Good news! AMD Sempron will be available for SocketA platform. But will it only be renamed Athlon XP or they will actually make faster rated Sempron for SocketA. If a new core come to SocketA, it might become good overclockers.
Bad news! <font color=red>AMD Sempron WILL NOT support 64bit</font color=red> A couple of months ago, I didn't bother about the fact that AMD planned to launch 32bit only socket754 CPU. I tought that AMD would only move the XP line to the Socket754 to slowly "kill" the SocketA market. But, now, the market have changed. Intel will get 64bit-enabled CPU soon. If AMD don't offer 64bit in all their new CPU, it will be very weird! AMD claimed that 64bit was the FUTURE with the last year launch of the AMD64 line of CPU. Now, they will tell their customer, keep buying 32bit CPU, we make cheap one for you! And forget about this 64bit thing, it will not be out soon and will not offer you advantages. I can't believe it!
AMD must make Sempron 64bit ready to stay on top and to keep pressure un Intel. If Intel enter the 64bit market with low-budget 64bit CPU (see Celeron) AMD will get a big slap in their face.
And if it's possible, AMD should anable 64bit on SocketA too with Sempron. This would be a very unique move. But i'm not sure it's technogically possible to do this.
<b>UPDATE (2004-06-16):</b>
AnandTech is giving interesting details about the WHY and WHEN of Sempron :
<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=2083" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=2083</A>
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What's the <b><font color=green>AMD Mobile Athlon 64</font color=green></b> overclocking potential? <b>It's huge!</b> Humm... Maybe not that huge...<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by TheRod on 06/16/04 07:39 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
ok first of all, none of that says sempron wont have 64bit enabled on chip. the xbit article said its sitll unknown so you cant say it wont happen. secondly, celerons wont have 64bit enabled on them for quite sometime, well into 2005 for sure, if at all during that year. amd wants to get its new value line running and entrenched, they will migrate to 754 then in q1 or q2 '05 ,when s939 numbers are suppose to outpace s754 parts, they will transition sempron there as well. now this could mean dual core or thier k9 will be on a new socket, which i highly doubt, or they are getting all chips on one socket.
anyway, here is an INQ that seems to suggest it will have 64bit:
I really wish AMD will not make the huge mistake of not enabling 64bit on all their new processors.
I agree with you that it's not 100% sure that they will or will not support it. But, you must agee that it would be really stupid for AMD to not release 64bit Sempron. This would be a step back for them if they do so. AMD were the first with x86 64bit and they must keep pushing it in the market, and making entry-level products 64bit-ready would be a clear message that 64bit is THE way to go.
And this would help AMD System Integrator selling low-cost system with a "64bit ready" marketing campaign.
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What's the <b><font color=green>AMD Mobile Athlon 64</font color=green></b> overclocking potential? <b>It's huge!</b> Humm... Maybe not that huge...
yeah i mean i would say its smarter to have 64bit enabled. but i can see why they might not. logically, anyone buying a sempron wont be buying windows xp 64bit edition anytime soon, so they wont even take advantage of it.
but i can see why they might not. logically, anyone buying a sempron wont be buying windows xp 64bit edition anytime soon
But system integrators would have the opportunity to build and sell low cost 64bit system. This is marketing!
Have you ever wonder why people are still buying Celeron? Because they looks great with their 2.4/2.6GHz speed label. Enthousiasts knows that Celeron 2.4 is not faster than a P4 1.8, but most buyers don't know this. It's the same thing with 64bit. Many people will surely think that 64bit computers are "faster" than 32bit computer. We call this : Marketing for the masses!
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What's the <b><font color=green>AMD Mobile Athlon 64</font color=green></b> overclocking potential? <b>It's huge!</b> Humm... Maybe not that huge...
<font color=blue>If I found the hidden fountain. Drank the wisdom from it's deep.
Would I have the time to save me. Would I have them both to keep...</font color=blue>
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What's the <b><font color=green>AMD Mobile Athlon 64</font color=green></b> overclocking potential? <b>It's huge!</b> Humm... Maybe not that huge...
*sigh* some people kill me. id like to see some of you do better with the resources amd has. good lord what do you want. amd has to focus on hardware, they relie on 3rd parties and oems to do the marketing. i have always hated seeing people come up to bash this aspect, well suprise amd doesnt have deep pockets like intel.
i do think 64bit on the semprons is a good move to allow oems to market better, and it could very be that they do that. obviouls it wont be on socket a, but i bet you it will on 754 or 939. until then, lets cut amd a bit of slack on the marketing end of things.
some people kill me. id like to see some of you do better with the resources amd has. good lord what do you want. amd has to focus on hardware, they relie on 3rd parties and oems to do the marketing.
I agree with you, my main point is not bashing AMD for their marketing. In a technology point of view Sempron MUST be 64bit enabled CPU. This feature will become a strong sale point even if marketing is near zero. Because 64bit is becoming a BUZZWORD for PC buyers. People starts to ask questions about it, because in the last they see all those adds about AMD 64bit CPU, they wonder what is that? How it works? Is this good? etc...
For the marketing stuff, I lknow that DEEP pocket makes the difference, I work for an ISP/Carrier in Canada. Our main competitor is Bell Canada which have millions of residential customers that gives them millions in income every months. Their marketing power is so strong compared to our 500 employees - under 100 millions $CA/year sales. It's hard to be competitve in term of marketing when your main competitor have so much money/market share. We have to rely on service quality, etc...
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What's the <b><font color=green>AMD Mobile Athlon 64</font color=green></b> overclocking potential? <b>It's huge!</b> Humm... Maybe not that huge...
I really don't see your logic. If semprons are 32 bit only, this will just help AMD is cashing in a premium price for the A64's. It will also avoid marketing disasters like "64 bit cpu's are slower then 32 bit ones" when comparing 64 bit semptron with 32 bit P4's.
Also, why do you think celerons don't support hyperthreading ? Its not like it doesnt work on them... its just another way for intel to differentiate P4 from Celeron. Considering K8 based Semptrons with just 256kb will probably still be excellent performers, more than fast enough for most of us -very much unlike Celerons- it makes sense to differentiate them from A64's this way. Especially since intel won't ship 64 bit celerons anytime soon. It will even take very long before all shipping P4s are enabled with it. You really can't blame AMD for trying to make a buck and not selling you a fast, 64 bit enabled CPU for ~$50.
= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =
I really don't see your logic. If semprons are 32 bit only, this will just help AMD is cashing in a premium price for the A64's.
AMD will still cash with Athlon 64 even if Sempron are 64bit enabled. Sempron are there to replace Duron, they will probably get lower speed rating.
Quote :
It will also avoid marketing disasters like "64 bit cpu's are slower then 32 bit ones" when comparing 64 bit semptron with 32 bit P4's.
Sempron will not fight against P4 they will fight against Celeron. They will surely be competitive with them in term of performance and having 64bit would be a major advantage over Celeron.
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Considering K8 based Semptrons with just 256kb will probably still be excellent performers, more than fast enough for most of us -very much unlike Celerons- it makes sense to differentiate them from A64's this way.
AMD will not have any problem to differentiate Sempron and Athlon 64. Less cache and lower speed will surely make them slower than Athlon 64.
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You really can't blame AMD for trying to make a buck and not selling you a fast, 64 bit enabled CPU for ~$50.
It's not a question of blaming them to not selling me 50$ CPU with 64bit. I would actually not buy it, I need more raw power (gaming,encoding,etc...). The problem is that AMD is promoting 64bit like crazy in the last year and this technology is now becoming accepted. Windows 64bit is on his way, most important hardware company have 64bit drivers in beta stage.
AMD chose to push 64bit to the desktop a year ago, they can't go back. They decided to gives their customers and potential customers an x86 CPU with 64bit capabilites. They wanted to cut the Intel leg's off and force them to go the 64bit route too in the AMD way. Of course, Intel power and market share put them in a comfortable position. But, they will have to give 64bit support to customers. Because when Microsoft will release Windows XP 64bit edition and Intel don't have CPU to run it, AMD will surely benefit from this.
Many potentiel customers will turn on AMD not because it's AMD, but just because they will want the newest 64bit OS. And customer that will not have a load of money will probably be tempted to get a low cost 64bit system and Sempron 64bit would surely be the number choice among average customer that want 64bit Windows.
At Windows 64bit launch if only 1 company have a low-cost 64bit offering, this company will surely gain market share in this market. If the average customer get a good experince with their system when they will upgrade, they might ask for the same brandname CPU. So both AMD and Intel need to be ready for the Windows 64bit launch. AMD is ready in mid/high range, Intel is not ready yet, but will probably be with mid/high range too at the time of the Windows 64bit launch. The actual 64bit fight is in the low-end market.
Today's Intel clearly dominate that market because of the "more MHz is better" rule. But with the emergence of 64bit, this might become a strong selling point : "64 bit is better than 32bit".
And we must not forget that many apps. will benefit from the 64bit Windows on day 1, others might lost speed too. But, I'm pretty sure there will be games/apps. with 64bit optimisation, like today's SSE/HT optimized software, that will benefit from this technology.
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What's the <b><font color=green>AMD Mobile Athlon 64</font color=green></b> overclocking potential? <b>It's huge!</b> Humm... Maybe not that huge...
Thats a long post, but its short on arguments I'm afraid
>AMD will still cash with Athlon 64 even if Sempron are
>64bit enabled. Sempron are there to replace Duron, they
>will probably get lower speed rating.
