Athlon vs Sempron??

[menace-uk-]

What is the difference between athlon and sempron

I have noticed the cache on sempron is smaller but how does that effect the performance of the CPU and what else makes 1 of them better than the other

[Sir. S.A.S]

Re: Athlon vs Sempron??

the athlon is a better chip all together. It runs cooler, price vs performance is better.

the sepron is based for the office people. But i have heard its able to run BF2 how good i dont know.

[Kapyong]

Re: Athlon vs Sempron??

Yah,
the AthlonXP is better than Sempron.

Here is a chart showing details:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/127

Note the Sempron 754 has HT now.

(And the Athlon64 is the top end.)

K.

[LoD]

Re: Athlon vs Sempron??

Comparing K8 based Athlons and Semprons..... The Sempron is single core only, but otherwise performs about 90% of the speed of an equally clocked Athlon. The cache does not play a huge difference for K8 and you can get really good cheap performance from a Sempron.

Socket 754 are single channel ram, 1600mhz HTT and less cache than an Athlon.

Socket AM2 are dual channel, 1600mhz HTT and have less cache than a Athlon.

I would recommend a 256kb cache Sempron if you must get one, they are not bad chips at all, but low end Athlons with 512kb cache are not "that much" more money, so for a gamer it is usually better getting the full cache for that extra ~10% of performance, but they are not by any means crappy CPUs.

[menace-uk-]

Re: Athlon vs Sempron??

So if you can afford it get an athlon preferably a 64 but a sempron is not a bad compromise

Thanks guys im thinking of getting an athlon64 AM2 dual core not sure on speed maybe 2 ghz but i can only find motherboards with it that support DDR2

Is DDR2 any good cause i keep reading it has poor latency or something and i dont know what that means

[LoD]

Re: Athlon vs Sempron??

DDR2 is the new standard, AM2 requires DDR2 because the memory controller is built onto the CPU. If you're buying new you might as well get AM2. Socket 754/939 use regular DDR1 ram, but they are being phased out and are older technology.

[sackynut]

Re: Athlon vs Sempron??

they are dropping the prices on a lot of AM2's as well soon, next month. so wait for that ;D.

i remember when i first wanted to build a gaming rig, my uncle (who is a software engineer) tried to convince me the sempron 3100+ was the best gaming chip ever. thank god i didnt listen.

[claevade]

Re: Athlon vs Sempron??

I bought a Asus M2N-E motherboard with a Athlon 64 X2 4200+ and 2GB DDR PC6400 Corsair. That is AM2.

[Eddy01741]

Re: Athlon vs Sempron??

they are dropping the prices on a lot of AM2's as well soon, next month. so wait for that ;D.

i remember when i first wanted to build a gaming rig, my uncle (who is a software engineer) tried to convince me the sempron 3100+ was the best gaming chip ever. thank god i didnt listen.

July 23 is the exact date. Anyways, the L2 cache matters quite a bit, like a 512kb l2 cache 2.4ghz proccesor=1MB l2cache 2.2ghz (those are the 3800+ and 3700+). ANd you can overclock the clock speed, but you can't up the cache.

[lonegunm4n]

Re: Athlon vs Sempron??

July 23 is the exact date. Anyways, the L2 cache matters quite a bit, like a 512kb l2 cache 2.4ghz proccesor=1MB l2cache 2.2ghz (those are the 3800+ and 3700+). ANd you can overclock the clock speed, but you can't up the cache.

that's why I went with an Opteron 146 instead of a A64 3200+.

[Eddy01741]

Re: Athlon vs Sempron??

that's why I went with an Opteron 146 instead of a A64 3200+.

Yea, optys are amazingly great, especially at overclocking. I hope they still have em for s939 at mid august when i upgrade.

[imported_Wreck]

Re: Athlon vs Sempron??

Yea, optys are amazingly great, especially at overclocking. I hope they still have em for s939 at mid august when i upgrade.

The opty's will also be migrating to socket AM2 and bringing their 1Mb cache with them.

[Eddy01741]

Re: Athlon vs Sempron??

The opty's will also be migrating to socket AM2 and bringing their 1Mb cache with them.

OMFG, hope they are there by mid-august, i would still prefer a s939 cheap opty, so i don't have to dish out 80-130 bucks on a mobo.

EDIT: WOw, the optys are gona be the only AMD cpus with 1mb l2 cache. Can't belive they're getting rid of CPUs like the 3700+.