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AMD Releases Sempron Earlier Than Expected
I_am_Rambi writes "AMD has released the Sempron today, a release date that moved up from Aug 17th. Because of this move, some of the reviews that are out, will be continued later on. Some sites already have reviews including Toms Hardware, Anandtech, and Tech Report. The Sempron, AMDs budget processor, is staged against the Intel Celeron." Jason Jacobs writes with a review on Techware Labs, and Hack Jandy adds a link to a review at HotHardware, writing "it appears as though the Socket A based Sempron performs abysmally while dollar for dollar the Socket 754 version levels every Intel CPU."
By "it appears as though the Socket A based Sempron performs abysmally" they probably mean that these $30-40 budget processors are only ~5-8 times faster than as say a "K6-2 400" or equalient "Pentium 2" -- processors which did provide and still provide all the performance you need on a non-gaming/non-dev desktop machine.
"Bah, these $30 chips don't run Doom 3 at Max Extreme Settings. We're so disappointed. They are useless!"
Belief is the currency of delusion.
'...AMD has elected to stick with its "fake subatomic particle" naming scheme rather than veer into Intel's "fake member of the periodic table of elements" naming scheme. Sempron is largely a branding exercise, so the name is important. The Sempron name is intended to evoke phrases like "semper fidelis" and other such tokens of solidity and steadfastness. Roughly translated from a mix of Latin and leet-speak, though, Sempron means "always pornographic," and I fear the little CPU will never fully escape that connotation of its recently fabricated moniker. '
"Always faithful to porn"!!! That's my kinda CPU (Completely Pornographic Unit)
Why start now? It's been well documented that 1.6 Durons are better performers than Celerons for half the price.
p x? i=1927
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.as
The Semprons are available in Socket A (AthlonXP) and Socket 754 flavors.
Anandtech - http://www.anandtech.com (better article)
Tomshardware - http://www.tomshardware.com
Big differences are...
ATHLONXP vs. SEMPRON (SOCKET A) -- can't really tell upon first glance. The Sempron is available in the same speeds as the AthlonXP and based on the Thoroughbred B core (I'm running a Barton and a Thoroughbred B pair of cores in mine and Allison's desktops). The Sempron tops out at a slower over speed vs. the AthlonXP lineup. How confusing is that? The FSB, right now, tops out at 333Mhz, so it might be a little odd to pair a Sempron Socket A up with DDR400 (PC3200) memory.
ATHLON64 (SOCKET 754) vs. SEMPRON (SOCKET 754) -- same issue -- they both look the same and have the same speed numbering. However, the original 754 was a Clawhammer (1MB L2 cache), followed by Newcastle (512KB L2 cache). Now, the Sempron has a 256KB L2 cache and NO x86-64 instructions. You can run matching memory FSB speeds of 400MHz with the 754 variant of the Sempron.
The Anandtech article noted that the AthlonXP is the better performance value now, until it's phased out. After that, the Sempron 754 is a good entry-level processor vs. a slightly slower full Athlon64.
Ugh -- talk about confusing. No more so, I guess, than Intel having 2.8GHz P4 Prescotts and 2.8GHz Celeron Ds.
IronChefMorimoto
I'd call my new processor an Imtell Pantiom Quattro, and install it in my genuine Sorny laptop, and then stream MP3s from it to my Magnetbox stereo.
Imtell Pantium: now with 5% more pant.
my pet machine
There was "never" a time to buy a celeron. Sorry, there was once such a time. The celeron 300A. It was so cheap it was practically free and could be easily clocked to 450MHz and higher. But, other than that one chip, you're right.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Is it just me or are the processor names getting lamer and lamer
Since the government controls >50% of the GDP all systems are, naturally, going to mimic the trends being set by the government.
This is a natural counterpart of things like "War against Terror" and "Office of Homeland Security".
Everything in life is becoming lamer and lamer...
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
Put it another way, buy an Athlon64 MB and put an Athlon 32 cpu in it. WHY?
Sounds like a good upgrade path to me- Buy a socket754 mobo and a sempron, and later on down the road you can upgrade the memory and CPU and double your performance when you can afford it.
The hell with this Semipr0n crap, I'm waiting for the new processor instructions for streaming video and integrated XXX chat that come with the Fullpr0n chip!