The Sempron is AMD’s budget processor, AMD’s answer to Celeron. With these processors, you really need to be careful. There are two different Semprons, K7 versions and K8 versions.
When AMD released the Athlon 64, AMD relegated the previous mainstream processor line, the Athlon XP, to the budget line. For a while they kept the Athlon XP name, but soon AMD changed it to Sempron, to define it as a budget processor. Now, what you need to understand is that there were different versions of Athlon XP, but lets just concentrate on two. There was Thoroughbred and Barton, Thoroughbred with 256k of cache, and Barton with 512k of cache. As expected, Barton is the higher performer. Now what you need to know is that when AMD decided to kill off Athlon XP and rename it Sempron, they didn’t use Barton. They used Thoroughbred to save money.
This wouldn’t be so bad if they priced it lower, but they didn’t. In fact they priced them higher than previous Athlon XP’s. For example, right now on Newegg you can pick up a 2500+ Sempron (which runs at 1.75GHz with 256k of cache) for $75. But, for $1 more, you can get an OEM Athlon XP 2500+, which runs at 1.83GHz with 512k of cache. Unfortunately, the situation can only get worse. Athlon XP’s are disappearing, Sempron is here to stay, which is driving up the Athlon XP prices. If you really must buy a Socket A system, make sure it is built using Athlon XP.
But, there is another side to the coin when it comes to Sempron. Everything I just said refers to the K7 Sempron, but there is also a K8 version based off the Athlon 64. These Semprons cost more, but they also offer performance for the money you pay, unlike the K7 Semprons. If you compare the price to performance ratio of the Celeron D to the K7 Sempron, Celeron D comes out on top. But comparing the K8 Sempron is a different story, it is much better. The K8 Sempron is high performing, but at a reasonable cost.
The Sempron has less cache than its bigger brother. The loss of cache doesn’t really drop the performance massively, but if you are a gamer you will appreciate the extra cache. Here is a great article from X-bit labs, which shows the new 90nm Semprons with 128k of cache versus the .13 micron Semprons with 256k of cache. As you can see, there is very little difference unless you play a lot of games.
It has all of the Athlon 64′s features, except it only has 256k of cache, and it is lacking 64 bit capabilities. If you want a budget processor, these are worth looking into.
One thing to note about the lack of 64 bit technology is that it may not be that way for long. Intel are going to enable 64 bit on their Celeron processors. So, AMD will be behind in the budget arena. But I don’t expect AMD to sit back, I expect them to hit back by doing exactly the same to their K8 Semprons. Just see what happens when Intel do get their 64 bit Celerons into the market.
So, now you know the difference between the technologies and processors, what next? Next you need to know the difference between the cores.
Even though two processors may have the same name, they may be different on the inside. Sometimes the differences are small and not worth considering, but some are major and should be considered. We talk about the different cores on the next page.
Like what you read?
If so, please join over 28,000 people who receive our exclusive weekly newsletter and computer tips, and get FREE COPIES of 5 eBooks we created, as our gift to you for subscribing. Just enter your name and email below:
