AM2 Sempron 3200 or Athlon 3000 ?

[taidi]

The AM2 Sempron 3200 and Athlon 3000 are about the same price at the moment, so which - from a 'cool running' perspective, should I go for ?

The PC is just for general office apps, and I haven't a lot to spend. With a WD SATA 120GB 5400RPM notebook drive I'm concerned it might be a little sluggish, so the Athlon with the larger L2 cache looks the more attractive option.

I'll be using an Asrock ALIVENF6G-DVI motherboard and looking at the undervolting options to keep temps down.

I'm also not clear about how much RAM I'll need, will 1GB be enough given the GPU on the Asrock board requires 256MB of system RAM ?

Been lurking here for a few weeks now and avidly reading all the really useful info for which I'd like to thank all concerned.

[nzimmers]

well, I just noticed at NewEgg you can get the AMD X2 3600+ Brisbane core without heatsink for $67 or something like that, which is a steal when you compare it to a $40 range Sempron or single core athlon

even if you don't think you will need the power, a dual core CPU will probably have a longer useful life as future apps will require more power and it should still idle at a low level of energy consumption.

at Idle, most AMD chips, even the dual core ones, probably consume less energy than the motherboard they are mounted on.

[~El~Jefe~]

yeah, that brisbane is the best buy I have EVER seen for a new computer.

sempron=sux

its toast.

dual core true a64 rox

[drees]

Anyone know how the idle power consumption varies with the X2 processors compared to the single core processors?

[~El~Jefe~]

blech. how can one consider single core in 2007...

[ronrem]

The cache tends to add a small amount of heat. It's hard to beat a Sempy for cool running...however,the 65 nm process....and the 3600 Brisbane dropping $40 in the last few months makes it the way to go. It's still easily a passive Ninja chip,but has no lack of power unless you are doing extreme gamer stuff.

Sempron 754 chips are still a real attractive option for anyone upgtading from a socket A rig,as the aGP card,RAM can be moved over. For an AM2,everything else is the same-so that Brisbane vs a Venice or Manila became an easy choice since the last price cut.

[taidi]

Thanks for the response guys. Sadly prices in UK are a little different than in the US - but dual core AM2 chips do seem to be coming down. I can get a 3600 dual Windsor core now for equivalent of $90 (with HSF) which is almost afforable.

But it seems overkill just to run Open Office and Firefox.

[J. Sparrow]

You can always join a distributed computing project so you won't feel like it's wasted SPCR has a Folding team but there are more out there

[=assassin=]

Thanks for the response guys. Sadly prices in UK are a little different than in the US - but dual core AM2 chips do seem to be coming down. I can get a 3600 dual Windsor core now for equivalent of $90 (with HSF) which is almost afforable.

But it seems overkill just to run Open Office and Firefox.

But it means you can make the PC last alot longer too! The X2 3600+ is so cheap, that it'd make a great long term investment.

[taidi]

OK OK...you've got me thinking about it

I'll be ordering the stuff in 4-5 weeks time so will see what prices are like then.

[Belarios]

Here's my two cents...

I have an old slot 754 Sempron 64 2800+ and it's overclocked from 1.6ghz to 2.4ghz and has run great and very cool. My only complaint is that the Semprons under 3000+ at the time didn't come with Cool and Quiet so it won't auto throttle the speed down to 1ghz to save power and heat.

I tried to find that info on the AMD site, but the processor listings don't list features, and I can't find exactly whether the new AM2 slot ones all have Cool and Quiet or not.

As people have said, the x2 3600+ is pretty cheap, altho it's double the price of the low end single core. However I can give one scenario where it's worth it. If you want to run your Firefox and Open Office under Linux, but also want to run occasional Windows programs, you will want the x2 because only the dual core ones have the virtualization acceleration built in. One of the best ways to run Windows apps under linux these days is the kvm module built into the latest Linux kernels and for that you need the new virtualization tech built into the latest AMD and Intel chips. For faster Windows programs under Linux get the x2.

[~El~Jefe~]

a sempron 754 will be about 40% slower than a dual core brisbane for "just browsing and open office"

single cores are terrible. semprons coupled with tiny caches are dreadful. I think they are only good for servers or completely passive systems.

budget implies low funds which means money wasted is worse than money invested.

brisbane will work for 2-3 years with modern stuff, sempron doesnt work with modern stuff today. 90 dollars is worth it! (im not wealthy either, running a 4200+ dual core 939 and was thankful I spent the extra on it at the time, performance is huge. also, I cannot lock up and crash with two cores.)

[taidi]

I tried to find that info on the AMD site, but the processor listings don't list features, and I can't find exactly whether the new AM2 slot ones all have Cool and Quiet or not.

I tried the motherboard selector for AM2 3600 x 2 cpu with Cool and Quiet as the supported feature and didn't find many boards listed - certainly none of the ASRock boards. There were no Abit or AOpen boards and only two Asus boards listed, both M2R32 types, - and two Gigabyte.

This is a little strange ? But perhaps AMD aren't keeping the database updated. I guess if the board spec says AM2 and Cool and Quiet are both supported we have to take it on face value.

As for Linux...well I'm 70 next birthday and only just getting round to moving from Win98 to XP which is the reason for the new rig.

Happy to spend my twilight years on the trailing edge

Edit: This list suggests that both Windsor and Brisbane dual core chips do support Cool and Quiet.

http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-am ... processors

[jaganath]

sempron doesnt work with modern stuff today

Maybe not for playing F.E.A.R at 1600x1200, no. But that's not what it was designed for. If you only want to do e-mail, word processing and surf the net, a Sempron (754 or AM2) is fine.