AMD Sempron 2400 - ok?

[Dare2]

Anyone know of or used systems with AMD sempron 2400 processor?

I can get a system (40 gb HDD, 246 mb mem, crappy monitor and crappy keyboard) with this processor with 1 yr warranty for under $600 (Aussie), or under $700 with XP.

Not a cutting edge unit, for sure. But pretty cheap. Thought I might get a couple, one for *nix and one for XP.

However I have never heard of a sempron. Any opinions?

(edited once to make it more readable)

[Bonne_den_kule]

Sephron is slower than an athlonXP.

[Dare2]

Hi Bonne_den_kule, and thanks.

I see there is sephron and a sempron shown. Is sephron = sempron, seems to be from googling?

Also saw some claims sempron (3100) is faster than Athlon - I assume 2400 is downmarket 3100?

Slow is OK (if not too slow!) as these are not intended as a game or a multi-media, etc, machines, just for learning *nix, screwing up, and developing.

Reliable?

Anyhow, thanks again.

[Saboteur]

I think it is very similar to AthlonXP. It is a little slow because if Sempron has 64Kb Cache L1, AthlonXP has 128Kb. Something similar happens with celeron and pentium.

[Dare2]

Hi Saboteur,

Thanks.

I think I'll go with one, and go with something slightly dearer for the other box.

[blueznl]

sempron = athlon - 64 (?) kb cache

performance rating, however, is misleading

a sempron 3000 is NOT equal to an athlon 3000 (sempron ratings are supposed to match celeron ratings, go figure, thanks amd for messing up the landscape a little more)

so, i'd say a sempron 2500 is similar to an athlon 2000 .. 2250 or something in that range

for regular fare home or office use it's good enough (anything above 1.5 ghz whatever processor works if you don't go all out on gaming)

however... my personal experience has shown a bigger gap between celeron's and pentiums than their numbering scheme may have indicated, so i suspect something similar with the sempron vs. athlon, or duron vs. athlon... raw numbers may tell you something bur (subjective) personal experience may be a whole different issue

(for example, i am using an xp 2500 which feels 'fast' although (performance) ratings show it to be (in an absolute way) slower than comparable pentiums or other athlon xp's... it's the whole system with all hardware included AND a proper configuration that makes a system 'feel' fast, not just the processor

[griz]

Hi Dare2,

The Sempron is AMD's new Duron processor. Apparently the Athlon XP is to be phased out by the end of the year. Anandtech list Semprons as having 128KB of L1 cache and 256KB of L2 and state that performance (especially memory intensive performance) should actually look much better than Durons or early Athlons at the same speed with 4 times the L2 cache and a 333MHz FSB.

From Tom's Hardware :

AMD's Sempron is able to outperform Celeron D in most applications.

In the end I think you'll be very happy with the Sempron for what you require. I read (somewhere?) that a 2400 Sempton runs at 1.67 GHz and somehow relates to the AMD Athlon 2000+ (but on the newer T B core). There are are two types of Semprons : Socket A and Socket 754/939 (same as Athlon 64).

[Bonne_den_kule]

Amd has many version of athlonXp (barton, throughbred, ...), so which version do they gonna get rid of? I don't think their are gonna kill all of them.

[Dare2]

Hi guys,

Thanks for all the info - I have a much better feeling about the sempron now.

I'll go with 2 or 3 of the cheaper and sempron based systems rather than 1 dearer unit. I figure if one breaks it becomes parts for the others.