How can they call it a Sempron, which is the Duron replacement, and
then give it a 512k L2 cache? That makes no sense!!! A Sempron is
"supposed" to have a 256k L2 cache NOT a 512k one!!!
They can do it because they want to.
Basically I think they and Intel just make name changes to confuse the
consumer and to make more money of course. If they really wanted you to
know what you were buying they'd include the core name with it. It's all
about marketing. They want to sell you the least performance possible for
the most amount of money. That's the way ever company is. So AMD created
the Sempron name and lowered the performace of the Athlon XP and gave it a
larger model number based on benchmarks to compete with the Celeron. And
of course the price of the "new' Sempron was higher than that of the XP
line line based on performance. Good move on thier part, for them. Not so
good for the average consumer that doesn't know what they are buying to
begin with.