Price Guides - July 2005: More 64-bit CPUs
by Derek Wilson & Manveer Wasson on July 23, 2005 10:03 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Sempron
Even though Socket 754 really only lasted about a year as a formidable AMD platform, its advantage as a competitive budget platform has just barely been tapped. Sempron 754 offers incredibly performance over the Socket 462 chips, but at a premium. The cost of Socket 754 motherboards aren't the inhibiting factors any longer; good nForce4 Socket 754 motherboards [RTPE: MS-7135-010] can be had for about $70 (compared to good nForce2 Socket 462 boards that run about $50). Coupled with a decent TurboCache or HyperMemory video card, you can build a pretty solid rig for under $400.
Sempron is also finally getting 64-bit support. Many of you may have seen our roadmap article earlier this week with specifics on DDR2 for future Semprons as well. A few Sempron 3300+ chips (specifically SDA3300AIO2BX) offer full 64-bit support; as well as the upcoming revision "E" Sempron 3400+ to launch on August 1st. However, if you're going to shell out the cash for a 2.0GHz or 2.2GHz Socket 754 processor, you really ought to be spending the few extra dollars on a Socket 939 Athlon 64 of the same speed grade; the additional L2 cache will go a long way in performance.
AMD's Turion launch received a lot of attention in January when AMD unveiled their plans to "recapture" the mobility market. Although Turion chips have been in laptops and notebooks for almost three months, channel variants of the chip are just starting to show up now. We have some interesting articles coming up detailing the differences between Turion and Athlon 64 Mobile; so stay tuned for those in the near future.
For those old fashioned folk, AMD still has some Athlon 64 Mobility chips floating around as well. The overlapping SKUs between Turion and A64-M are slightly confusing, so if you anticipate buying a mobility chip for overclocking, make sure you know exactly which processor you're getting before hand. Also keep in mind that AMD is not real good at keeping their motherboard providers up to date with mobility chip information; you may have a motherboard that doesn't necessarily have support for the Turion or Mobility chip in mind.
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ryanv12 - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
#5 - you sound extremely pro-AMD with that statement, and you probably are.I didn't detect any subtle pro-intel remarks in this article at all. If you notice, Kris recommends against a Prescott processor. I'm afraid I don't see the bias here...
JGunther - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
"Intel is currently pumping out dual core processors in all of their fabs; AMD's Fab 30 in Dresden is the only facility AMD has prepared for dual core production."Sigh, Kris... could you try any harder to make it sound like AMD is struggling with dual-core chip production?
Of course Intel is going to have more fabs producing dual-core chips: they have more fabs, period. Fab30 is THE chip production facility for AMD: Fab 25 is used for flash memory production, and Fab 36 hasn't yet entered production.
The fact that AMD is only producing X2s out of Fab30 is NO SURPRISE AT ALL, and I can't for the life of me figure out why you even mentioned it other than to try to put AMD down.
Just one of the many little sentences in this article that are subtly pro-Intel when they shouldn't be.
KristopherKubicki - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
Sorry about that Rand. The tables are generated on keywords and apparently I didnt have the right keywords for the XE chips. It should show up now.Kristopher
Rand - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
I'd be mildly interested to see the results of the P4 580 relative to the 3.73GHz EE should it ever pass through your hands.Speaking of the P4 EE. any reason why you didn't list it despite listing it's direct competitor in the A64 FX?
Rand - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
At $163 and $263 respectively the 3400+ and 3700+ S754 models aren't too badly priced for users that have an older 280+ A64 of which I suspect there are still a decent number.2.4GHz/512K or 2.4Ghz/1MB provides a reasoably respectable upgrade over a 1.8GHz/512K 2800+, at those priced I'm not sure you gain much by jumping to a similarly performing S939 processor and motherboard given the extra cost.
For low end A64 S754 users that want something faster, unless they need the absolute highest single core performance (A64 FX/A64 4000+) or DualCore they may as well grab a 3400/3700+ S754 and use that to tide them over until Socket M2 hits... though that would require replacing the DRAM as well, but eventually they'd have to do that regardless.
vitamalt - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
And my next upgrade will be? Who knows, gonna see how all this pans out after the "budget' X2 arrives.