You mean, like everyone buying cheaper AXPs and not A64's today ?
>Sempron will not fight against P4 they will fight against
>Celeron. They will surely be competitive with them in term
>of performance and having 64bit would be a major advantage
>over Celeron.
Indeed. So much so, it might well be a bit too competitive against lower end A64s as well. If there where a 1.6-1.8 GHz sempron with AMD64 available today, it would be my chip of choice.. Now I'm torn between a A64 2800+ and a AXP 2500+ as a standard recommendation.
>AMD will not have any problem to differentiate Sempron and
>Athlon 64. Less cache and lower speed will surely make them
>slower than Athlon 64.
so what.. ? Even if it performs noticeable worse, it will still be considered fast enough for most people, and probably a large majority (myself included) wouldnt even consider the A64 anymore (unless you're a die hard gamer or something) if it supports 64 bit software as well. It will turn the A64 into a sort of "FX" chip, while AMD really wants you to buy A64's, no semprons.
<b>
What it boils down to is this: would more people buy a (64 bit) sempron over a A64 than people would buy such a chip over a Celeron? I'm fairly certain A64 sales would be impacted *significantly*, while Celeron would hardly suffer (there is no point in buying a celeron over an AXP today, so why would these people suddenly grow a brain ?).
</b>
> I would actually not buy it, I need more raw power
>(gaming,encoding,etc...).
By the time K8 based sempron launches, it will probably be comparable to a A64 2800+~3000+. That is still a lot of computing power, even for gamers and people encoding, and it would be sufficient for most. If you don't have to worry about 64 bit cathing on or being usefull, such a chip would be a no brainer IMHO. Again, A64 would suffer tremendously.
>AMD chose to push 64bit to the desktop a year ago, they
>can't go back. They decided to gives their customers and
>potential customers an x86 CPU with 64bit capabilites. They
>wanted to cut the Intel leg's off and force them to go the
>64bit route too in the AMD way
Guess what.. they succeeded ! Windows is on its way, Intel is on its way, AMD got their prize and there is no turning back. Now its time to cash in on this, and giving 64 bit capability away is not the way to do it.
>Many potentiel customers will turn on AMD not because it's
>AMD, but just because they will want the newest 64bit OS.
If they really want that, the $180 price tag of the A64 2800+ today shouldn't scare them away. Its not like intel will have a cheaper 64 bit capable product. If they don't want to spend $180, the K8-sempron is most likely still a far better choice than the Celeron.
>But, I'm pretty sure there will be games/apps. with 64bit
>optimisation, like today's SSE/HT optimized software, that
>will benefit from this technology.
Yep, but guess what ? You have to pay extra at intel if you want to benefit from SSE3 or Hyperthreading as well, which obviously makes sense. If you have a feature that people really want, enough to consider switching manufacturers, giving that feature away for free on your cheapest product really isnt a sensible business tactic. This might have made sense to increase the installed userbase and increasing the chances of MS and other developpers actually supporting it (think 3DNow!), but with MS Windows and Intel's backing now, its already guaranteed to succeed. AMD doesn't need to seed the market anymore, just concentrate on making bucks and a 32 bit sempron makes perfect sense in this regard IMHO.
= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =
Guess what.. they succeeded ! Windows is on its way, Intel is on its way, AMD got their prize and there is no turning back. Now its time to cash in on this, and giving 64 bit capability away is not the way to do it.
____________________________________________________________
This would indicate that AMD figures 64bit implementation is a lot farther off for the average guy than we think. I can't see any other reason for investing a nickel in a 32bit roll-out now. Maybe the Semperons will be A64 throwaway wafers that aren't making the cut. I can't see the logic here.
"I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. Now, let's eat!
If it will not have the 64bit ability, that would mean it is marketed for the low-budget consumers. It it is 64bit that would mean a new mobo anyways. The question is will the 32bit Sempron be better than the Athlon Xp Barton...
AMD defiantely plans to release a 64bit version but maybe later on to reap the profits of the existing 64-bit chips such as the recently released socket 939.
Mobile Barton 2500+ @ 2420mhz 11x220 1.7v
Asus A7N8X Dlx 440 FSB
1gb Geil GD pc3500 Dual Channel (2-3-3-6)
Segata 80gb SATA 8.5ms seek
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro to XT(420/730)
Thats a long post, but its short on arguments I'm afraid
Scuze me! I've not met your standard.
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everyone buying cheaper AXPs and not A64's today ?
