Supplied by AMD
The leading edge of technology doesn’t have to have a bleeding edge price. Not every PC buyer wants to or needs to pay big bucks for performance. AMD introduces Sempron to meet the performance needs of the budget buyer and just when you thought Socket A was dead; it isn’t. Sempron isn’t two processors. Rather it is the adaptation of two technologies based in Socket A and Socket 754. To understand what Sempron is…is to understand who Sempron is for.
The budget conscious consumer
A vast majority of the PC consumer market is comprised of the lost souls seeking a decent performance PC at a value price. Those two words, value and performance, are going to come up a lot when the word “Sempron” is used. It’s the Sempron drum the AMD marketing folk are banging hard lately. “Thump!”….Value….”Thump”….Performance. The pocketbook rules the budget conscious consumer and while the sexy video cards, gobs of high-end ram and top-of-the-line processors may beckon…the wallet contains moths at the till. The magic number for the thrifty-minded PC buyer, at present, seems to be “around $500.” (USD). That consumer wants value for their money and Sempron is positioned as a value processor.
The dictionary defines the word value as:
An amount, as of goods, services, or money, considered to be a fair and suitable equivalent for something else; a fair price or return.
A sub-$100 processor was almost unheard a few years ago unless it was far down the performance line; outdated technology. Sempron debuts 5 new processors under $100 and the flagship of the Socket 462 Sempron family is just three dollars over. Sempron for Socket 754 comes in at $120.
| Processor | Price* |
| Sempron 2200+ | $39 |
| Sempron 2300+ | $45 |
| Sempron 2400+ | $61 |
| Sempron 2500+ | $74 |
| Sempron 2600+ | $85 |
| Sempron 2800+ | $109 |
| Sempron 3100+ (Socket 754) | $126 |
* in USD 1k units
Budget conscious consumers also typically purchase a complete system rather than just a processor so another piece to the puzzle would be the cost of the entire PC. The following is a value system configuration with lowest prices taken from www.pricewatch.com on the date of this article.
| Motherboard ASUS A7N8X-VM/400 (LAN/AUDIO/VIDEO) | $80 |
| 1 x 256 MB Generic PC2700 Memory | $23 |
| Maxtor 80 GB hard drive | $54 |
| PC case and 300 watt power supply | $30 |
| Generic Keyboard and Optical Mouse | $20 |
| 17″ CRT Monitor KDS 17inch CRT Monitor, Black model XF-7BK | $125 |
| Floppy drive | $10 |
| Samsung 52x combo drive | $36 |
| Altec Lansing 2.1 Speaker system | $23 |
| Subtotal without processor, tax and shipping | $401 |
Even With the top end Sempron 2800+ the total purchase price is just a few dollars over $500 USD.
AMD’s apples to apples
AMD changed how it rated its processors a while back. The consumer has always been conditioned to measure a processor’s capability by its GHz rating; more is better. This is what INTEL continually trumpets but even the slightest bit of research will show that more GHz isn’t necessarily better when it comes to comparing INTEL against AMD processors. Admittedly the AMD PR Rating system isn’t as straight-forward when it comes to comparing against basic INTEL GHz numbers. More is better in the AMD product family but what about outside the product family? How, right there on the store shelf, could a consumer be able to compare a 2800+ to a 2.2 GHz INTEL or a 3800+ Socket 939 to an INTEL 3.2 GHz processor?
They can’t without a little reading or asking a few questions.
AMD have gone and attempted to solve this roadblock to a certain extent. At this point is where the conspiracy theorists will find their niche. The fact that AMD have apparently and arbitrarily revised the PR Rating system will be the fuel for their fire. However, the rain cloud putting out the conspirator’s flames is quite simple to see. Sempron for Socket 462 is a Thoroughbred core. AMD is not remarking used stock. They have simply adjusted the Thoroughbred core frequency to better match up against Celeron-D thus the giving them the ability to change the PR rating. AMD have adapted inexpensive, current and proven technology to make Sempron.
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Processor
|
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| Sempron 2200+ | Celeron 2.2 GHz |
| Sempron 2300+ | Celeron 2.3 GHz |
| Sempron 2400+ | Celeron 2.4 GHz |
| Sempron 2500+ | Celeron 2.5 GHz |
| Sempron 2600+ | Celeron 2.6 GHz |
| Sempron 2800+ | Celeron 2.8 GHz |
| Sempron 3100+ (Socket 754) | Celeron 2.8 GHz |
The pattern begins to emerge starting with the 2200+ directly comparing to the 2.2 GHz processor. Sempron isn’t new though. It isn’t really a first either.
First there was XP
The Socket 462 AthlonXP processor served AMD extremely well. It is, by no means, “old” technology. It is technology that has fulfilled its life according to the marketing department. “New, better, faster” is the order of the day and while AthlonXP has been a valiant sparring partner with the competition’s top end processors it is no longer “sexy” for big spenders or grabbing headlines.
There are, however, many consumers in the marketplace with a Socket 462 motherboard who may not make the financial expenditure to upgrade to a new socket 754, 939 or 940-pin motherboard and processor. More importantly there are the consumers on a budget who are seeking an entirely new PC. Sempron allows OEM system builders to package a performance PC at a budget price. Sempron comes from the proven design that was the Thoroughbred core. Don’t think there is a secret room at AMD where workers are busily peeling the labels off a stockpile of unsold AthlonXP processors.
The Sempron core and socket 462 design is well developed and well established in the marketplace. It’s inexpensive to produce by AMD and inexpensive to support for OEM system builders and retailers. The cost savings are thusly passed on to the consumer. The Sempron is, in layman’s terms, a re-tweaked AthlonXP to replace Duron. Sempron is meant to go head to head with Celeron. The adjustments are to make Sempron better suit the performance equation when it comes to comparing apples to apples or Sempron to Celeron.
So much for the conspiracy theory.
The next step is to not equate “cheap” with poor performance.
Sempron Specifications
Sempron for Socket 462 is:
- 130 nanometer technology
- 333 front side bus speed
- 256 K of L2 cache and 128 K of L1 Cache
- 1.6 Volts
- 84 mm squared die size
- Approximately 37.5 million transistors
- supports PC1600, PC2100, PC2700, and PC3200 unbuffered memory
| Processor | Frequency |
| Sempron 2200+ | 1.50 GHz |
| Sempron 2300+ | 1.58 GHz |
| Sempron 2400+ | 1.67 GHz |
| Sempron 2500+ | 1.75 GHz |
| Sempron 2600+ | 1.83 GHz |
| Sempron 2800+ | 2.0 GHz |
Sempron for Socket 754 is presently only available as the 3100+ (1.8 GHz):
- 130 nanometer SOI technology
- 64-bit Integrated memory controller up to 3.2 GB/s
- Single link HyperTransport Link up to 6.4 GB/s I/O for a effective data bandwidth of 9.6 GB/s.
- 1600 MHz System Bus
- 256 K of L2 cache and 128 K of L1 Cache
- 144 mm squared die size
- Approximately 68.5 million transistors
- supports PC1600, PC2100, PC2700, and PC3200 unbuffered memory
| Processor | Frequency |
| Sempron 3100+ | 1.8 GHz |
Sempron shouldn’t exactly be thought of as a recycled AthlonXP. It wasn’t too long ago that AthlonXP delivered heralded performance numbers that, in today’s world now known as Sempron, could put respectable performance in the hands of the budget minded consumer.
When Sempron is put side by side with its INTEL counterpart then a dramatic value difference is revealed.
|
Processor
|
Price*
|
Processor
|
Price**
|
| Sempron 2200+ | $39 | Celeron 2.2 GHz | $72 |
| Sempron 2300+ | $45 | Celeron 2.3 GHz | $78 |
| Sempron 2400+ | $61 | Celeron 2.4 GHz | $68 |
| Sempron 2500+ | $74 | Celeron 2.5 GHz | $88 |
| Sempron 2600+ | $85 | Celeron 2.6 GHz | $88 |
| Sempron 2800+ | $109 | Celeron 2.8 GHz | $122 |
| Sempron 3100+ (Socket 754) | $126 | Celeron 2.8 GHz | $122 |
*in USD 1k units. **lowest boxed retail www.pricewatch.com date of article.
Benchmarks.
There’ll be a pause to explain the benchmarking procedure before the flames start firing in. Sempron wasn’t due to launch until mid-August. Short-Media only found this out 48 hours prior to the new launch date of July 28th. 2004. Our goal was to get a budget buyer’s perspective of Sempron to publication. It is important to put Sempron into the proper perspective when examining the slew of benchmarks from this and other publications.
To that end there was very little time to benchmark Sempron let alone comparative systems. Two weeks would have been tight and two days was just silly. To that end we pulled data from our archives that was as close a comparison as possible. When looking at the benchmarks remember that the INTEL system is a P4 2.4 GHz processor with Hyperthreading enabled and not a Celeron which is the INTEL comparison processor to the Sempron. The P4 uses PC3200 XMS memory while the Sempron uses PC2700 from Infineon. The P4 is tested with the RADEON 9100 IGP onboard GPU, a FX5200 and GeForce4 MX440 video card. We made a decision to release this type of benchmark information that we had available at press time. It will be our mandate to follow up with a more equivalent comparison and in-depth analysis of Sempron 3100+. We know the benchmarks are not a true comparison and advise you to take that fact into careful consideration when examining the results.
