AMD Sempron: A Fresh Take on Budget Computing
by Derek Wilson on July 28, 2004 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Pricing, Roadmap and Model Information
This is where things get interesting in the budget market. We'll start off with the AMD to Intel comparison, and then we'll move on to the interesting part.From our RealTime Pricing engine, Celeron's show up at NewEgg for the following prices:
Intel Celeron D 335: $127
Intel Celeron D 330: $97
Intel Celeron D 325: $88
As the Sempron isn't on the market yet, we have to go on pricing from AMD in orders of 1000 units. The line-up on these processors is as follows:
AMD Sempron 3100+: $120
AMD Sempron 2800+: $103
AMD Sempron 2600+: $79
AMD Sempron 2500+: $69
AMD Sempron 2400+: $52
AMD Sempron 2300+: $45
AMD Sempron 2200+: $39
So, what we have here is just about price parity among the top two budget processors from AMD and Intel. Again, we don't have any "real" retail numbers on Sempron yet, but these should be very close to prices at which these processors hit the street.
Because of the clock speeds of the K7 Sempron processors, we expect to see the Sempron 2800+ perform on par with an Athlon XP 2600+, which would put it above the new Celeron processors in most cases. And we'll revisit price/performance after we take a look at the performance tests.
The most interesting thing to note with respect to pricing is that the 166MHz FSB Tbred Athlon XP 2600+ can easily be found for between $70 and $80. That means that AMD's new budget line (except for the 3100+) loses out in price/performance to the mainstream chip on which it is based.
On the flip side, if overclocked and rebranded processors were a problem for AMD before (from the justification for their multiplier lock), how much more of a problem will it be for them to have aging cheap Tbred AXPs underclocked, rebranded as Semprons, and sold for more money? Granted, there aren't that many of those processors on the market right now, but it is some food for thought.
Here's a quick summary of Sempron's common features.
- 130nm manufacturing process
- 256KB L2 cache size
- 128KB L1 cache size
We've complained about the model number rating system every chance we have thus far, but to be fair, AMD has a lot of ground to make up against Intel, and they need every advantage they can get. The fact that the new aggressive model numbers step on the toes of existing AMD products is kind of a side effect. Here's why:
The new performance rating system is independent of any previous rating system and based solely on relative performance among other Sempron processors in a suite of benchmark suites. Specifically, AMD uses:
PC Magazine Business Winstone 2004
PC Magazine Content Creatoin Winstone 2004
SYSmark 2004 Office Productivity Overall
SYSmark 2004 Internet Content Creation Overall
We test part of this suite in our budget benchmarks, but we really don't have our hands on enough of the Sempron line to tell how their relative performance numbers actually indicate relative performance.
The reason why AMD focused on these suites when rating their Sempron line is that games and high performance software aren't the typical target market for budget processors. While this is perfectly acceptable, and an isolated relative scale is also acceptable, "arbitrarily" picking a single fixed point around which to scale performance numbers has led to more aggressive ratings.
Of course, if a consumer or a company is looking at building a lot of budget systems, they are going to look at equivalent price points and equivalent "performance" (by that, I mean megahertz or performance rating). The problem is that whether or not AMD wants to do things "right", they still have to sell product to the consumer. With a Sempron 2800+ cheaper than an Intel Celeron 335 (2.8GHz), people who don't understand that numbers don't mean quality will pick the cheaper part (unless they are brainwashed by the Intel brand name). People who know what's going on will understand that the Sempron 2800+ is higher performing than the Celeron 335 and will buy it if it reflects the level of performance that they desire at that price point.
The final aspect of these chips we would like to mention is power dissipation. All of the new Sempron line are designed to maximally dissipate 62W of power. This is on par with AMDs other CPUs, and we are also hearing that we might should expect mobile versions of the Sempron to be rated at less than half the wattage of their desktop counter parts. We don't know when this line of processors will be launced at this time.
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draco8099 - Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - link
"Reliability/compatibility hasn't been an issue for a long time. FYI Intel has had 4 recalls in as many years. AMD has never had a recall"I agree that AMD chips are reliable... but AMD does NOT make chipsets.
There where times in the past that I wished VIA or SIS would recall the crap they sometimes produced. Thankfully Nvidia entered the chipset making business.
