AMD's Sempron 3300+: 90nm Budget Computing
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 18, 2005 2:10 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Business/General Use Performance
Business Winstone 2004
Business Winstone 2004 tests the following applications in various usage scenarios:
- Microsoft Access 2002
- Microsoft Excel 2002
- Microsoft FrontPage 2002
- Microsoft Outlook 2002
- Microsoft PowerPoint 2002
- Microsoft Project 2002
- Microsoft Word 2002
- Norton AntiVirus Professional Edition 2003
- WinZip 8.1
The Sempron is a much stronger business performer than the Celeron D - that hasn't changed since we first looked at the Sempron. The 3300+ offers barely any performance improvement over the 3100+ however.
Office Productivity SYSMark 2004
SYSMark's Office Productivity suite consists of three tests, the first of which is the Communication test. The Communication test consists of the following:
"The user receives an email in Outlook 2002 that contains a collection of documents in a zip file. The user reviews his email and updates his calendar while VirusScan 7.0 scans the system. The corporate web site is viewed in Internet Explorer 6.0. Finally, Internet Explorer is used to look at samples of the web pages and documents created during the scenario."
Once again, we see that the Sempron is stronger at business applications, but the 3300+ offers no real performance improvement over the 3100+.
The next test is Document Creation performance:
"The user edits the document using Word 2002. He transcribes an audio file into a document using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 6. Once the document has all the necessary pieces in place, the user changes it into a portable format for easy and secure distribution using Acrobat 5.0.5. The user creates a marketing presentation in PowerPoint 2002 and adds elements to a slide show template."
The final test in our Office Productivity suite is Data Analysis, which BAPCo describes as:
"The user opens a database using Access 2002 and runs some queries. A collection of documents are archived using WinZip 8.1. The queries' results are imported into a spreadsheet using Excel 2002 and are used to generate graphical charts."
In the Data Analysis tests, the Celeron D actually outpaces the Sempron by a pretty good margin - just over 20%. The two Semprons perform identically, but it does show that the Celeron D can be quite competitive.
Mozilla 1.4
Quite possibly the most frequently used application on any desktop is the one that we pay the least amount of attention when it comes to performance. While a bit older than the core that is now used in Firefox, performance in Mozilla is worth looking at as many users are switching from IE to a much more capable browser on the PC - Firefox.
Mozilla has always favored architectures like the K8 and the Pentium M, so it is no surprise to see that the Sempron does a lot better than the Celeron D here.
ACD Systems ACDSee PowerPack 5.0
ACDSee is a popular image editing tool that is great for basic image editing options such as batch resizing, rotating, cropping and other such features that are too elementary to justify purchasing something as powerful as Photoshop. There are no extremely complex filters here, just pure batch image processing.
Here, the Sempron 3300+ and the Celeron D offer basically identical performance.
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coldpower27 - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
Maybe this is a way for AMD to get rid of "sucky" Venices. Though at 127US pricing, it's value is questionable over getting the Athlon 64 2800+.Illissius - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
s/half the memory controllers/half the channels of memory/Illissius - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
Are we looking at the same graphs? There were quite a lot where the 3300+ significantly outperformed the 3100+ (granted, also a few where they were identical, but very few where the 3100+ was faster).Which begs the question: wtf has AMD done to these things' memory controller? In many tests it ran dead even with or even outperformed the A64 3200+, with half the memory controllers and a fourth the cache (note: no, I didn't miss eg. the gaming benches where it rather sucked, but it's very surprising for it to give that kind of performance *anywhere*). At the same time, from every benchmark I've seen, Venices (Venii? :D) are only very slightly faster than Newcastles/Winchesters... strange.
paulsiu - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
With a reduce cache, the 3300 did not seemed like a good deal especially if it barely beats the 3100. Why not just get a 3100 or overclock it. Better yet, get a A64 2800+.Once you hit a Sempron 3100+, their value becomes highly questionable because an A64 only cost a little bit more. The problem is that AMD appears to be discontinueing all A64 for the 754 socket with the exception of mobile A64. Few Mb manufacturer support mobiles directly.
AtaStrumf - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
AT only got 2,4 GHz with increased voltage, XBIT Labs only got 2,3 GHz; damn these are some bad 90 nm chips. WTF is AMD up to? Venice chips did 2,7 GHz easy.As soon as get my hand on some $$$ I'm switching to S939, PCIe and a nice Venice chip. With dual core desktop Hammers not likely to appear before 2006, this will be the only game in town for the remainder of 2005 That is of course unless Pentium D tickles your fancy.
As for X800XT distorting the gaming value CPU picture, I think this is something worth thinking about. Maybe you should include a test with a 6600GT, just to see if a more expensive CPU, coupled with a value graphics card actually makes any difference.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
The 2.4GHz overclock was the most reasonable air-cooled overclock we could obtain. Regardless of how hard we tried, 2.50GHz was not possible with our chip.Take care,
Anand
Calin - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
One big disadvantage of the Socket 754 Sempron would be the reduced memory bandwidth for an hypothetical "onboard video" solution. This is the main reason why I would like a dual channel Sempron that would cost much less than an Athlon 64. For now Sempron on Socket 754 (even with the lower price of the mainboards) is not a good choice in many regardsoverclockingoodness - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
#14: Do you think AnandTech really have time for max overclocking experiements with phase cooling and stock cooling? It's all a waste. Besides, even though AT is an enthusiast site, they have more than enough projects to tackle than some enthuisiast sites who keep posting their maximum overclocks on the net. There are far too many forums and sites for that.And yeah, enough with the conspiracy theories. It is starting to become a regular thing in comments section of every article. People always find a way to doubt AT.
#13: I disagree. Imagine if they used 6600GT for the CPUs and almost all CPUs scored identical. This would mean that the GPU is the bottleneck. AT's goal is to remove the potential bottleneck. I am sure some people would come in and whine about the incorrect results due to GPU limitations. Although you will not get the same performance as AT did, at least it shows the product's strenghts/weeknesses. :)
knitecrow - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
Considering the price of an sempron 3100+ to be $113 @ newegg and the price of a athlon64 2800+ to be $120; I see absolutely no reason to get a sempron!!!!!!!!!!!Visual - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
wooo, bobsmith1492, that's the one!and its on top of the news section too... how didn't i notice it... i must be going nuts.
well sorry about that.
THEY SPY ON US WITH RAY! Wait, I must have my tinfoil hat here somewhere....
P.S. and yeah, it'd be good to see the actual overclock max of the chip, with a mem divider and lowered htt multi and all. at various voltages. with stock and phase-change cooling. :p