It’s pretty obvious that the odds are stacked against Sempron in this benchmark comparison. It is additionally hanicapped by the onboard MX440 GPU and lesser memory. Given all that it doesn’t quite make for a fair fight. It’s too bad for the P4 as we tried to give it all the help we could.
The test systems.
- AMD Sempron 2800+
- ASUS A7N8X-VM/400 Motherboard with integrated GeForce4 MX GPU
- 2 x 256 MB Infineon PC2700 Memory
- LG 8x DVD+/-RW.
- 80 GB Seagate Hard Drive
- Samsung 950p 19″ Monitors
- PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse
- Retail HSF
- AMK SX1000 modded PC case (window, fans, cables, loom)
- Enermax 465 Watt FC PSU
- Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1 updated DX90.b installed.
- Intel P4 2.4 GHz (HT enabled)
- MSI RS3M-IL mATX motherboard
- Integrated ATI Radeon 9100 IGP
- NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440-SE Video Card
- FX5200 Video Card
- 2 x 256 MB Corsair PC3200 DDR RAM in DIMM 1 and 2
- Sony 52x CD
- Western Digital 80 GB Hard Drive
- Samsung 950p 19″ Monitors
- USB Keyboard and Optical Mouse
- Retail HSF packaged with processor
- AMK SX1000 modded PC case (window, fans, cables, loom)
- Enermax 465 Watt FC PSU
- Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1 updated DX90.b installed
- Intel P4 2.4 GHz (HT enabled)
- Gigabyte GA-8TRS300M mATX motherboard with RADEON 9100 IGP
- 2 x 256 MB Corsair PC3200 DDR RAM in DIMM 1 and 3
- Sony 52x CD
- Western Digital 80 GB Hard Drive
- Samsung 950p 19″ Monitors
- USB Keyboard and Optical Mouse
- Retail HSF packaged with processor
- AMK SX1000 modded PC case (window, fans, cables, loom)
- Enermax 465 Watt FC PSU
- Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1 updated
Programs used
Sisoft Sandra 2004- MadOnion
3DMark 2001 SE - MadOnion
3DMark 2003 - Quake
III Arena - GL
Excess - SpecviewPerf 7.1
- Serious Sam SE
- Splinter Cell (Chinese Embassy timedemo)
- Unreal Tournament 2003 flyby benchmarks
- Aquamark3
- Jurassic Park Operation Genesis (Exercise cut scene/FRAPS)
- Call of Duty demo (40,000 frames played/FRAPS)
- X2
Demo - Wolfenstein Enemy Territory (Railgun demo)
- Fraps
- Adobe After Effects 5.5
- Softimage 2.0.1
All tests were run at default video card settings with VSYNC disabled. Anti-Aliasing
and Anisotropic Filtering was left ticked for application preference. AGP aperture
was set to 128 MB. Windows visual effects
was set for ADJUST FOR BEST PERFORMANCE.
Individual performance will vary with any particular or specific timings or
tweaks enabled by you. A 1024 MB page file was moved to D: partition. Temporary
Internet files moved to J: partition at end of drive. OS installed to C: and
programs installed to E:. All programs were benchmarked with initial monitor
settings at 1024×768@75Hz. Your own mileage may very.
Aquamark3
Aquamark3 is a newer benchmark from Massive Development. For the most part
it is a DirectX 8.1 benchmark though it is run with DirectX 90b installed. Four
measurement sets were used. The first has high and low detail with Anti Aliasing
and Anisotropic filtering turned off. The second has high and low detail with
Anti-Aliasing (6x) and Anisotropic filtering (16x) set at max.
|
|
GL Excess
GL Excess is an OPENGL benchmark that is optimized for DX8.1.
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Quake III high quality
Quake III continues to hang around. This benchmark is one that
most can’t just let go of and it retains grandfather rights in the community.
Many of today’s games are based upon the Quake engine. It wasn’t too long ago that we thought topping 100
FPS was fast. Now we sit at over 300 FPS with the screen set to a high resolution
and detail.