Bonesdad - Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - link
yah, gotta wonder where he comes up with a statement like "along with the added reliability Intel offers...". This clearly comes from someone with no experience with AMD products. I personally have no qualms about either Intel or AMD when it comes to reliability. But if AMD offers more performance/$$ than Intel, I will always choose AMD.ThePlagiarmaster - Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - link
T8000, You're kidding right? I'll take an Nforce2 with onboard (asus A7n8x-VM/400 $81) over any onboard intel graphics. We're talking geforce4mx here. It can at least play some games. Intel's integrated graphics doesn't even come close even with the 915G chipset.http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040728/sempron-0...
Jeez, up to 3x performance over Intel's integrated graphics...ROFLMAO. You go ahead and buy that Intel integrated crap chipset. BTW the 865/875 is no more current than nforce2. They are both old tech and both decent (uh, except when comparing onboard graphics...nvidia kicks butt here). Last page of toms review: "In addition, motherboards based on the nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset offer more graphics performance than Intel's 865G platform at a similar and sometimes lower price"
So for $81 (asus a7n8x-VM/400) + Sempron 2800 $120 (which is probably REALLY HIGH...more likely $100 when hits pricewatch or less) we have $200 at most. You said it A P4 can beat it for the same money. Well, as soon as you throw in Intel's integrated graphics it doesn't matter what chip you have...YOU LOSE. But you won't spend less than $200 for a P4 and Integrated board. No way. You'd need a P4 2.4 or better just to cache the chip in speed. The graphics is an absolute loss regardless of choices.
Reliability/compatibility hasn't been an issue for a long time. FYI Intel has had 4 recalls in as many years. AMD has never had a recall :)
Zebo - Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - link
"i'm curious how my 2.5ghz barton compares to say a semperon running at 2.0-2.2ghz "Is'nt everyone:)
Socket754 wise I think a sempron is about 10% faster than the mobileXP's at same speeds so 2.2 would probably equal or beat a 2.5 A-XP......Can't wait:):):)
bearxor - Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - link
#27I thought about that angle, and while it should work, the fact of the matter is that mpga478 is about to be just as dead as socket 462. If newer Celeron-D's were LGA 775, you could make a case for a better upgrade path with PCI-e and such.
I'm sorry guys, but I'm comparing the Sempron 2800+ with the Celeron 335, which runs at 2.8ghz. I'm not going to compare the Celeron to the Socket 754 3100+, as its name clearly states its a 3100+. If there was a Celeron running at 3100 or so, then I could compare them.
Comparing between the two 2800 classes, there just doesn't seem to be a nail in the coffin. Someone who is going to buy something like this is going to be happy with either one.
Zebo - Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - link
Derek anything we'd like to see?Yes. I'd like to see you using good aftermarket HS.
Then I think you can get the celeron D to 3.8 to 4.0.
Also, The sempron 3100 is of most intrest to me..as it's already fast, offers cheap MOBOs like the chaintech, and I think will make 2.6 on air easy due to less cache..
Not so impressed with the socketA semprons as I think the moblie Athlons are so much better both in overclcoking and perfromance. Anyway it would be cool to throw a 2600moblie in there at 2.6..
Thanks:)
tfranzese - Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - link
"added reliability Intel offers"Where is it? Don't you read the news, Intel now reliably offers chipset recalls and EEPROM updates just for you.
You're either living in the past or should be on Intel's marketing payroll because you reek of it.
tfranzese - Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - link
"For Sempron Socket 752, I think the added cost of getting a suitable mainboard places it in the price range of a Pentium 4, that will outperform it with ease."Really, can you back that up?
T8000 - Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - link
With these small performance differences, I would say $20 more buys you a current Intel DDR-1/AGP platform (i865 + C335) instead of an old AMD platform (nf400 + S2800). Along with the added reliability Intel offers and the very inexpensive optional "Extreme" 2D graphics you can get, I do not think Sempron Socket A is a sensible choice.For Sempron Socket 752, I think the added cost of getting a suitable mainboard places it in the price range of a Pentium 4, that will outperform it with ease.
So I think there is no reason to be so optimistic about Sempron, especially considering the benchmark selection in this review, that might make Sempron look better then it would in the real world.
DerekWilson - Wednesday, July 28, 2004 - link
Both the K7 and K8 Sempron chips dissipate 62W of power maximally.We hear that mobile chips will be coming out with mobile chips which will be in the 25W-30W range.
I'll update the article with this info.