just put in 1 160Gb drive, but it won't be half as cheap.RAID 1 (mirroring) is where your cost/megabyte doubles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbdietz Posted April 7, 2005 Share Posted April 7, 2005 Just a quick note, and you're mostly correct, but the cost per MB doesn't double with RAID 0.<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Thumbtimes, I types faster than I thinks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b2cm Posted April 8, 2005 Share Posted April 8, 2005 Had a look at the table. Under the Socket 754 rows, the Athlon64 3100+ (with the "Sempron" core) is probably the Sempron 3100+. I read a review of it way back that said it was basically a AMD64 Newcastle chip with 256kb of L2 cache disabled and without 64-bit instructions. The rest of the Semprons are AthlonXPs, the difference being nominal. Tigerdirect has Sempron 3000+ on sale for $59 after rebate. Their specs claim it has 512kb of cache and 333mhz FSB. An Athlon 3000+ has the same FSB and cache but sells for $139.The Athlon XP 3000+ would be running at 400Mhz FSB while the Sempron at 333Mhz. The Athlon XP would also be running at a higher clock speed of 2100Mhz, while the Sempron at 2000Mhz. That's the difference, which is kind of insignificant considering the variance in price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b2cm Posted April 8, 2005 Share Posted April 8, 2005 What I means is $80 for an additional 100mhz in clock speed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marsden11 Posted April 8, 2005 Share Posted April 8, 2005 (edited) That is just TigerDirect 's way of marketing.I see on other price comparison sites, a difference from $89 for the Sempron 3000 to $105 for the Athlon 3000.As far as spending dollars on technology goes, spend your dollars on the fastest CPU you can afford as well as get the most memory you can afford. Nothing you do will affect your experience more than those two items. Lots of folks like to think in terms of their current computing needs and fail to realize their needs may change 6 months down the line and what they considered more than adequate at the time, falls short.I have yet to hear some one complain that they bought too much computing power... Edited April 8, 2005 by Marsden11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted April 8, 2005 Share Posted April 8, 2005 At the same time, choice of motherboard is often an afterthought. I typically pick the motherboard I want, with the features I want, then buy the best I can afford in CPU, memory, power supply and hard drive performance (capacity is secondary). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rons Posted April 8, 2005 Share Posted April 8, 2005 Here is a article from Tom's Hardware you may wish to read:http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050202/index.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b2cm Posted April 8, 2005 Share Posted April 8, 2005 At the same time, choice of motherboard is often an afterthought. I typically pick the motherboard I want, with the features I want, then buy the best I can afford in CPU, memory, power supply and hard drive performance (capacity is secondary).That's what I do, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b2cm Posted April 8, 2005 Share Posted April 8, 2005 As far as spending dollars on technology goes, spend your dollars on the fastest CPU you can afford as well as get the most memory you can afford.That's true. If you are just upgrading the processor, it would be wiser to save your money for those coming dual-core processors and motherboards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.