NOt averyone is buying XP chips, but many people do, because they don't have other low price alternatives. I don't think users will not buy A64 if the Sempron line performs between Athlon XP 1800+ to 2800+ (same range as current Celeron). Socket754 will become a more attractive choice to low/mid-range market. People still buy XP chips because they are affordable. If AMD gives users the choice between Athlon XP and Sempron (with or without 64bit) with equivalent performance people will probably turn to Socket754 but if Semron are 64bit capable, the choice would be obvious. No one would ever recommend Athlon XP CPU since Sempron would be as fast and 64bit ready.
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Now I'm torn between a A64 2800+ and a AXP 2500+ as a standard recommendation.
Most enthousiasts like us still recommends Barton 2500+ because they can all be overclocked to 3200+ speed and they are much cheaper than A64 2800+. But, would you recommend anyone to buy an Athlon XP 3200+ that is not faster than the A64 2800+ and it's not supporting 64bit? Never.
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Even if it performs noticeable worse, it will still be considered fast enough for most people, and probably a large majority (myself included) wouldnt even consider the A64 anymore (unless you're a die hard gamer or something) if it supports 64 bit software as well. It will turn the A64 into a sort of "FX" chip, while AMD really wants you to buy A64's, no semprons.
I don't agree with you. Of course, some buyer's would turn to low-cost Sempron, but most of them would have not bought A64 anyway, they would have bought Athlon XP. If Sempron come with 64bit support, this will only kill the Athlon XP market. Have you noticed that most PC store don't sell P4 slower than 2.8GHz now? Average users are willing to pay that price for CPU's.
If a "crippled" CPU (Celeron, Duron, Sempron)is enough for your need and you are educated enough to understand their performance. It's fine go and buy one. But average buyers buy based on price tag and buzzwords. They want "Intel", "AMD", "3.0GHz" or "1Meg Cache" because someone told them or they have heard something about that...
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would more people buy a (64 bit) sempron over a A64 than people would buy such a chip over a Celeron?
I would simple answer to this that everything with Intel logo certainly get an advantage over AMD in most people mind. Which is sad.
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Now its time to cash in on this, and giving 64 bit capability away is not the way to do it.
They would not necessarly give it away... But I understand the fact that AMD might want to keep 64bit in the mid/high-end market. But, this can been from another perspective : why AMD would not push 64bit to the low-end before Intel to show their customer they believe in this technology and they really think users deserves CPU that can last long and will not need to be replaced when Windows 64bit will be there.
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If they really want that (64bit Windows), the $180 price tag of the A64 2800+ today shouldn't scare them away. Its not like intel will have a cheaper 64 bit capable product.
Today's average customers don't know much about Windows 64bit, but when the OS will be out, if tehy can find decently priced 64bit machine (based on Semron 64bit) they will probably buy it compared to a Celeron system at the same price tag.
When Windows 64bit will be out, who will still recommends to buy 32 version of the OS if the hardware is able to run the 64bit version?
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You have to pay extra at intel if you want to benefit from SSE3 or Hyperthreading as well, which obviously makes sense. If you have a feature that people really want, enough to consider switching manufacturers, giving that feature away for free on your cheapest product really isnt a sensible business tactic.
Giving away stuff is never the way to go, but havaing an advantage over the competition for the same price is a good way to go. AMD is not giving 64bit, their A64 are priced equally to P4 that have HT/SSE3. AMD could also not give AMD64 on Sempron, they could set their price to 10/20$ more than equally rated Athlon XP or Sempron for SocketA. Sempron would still be competive with Celeron.
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AMD doesn't need to seed the market anymore, just concentrate on making bucks and a 32 bit sempron makes perfect sense in this regard IMHO.
If AMD will do so, I will not blame them, they will want to make money. But what I'm afraid of is if average people will be interested in 32bit Sempron. Most of them will stick to Intel's logo.
We could go on and on with this, we will see upon offical release/reviews and after sales numbers...
I really wish to see them with 64bit, if they are not I'll be a bit disapointed.
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What's the <b><font color=green>AMD Mobile Athlon 64</font color=green></b> overclocking potential? <b>It's huge!</b> Humm... Maybe not that huge...
Why does everyone thinks that 64bit Sempron would cut AMD profits? Did Duron cut Athlon XP profits?
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The question is will the 32bit Sempron be better than the Athlon Xp Barton
A one million dollars question! It would be a bit weird for AMD to launch faster CPU on a dying platform. On ther other hand, it might become a viable upgrade for current Duron/Athlon XP owner.
But I have big doubt/concerns about Sempron on SocketA. How AMD can make an integrated memory controller CORE work on a SocketA, these core are very different in architecture. Have they disgned it to work without the integrated memory controller? Or, in worst case scenario. Sempron for SocketA will only be "renamed" Athlon XP with a new rating that reflects the new reality. Athlon XP 3200+ would become Sempron 2800+...
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What's the <b><font color=green>AMD Mobile Athlon 64</font color=green></b> overclocking potential? <b>It's huge!</b> Humm... Maybe not that huge...
