Are AMD Sempron a naff processor?

sare_2

Thanks to everyone who has replied!

Looks like there are varying opinions still on the Sempron but other than that I guess its a decent machine for gaming.

I think my OEM disc is a full version because I have the key sticker and I bought it for £100 extra with my old pc two years ago.

culpepper

I think the sempron is the version of AMD's chip which now replaces the Duron.
There were 2 when I was buying mine, Athlon and Duron, the duron was cheaper for the same speed chip .
I remember there used to be a label on windows OS discs stating that they could only be resold bundled with a pc. So as you are not 'reselling' it, it should be fine to carry on using it.
All our home pcs are running on OS discs bought for previous pc's although Im now trying linux as I like the free OS option .

blinky

rugglez wrote:

To quote bigp, this post is also 'tosh'

Rugglez - two post, two flames, nuff said I think.

Semprons - by AMDs own admissions - are a cut down version of the Athlon XP's - the t'bred 'b' core athlon will significantly out perform the semperons, which is why their second hand value is still higher than the retail value of a similarly rated Semperon.



Also to correct an earlier post, Athlon XP was NEVER AMD's budget range! Athlon XP for a couple of years was their flagship, so when they released the Opteron's they had to cease selling the previous flagship model.


I know these posts are off topic, but if people don't know the facts, they shouldn't just post any old crap that comes into their heads.

First off I said I wasn't certain but you should you should check your facts...

Socket A Athlons
Originally Althons Thunderbird Core up to 1.4GHz
This was then replaced by the Palomino Core up to 2200+
The Palomino was replaced by the Thunderbred Rev.A which was quickly replaced by Thunderbred Rev. B. Thunderbred's were simply a shrink die version of Palomino, so they ran cooler and at a lower voltage.

All of these had 128kb L1 cache and 256kb of L2 cache.

The last core to be developed for Socket A was the Barton. It was this core which was to increase the L2 cache to 512kb. On the back of this the Thorton core appeared which were the same core as the Barton but with only 256kb L2 cache (i.e. cores which 256kb cache would pass testing but the full 512kb cache wouldn't).

Look at the CPU tables at:
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040728/sempron-01.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/sempron_3.html

The socket A semprons fall into 3 cores,

Thoroughbred, which was previously sold under the Althon XP name (I had an Athlon XP 1700+ Thoroughbred B a few years ago - 1.466GHz default clock, 128kb L1 cache, 256Kb L2 cache).
Thorton
The top of the Sempron range 3000+ is a full Barton core, as found some of the later Athlon XP's.

The size of the L2 cache has never had a major impact on performance on the Athlon's. Between Spitfire and Thunderbird, the original Duron and Athlon cores with 64Kb and 256kb cache respectively the performance difference was only about 5%. This is opposite to Intel where it does have a major impact on the P4 cores. Reasons are two-fold. Firstly on the AMD processors, the L1 and L2 caches are mutually exclusive, i.e. the contents of the L1 cache does not have to be present in the L2 cache. This was the first time this had been achieved in a processor. In Intel cores the L1 cache contents must be in the L2 cache as well. The major factor though is the nature of the processor buses. The Athlon's use the Alpha EV6 bus, which is optimised for low latency, rather than bandwidth. The P4's Netburst bus is optimised for bandwidth and not latency. This makes sense for the P4's as they were originally designed to be partnered with Rambus memory, which offered increased bandwidth but poorer latency. Increasing the L2 cache size helps to increase the bandwidth, but has little or no effect on the latency (assuming the cache associativity hasn't changed).

The situation is continued in the K8/AMD64 processors, which is to be expected as the Athlon/K7 was only ever an intermediate step to the 64 bit (go back 5/6 years and read the interviews with AMD prior to K7's release). Even going by AMD's own peformance figures the difference between 512Kb L2 cache and 1Mb L2 cache is only about 5%, which is the same as difference dual channel memory vs. single channel memory makes. Again this small difference that dual channel memory has on performance is to be expected as running memory in dual channel mode increases bandwidth but doesn't affect latency. (Why do you think AMD put the memory controller on the processor on K8? As it reduces memory latencies).