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Serious Sam
|
UT2003 Flyby
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Wolfenstein Enemy Territory: Railgun timedemo
Wolfenstein Enemy Territory uses an improved version of the heavily
modified Quake III engine from Return to Castle Wolfenstein. The Railgun time
demo results were recorded.
|
X2 Rolling Demo
X2 – The Threat is a teaser with a benchmark option for Egosoft’s
upcoming release. It does not use pixel shaders.
|
Specviewperf 7.1
SpecviewPerf measures the 3D rendering performance of systems
running under OPENGL.
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Sisoft Sandra 2004
|
|
|
Benchmark Conclusions
Interpretting the benchmarks is made more difficult by the lack of a true and fair comparison. The Intel P4 2.4 GHz processor is aided by the stronger video cards and higher frequency ram. In spite of that the Sempron, “limping” along with the PC2700 RAM and the integrated GeForce4 MX GPU puts up a surprising fight. In some benchmarks the Sempron actually placed first. It’s quite easy to make the leap of faith to extrapolate that Sempron could easily outrun its equivalent Celeron competition. The “unfair” comparison actually revealed the strong performance of Sempron.
3DMark03, Splinter Cell and UT2004 were unable to properly execute on the ASUS A7N8X-VM/400 platform and were not included. This is the fault of the GPU rather than the CPU. Sisoft Sandra reveals the memory advantage of the P4 processor equipped systems.
SpecviewPerf, QuakeIII and Wolfenstein showed highly surprising results with the Sempron’s processor superiority pulling it into top position.
In most of the gaming benchmarks the Sempron placed behind the P4 2.4 GHz HT enabled processor equipped with the superior video cards. What is to be noted is that, despite that handicap, it never finished last.
Conclusions
Who is Sempron for? Sempron is a processor that is value priced to be highly attractive to the budget buyer. This isn’t an enthusiast processor but it is no slouch. Sempron is, after all, a Thoroughbred that has been adjusted to better match up against Celeron-D. Enthusiasts have already experienced Thoroughbred AthlonXP, own a superior XP model or have moved to higher ground.
Sempron is value. Sempron is performance.
It’s obvious that AMD are setting their sights on the market of budget-minded PC buyers. What AMD have done is given new life to a veteran processor. For those knowledgeable of the AthlonXP it’s no good to try to compare AthlonXP 2800+, for example, with Sempron 2800+. They are different processors in frequency; 2.25 GHz versus 2.0 GHz. This may not matter because, in a short while, the lower model numbers of AthlonXP will disappear starting with model numbers below AthlonXP 2700+.
What AMD have cleverly done is to give themselves a little bit of “elbow room” for Sempron. The lower frequency and adjusted PR model numbers mean that future Sempron processors can be released for the budget market. This path will also eventually end but not as soon as many had thought. Furthermore, this will give time for Sempron Socket 754 to become fulfill its intended purpose which is the same as Sempron Socket 462. It’s all about the time needed for transition. Socket 462 and 754 will eventually fade away but it’s too firmly entrenched at the moment to be ignored. OEM system builders and retailers appear to believe there’s still a market to support it. The overwhelming amount of available Socket 462 and 754 motherboards supports this.
It was expected that Sempron would be better than Duron but not impressive. As it turns out Sempron put up a strong fight against a P4 (Celeron-D processor were not available from INTEL for review comparison). If Sempron can hold its own against a P4 then it’s easy to assume the outcome against Celeron.
Sempron isn’t a miracle processor though but it could turn out to be one of AMD’s smarter moves. Sempron is a re-tweaked Thoroughbred. The Thoroughbred lived its first life battling it out with top-end P4 processor and now, like a Phoenix from the flames, it rises to battle it out with Celeron at the budget PC level. When consumers learn that they can get “more bang for the buck” with Sempron it can only benefit AMD.
Finally there’s the need for proper perspective. Sempron isn’t intended for a high-end gaming or performance workstation PC. For that theres Socket 939 and 940. Sempron is intended for that “everyday” PC used to send email, play the occasional game, surf the Internet and do homework. Why spend $1000 or more when all that’s needed including monitor can be had for “around $500”? The benchmarks show that Sempron, even on a system with a low-end, on-board GPU peforms as well as or better than a better equipped P4.
The Sempron buyer stands to benefit from previous enthusiasts who came before. Sempron is the proverbial Phoenix from what will be AthlonXP’s ashes. When AthlonXP 2800+ hit the market in October of 2002 it launched at almost $400 USD in 1k quantities and it made quite the performance splash. Now Sempron 2200+ launches at $39 and Sempron 2800+ at $109. The performance splash is still there but in time it will be much bigger when you consider the value.
Our thanks to AMD for
their support of this and many other sites.
Highs
- Inexpensive
- Great performer
- Wide and proven motherboard support
- Lots of support products
- Proven
Lows
- Availability
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