AMD: What the heck is a Sempron?

[draxsath]

Well I’ve given up looking around... I'm an AMD fan boy and I can’t even find the answer to this question...

ATM I have:
Athlon XP 1800 @ 1533mhz w/266mhz FSB
Athlon XP 2500 @ 1833mhz w/333mhz FSB
Athlon XP 2400 @ 2000mhz w/266mhz FSB
Sempron 2400 @ 1667mhz w/333mhz FSB

Now, the Sempron I got was for building my mother a computer, the motherboard i found (that had onboard everything, very nice ) want a Sempron. So I said "ah well" and got one, seems to perform great.

But I’ve been wondering this whole time, how can two 2400 branded chips be an Athlon XP at 2000mhz and a Sempron at 1667mhz? As if the branding wasn’t already confusing the hell out of everyone...

So the XP 2400 has 333 more mhz but a 266mhz FSB - does the increase in FSB warrant the 2400 number on the Sempron? As far as I can tell, they both have the same instruction sets, MMX, SSE, and 3DNOW! Professional. They are also the same core, the thoroughbred and the same cache at 256k. So what is really the difference? Is it only the higher FSB? Seems hardly a reason to even call it a “Sempron” at all, isn’t it just a hyped up T-Bred XP?

 

[blackdog2]

the sempron is a budget chip i.e. a rival to celeron. the p.r. rating seems to be the speed of a celeron at which they are roughly level i.e. sempron 2400+ = celeron 2400MHz

tha athlon is a pentium 4 rival and thus its pr rating is the equivilant p4
athlon 2400+= p4 2.4GHz
hope that clears things up

 

[linux_0]

Well put!

To confuse you a bit more though the Sempron comes in socket A (462) and socket 754 versions.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Manufactory=1028&PropertyCodeValue=0&PropertyCodeValue=0&PropertyCodeValue=0&PropertyCodeValue=0&PropertyCodeValue=0&PropertyCodeValue=0&PropertyCodeValue=0&PropertyCodeValue=0&PropertyCodeValue=0&PropertyCodeValue=0&PropertyCodeValue=0&description=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&SubCategory=343&Submit=Property


It is a budget CPU but in some cases it's better to go all out and get a Athlon 64 or Opteron socket 939 CPU instead

 

[damnhao]

so if sempron is to celeron, what was the duron?

 

[blackdog2]

sempron was a replacement for duron. afiak sempron is faster . it is definately more recent

 

[bourgeoisdude]

Right on. It bugs the crap out of me that Intel has persisted in making the name Celeron for all these years. End users tell me all the time they have a "Celeron" processor. What can it mean? Celerons start around 233MHz if I recall and go up to 3GHz if I'm not mistaken. Intel should have at least called them Celeron II's, Celeron III's and Celeron 4's, but apparently they just want to bug the heck out of technical support people. I'm glad Durons were replaced with Semprons by AMD, thank God at least AMD understands the concept.

Santeana, no--Semprons came out BEFORE 64 bit Athlons so if THWG says that--they're wrong. Semprons originally came out to be the cheaper run of Socket 754 Athlon XP processors, having slightly less L2 cache. However the newer Semprons designed for Socket 939 mobo's you are correct--same L2 Cache as corresponding Athlon 64 brothers but less FSB and no 64 bit.

 

[MrDingBat]

... and I thought that a Duron was something you put on a computer for Safe Surfing :roll:

 

[damnhao]

there are sempron 64...

 

[TheMaster]

... and I thought that a Duron was something you put on a computer for Safe Surfing :roll:

:mrgreen: :mrgreen:

 

[endyen]

It's too bad you didn't go s754 on the new sempron. That would have really freaked you, as the 2500 s754 sempron runs @ 1.4ghz.
Sempron is a value brand. It is about on par with an equally branded duron, or celeron. (well, a bit better than the celeron, but you get the idea) They perform very well for the price.

 

[7H4_D00D3]

I am the proud owner of a palermo core Sempron 3000+, and I can tell ya that it performs only 30% less than an Athlon 64 3200 venice for half the price, my config is this:
ASROCK K8VM800
2x512 Corsair ValuRAM DDR400 2.5-3-3-8@2T
WD 80Gb 7200rpm SATA HDD
My friend has a Athlon 64 3200 venice, 2x512Mb Kingston (value) and a MSI mobo (it runs on the ati x200 chipset, 4 sata drives, 4 memory slots dunno if they are DDR2, don't remember the model ) and a 80Gb 7200rpm WD IDE HDD, we tested ScienceMark2 32-bit 21 MAR 05 on both our pc's and SuperPI (same version, don't remember which one ), Sciencemark score:
Me: 860
Him: 956

Super PI: him 45sec
Me: 50sec

So, there's not a HUGE difference between the two constestants...


BTW even if my mobo lets me change the multiplier, the processor will work @ it? right now = 200*9, me wantee= 215*10

Quite a n00b question...

 

[endyen]

Sorry 7, all but the FX, of the Amd chips, have thier multiplier locked for upward. You may be able to change the multiplier in bios, but the chip wont accept that input, so it will default to stock multiplier.

 

[7H4_D00D3]

yup, i found that last week :S:S:S kick in tha 4$$.....

I tried to change HTT form 200 to 220 and it worked stable but with ram as DDR361 , I'd like to 240*9 but I dont know if the pci/agp buses are going to tolerate that

Another config I'd like to try is 222*9 and DDR444 but I don't know if the memory is going to take it....I dont want to fry an egg on them :S, previous to that I tried 210*9 and 210*2 but the strange thing is that my system was unstable as hell (I tried that same config a couple o weeks ago and it worked fine.....for 10 min )

OC is a long rocky road.....xD