The performance difference between the 754 Semprons and the AMD64's isn't that great in most cases which again is to be expected, as the main differences are the lack of 64bit instructions (most people use 32bit OSes) and the smaller cache.

AMD have publically stated for the last year Socket A is being phased out. Socket 754 will become the budget line and Socket 939 the mainstream until socket M2 comes out. Given the better performance and longer potential lifespan of 754 is it very difficult to recommend SocketA.

As to your comments about moving the licence. I believe you are correct in the UK. I know in the US it is now a fedoral offence to sell the CoA stickers separately from the media or re-sell the licences from recycled machine. (M$ got the government to put a special section in the bill to specifically cover this).

Joe_Bloggs

Well my considered argument is that athlon XP and Sempron appear on the same pricing page with little difference in price for the same performance rating. If one is budget then what is the other ?

Opterons never competed in the Socket A Athlon XP market. Opterons were socket 940 which was for the server market. AMD needed the Athlon name from a superceeded now budget chip so they transfered it to Athlon 64 FX and Athlon 64. The best bang for buck for an existing socket A system may be had by the XP-M. The mobile version of the Barton core. These overclock/underclock as they are unlocked.

@Blinky
Do versions of the Sempron have an on chip memory controller ?

ohreally

rugglez wrote:

if people don't know the facts, they shouldn't just post any old crap that comes into their heads.

Well said. It's becoming increasingly common to see the type of posts you refer to. I've shook my head in disbelief and dismay at some of the responses to this thread. We can all make mistskes, but please people, if your going to give advice, try and be factual and accurate.

blinky

The 754 Semprons do have the on board memory controller. The only differences are the L2 cache sizes (some have 256Kb, some have 512Kb) and the lack of 64 bit support.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/sempron-3100-oc.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/sempron-2600.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/sempron-3100e.html
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2395 (I thought the Sempron 3300+ was supposed to be supplied to HP only, though it may appear in retail).
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050202/index.html

Hope these are of some use.

MoneyMachine_2

As far as JAL's 'Jenny' is concerned (posted way back b4 all the stuff about Athlons, zzzzzzzz) I ordered one of these in January which I upgraded with a bigger hard drive - DVD burner and Graphics card and TFT.
This was for my sister and her family who were really looking forward to it.

Unfortunately JAL arsed around for a while with my order - delaying it twice before promising delivery the next week. When I called up the day before it was due to be delivered - I was given some total bull about them not having enough operating systems and that I would have to wait another 4 days - fine. Phoned back 3 days later to confirm delivery. Was told by someone else that they had plenty of operating sytems (not surprising for a bloody computer supplier!) but unfortunately no-one had started building my PC yet. This was 8 WEEKS after I placed the original order and had been promised delivery in 4 weeks.
So not only did they let me doen - they then bullsh---ed about it when I asked - refused to apologise and didnt give a monkeys when I cancelled the order as they had by their own admission 'a big backlog of other customers.'
So a big thumbs down to JAL Computers - I couldnt possibly recommend them as a supplier and will continue to post on as many forums as I can find about how crap they were to me.
The internet is so liberating to the hard done by consumer - I love it!!!

Joe_Bloggs

Socket A Sempron 3000+ has 512Mb L2 Cache. I guess that has evolved recently !
J_B.
A rehash of the XP Barton core ?

blinky

Yes, it is a Barton core.

AMD are already phasing out AMD64 processors for Socket754 ready for them to be replaced completely by the Sempron range.

HLK

blinky wrote:

Yes, it is a Barton core.

AMD are already phasing out AMD64 processors for Socket754 ready for them to be replaced completely by the Sempron range.

Hey, this is way over my head.. but does that mean my recently well researched purchase of an Athlon AMD64 laptop was not as future proofed as I hope.. ?????
(Fujitsu Amilo 1630 A 3400)