Sempron Worth it?

[MRZigzz]

Anyone have any idea if getting a sempron would be good or bad? From a non-overclocker point of veiw. I've heard that AMD just did a little renaming and made the price higher, though at newegg and computergate the prices are around 10$ less then the mains cores (like barton). I was just wondering if it would be worth going with a Sempron with a thorton core then an XP with a barton core?

[wayout44]

Re: Sempron Worth it?

The socket A Semprons are just renamed Thoroughbreds with a higher FSB. ;)

[Darthtanion]

Re: Sempron Worth it?

Not all of them. Several are using the newer Thorton core instead of the T-Bred; at least this is what it looks like with a little research.

[wayout44]

Re: Sempron Worth it?

Darthtanion Thorton cores are really Barton cores that don't come up to spec so they're newted down to Thoroughbred spec's (usually part of the L2 cache has a fault so half is disabled though there are a few articles around that tell how to re-enable it though this has a 50/50 chance of failure). It's the same as the last of the Duron's being Thoroughbred cores but being newted for the same reasons (AMD's way of getting the most $'s out of a build process).

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Sempron Worth it?

In any case, the Semprons should be cheaper than their Athlon XP Barton performance equivelents at this point as AMD is moving away from the Barton line and the prices have already jumped quite a bit.

[amd_man2005]

Re: Sempron Worth it?

Having just built a PC with a Sempron CPU I will tell you they are great for the money and also don't run very hot :)

[MRZigzz]

Re: Sempron Worth it?

Having just built a PC with a Sempron CPU I will tell you they are great for the money and also don't run very hot :)

Hmm...Now, lets switch this around, would a Sempron do well at overclocking? I would imagin not, as it's a value brand, and would be limited in some way or another, yet stranger things have happened...

BTW, how hot does it run, cus I (and I would imagin others) do not like noise, so if we could lower the fan speed without buying a new HSF and still keep it within safe heat limits.

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Sempron Worth it?

Hmm...Now, lets switch this around, would a Sempron do well at overclocking? I would imagin not, as it's a value brand, and would be limited in some way or another, yet stranger things have happened...

Would an Athlon XP do well overclocking? You seem to misunderstand what Socket A Semprons are. They are Athlon XP Thoroughbreds at 333 FSB. We already know they overclock incredibly well. Tests saying sore are just redundant, but you can go look for some, just to make sure. However, Barton will recieve more benefit from overlocking and stilll overclock well. But if you're going to get a Barton, do it now. The price is rising on an almost daily bases, and they'll be completely gone (except for used ones) fairly soon.

However, if intensive overclocking is your deal, the Mobile Barton 2400 is still just about the best OCer on the market as it can reach 2.3GHz on air cooling, easily. It can even reach 2.8GHz or higher, with really good cooling and fast RAM.

[amd_man2005]

Re: Sempron Worth it?

The stock cooler on it is silent. I put the Sempron 2500+ up to a 180mhz FSB with stock voltage (Mobo didn't have adjustments) and its load temp was 49C and the PC was silent.

Oh..and thats in a case without ANY case fans.

[DrGonzo]

Re: Sempron Worth it?

is a socket 754 Sempron also an Athlon at heart? I'm looking at the Sempron 3100+ right now, and its definitely appealing...mostly because of the cache, in my mind. I also saw a timedemo test for doom3, (the test was meant to show which should be upgraded first between your CPU or your video card) where the 1.8ghz Sempron 3100+ outperformed (read: better FPS) the pentium 4 in almost every test! (except the 3.2ghz HT Prescott chip)

does anybody have any practical experience with this line of chips? what are your impressions? should I be looking at an Athlon?

[DrGonzo]

Re: Sempron Worth it?

I just retraced my steps...I was a little off on my claims. the Sempron 3100+ did better than most P4's under 3ghz, and the Extreme Edition P4s were better.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2149&p=7

here is one of the final pages of the test, it shows the graphs of final performance tests. The article itself isn't too bad either, I certainly learned a few things.

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Sempron Worth it?

That would be a socket 754 Sempron... The thread is more about Socket A Semprons. The socket 754 Sempron will perform extremely well for the price.

[wayout44]

Re: Sempron Worth it?

The s754 Sempron is a newted Athlon64 Newcastle core (half the L2 cache and the 64-bit registers have been disabled) but its a surprisingly quick CPU (especially when compared to its sA brethen).
The Sempron 3100+ is a good starting point for the latest line of AMD technologies (if you can forget about sA Athlon XP's and Semprons then do so as sA products are now well into the start of AMD's phasing out stage) and later you may decide to upgrade to a s754 Athlon64 CPU.

[JediAgent]

Re: Sempron Worth it?

Question:
Can a sA Sempron be used in any sA motherboard? i.e. an MSI K7N2G without a bios update? If i did have to update the bios, would that have to be done with another chip?

[wayout44]

Re: Sempron Worth it?

Question:
Can a sA Sempron be used in any sA motherboard? i.e. an MSI K7N2G without a bios update? If i did have to update the bios, would that have to be done with another chip?

Yes it will work though it will show up as being an Athlon XP Thoroughbred but there will be no need for another CPU to do a BIOS upgrade.