Is the Sempron a budget line that costs more?

[Jonathan Eales]

They will remain at the 'expensive' equivalent price to the Athlon XP until
stocks of the latter have disappeared, then the Sempron prices will drop.
Dealers with stocks of Athlons do not want the cheaper Sempron leaving them
with an Athlon investment that they can't shift. Durons have already mostly
gone. Standard pricing practice.

Any Sempron user experiences out there? The Sempron 2800 looks like a 'good
bang for the buck' CPU if the price came down to more reasonable levels, say
£50 or less.

Wes Newell wrote:


On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 00:35:38 +0100, Franklin wrote:



I don't kmow how reliable AMD's "+" figure is in idnicating throughput
power, so I don't know if I can take at face value that these two cpus
are

equivalent:

2500+ Sempron (1.75 GHz, FSB 333, T'bred-B core)
2500+ Athlon (1.92 GHz, FSB 333, Barton core)

[Data taken from page linked above.]

Surely these two are not equivalent in terms of power?


They aren't. The Sempron, if rated with the same suite of benchmarks
Athlon XP's are rated with, would rate as a 2100+. All Semprons are
rated

with a set of benchmarks to compare them to Celerons clock speeds and
the

resulting PR number reflects that. not compared P4's or even XP's. IF
you

subtract 400 from every Semprons number, you will get the approximate
Athlon rating. So a Sempron 2200+ would [erforme the same as an Athlon
1800+, etc. And you can take that to the bank.


Good info and that explains a LOT.

So that makes them even less value for money then!

True, but it explains why I was having such a hard time making sense of
the new numbering scheme.

With computer hardware something new is usually better and often cheaper,
doesn't seem to be the case here.

From their vantage point it is because the Sempron replaces the Duron.

Are AMD in trouble and need to hike the price up on their products?

AMD has always been in price trouble.

 

[kony]

How should I know why the one you tried didn't work. There could be many
reasons. This much I can tell you. It's not because the chipset won't
support it. Specs for the XP cpu are for FSB's as low as 50MHz. It could
be a problem with power, timing or many other things. Now since you don't
have this board any more to try some things, what's the point of me
wasteing my time guessing?

Yes I know the chipset "can" support it, but that's not
quite the same as the motherboard supporting it, or even
working if not "supported".

Point was, it can't be assumed to work, there are examples
of it not working. It's easy to assume that somebody did
something wrong if they don't get same results you did, but
it's not always true, particularly when dealing with
different parts (motherboard).

 

[kony]

Copied from google groups:

From: Homer J. Simpson ([email protected])
Subject: Re: AMD Palomino 2100Xp CPU

View this article only
Newsgroups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.msi-microstar
Date: 2004-03-18 14:42:50 PST

If you have the K7T266pro2(-RU) MS-6380 V2, and NOT any of the other boards
like the K7T266pro or the K7T266pro2-A series, you can remove a tiny (1mm x
0.5 mm) surface mount capacitor, C37, which will then allow you to run any
266MHz FSB TBred CPU. I made this mod to my K7T266 Pro2-RU Rev. 2 and I'm
currently running an XP2400+ TBred with complete success.

You should also download BIOS Version 3.7 from MSI's web site and reflash
your BIOS. This BIOS version provides proper identification of the TBred's
during POST. This BIOS version also has 48-bit LBA support for large hard
disks. Don't bother with BIOS Version 3.7 beta 4 as it does not have 48-bit
LBA support.

Check out this link at MSI's Forum for much info on this popular mod:

http://forum.msi.com.tw/thread.php?threadid=5723&boardid=13&styleid=1

Yes, that's the "hack" I saw at the time, which didn't work,
board still very instable... but runs fine with an o'c
Palomino still, today.

If you're going to ignore all the boards that won't work
with newer CPUs, then i guess you can keep claiming all do
work, but that's not very useful to anyone who has a board
that won't work.

 

[Paul Hopwood]

Tom's Hardware points out that AMD wanted a budget line which did not
detract from the name "Athlon" and so AMD created the Sempron which are for
the most part nothing much more than old-style Athlons.

I always thought that's what the Duron was for.

I can imagine the conversation in the AMD board room went more like:-

A: Sh*t, the market just isn't confused enough anymore.
B: I think they're even starting to understand our obscure PR
numbering.
A: How on earth are we going to compete with Intel if people actually
understand what they're buying?
B: I know let's release a whole new set of chips with a new name!
A: Yeah, great idea, and while we're about let's use a completely
different PR rating!
B: Wow... great. And we can put the prices up because nobody will
have a f*cking clue they're buying *less* power for *more* money!
A and B together: Agreed! MOTION CARRIED!


--

 

[Paul Hopwood]

They aren't. The Sempron, if rated with the same suite of benchmarks
Athlon XP's are rated with, would rate as a 2100+. All Semprons are rated
with a set of benchmarks to compare them to Celerons clock speeds and the
resulting PR number reflects that. not compared P4's or even XP's. IF you
subtract 400 from every Semprons number, you will get the approximate
Athlon rating. So a Sempron 2200+ would [erforme the same as an Athlon
1800+, etc. And you can take that to the bank.

As Athlon PR ratings are supposed to align to the Intel P4 of
comparable performance and Sempron to the equivalent Celeron, this
might imply this "400MHz difference" rule could also be applied to P4s
and Celerons?

Having seen how abysmally Celerons perform in real applications I just
don't buy it!

--

 

[JK]

The idea of the Sempron name seems to be to send a message
that 32 bit processors should be low priced budget processors.
Notice that AMD is selling the Sempron 3100+, which is based
on the Athlon 64, but with half the L2 cache, and the 64 bit mode
disabled. The Sempron name isn't a replacement for the Athlon
XP name, but a name for AMD's line of 32 bit pc processors.
It looks like a great marketing move on AMD's part.

 

[Paul Hopwood]

I'm sure they set their prices so as to maximize their profit, whether
they "need" it or not.

And I doubt they are in trouble. They make great CPUs!

It's somewhat naive to assume a company isn't in trouble just because
it makes great products!

AMD have been making a loss for as long as I can remember but it's
probably fair to say their not in trouble at this moment in time. For
the last year they have reported record sales and, for the first time
I can remember, returning a profit and are sitting on over 1/3
billion$ in cash.

--

 

[kony]

It's somewhat naive to assume a company isn't in trouble just because
it makes great products!

AMD have been making a loss for as long as I can remember but it's
probably fair to say their not in trouble at this moment in time. For
the last year they have reported record sales and, for the first time
I can remember, returning a profit and are sitting on over 1/3
billion$ in cash.

Actually AMD is taking more of the market than past quarters
and are in the black now.

 

[Wes Newell]

Yes, that's the "hack" I saw at the time, which didn't work,
board still very instable... but runs fine with an o'c
Palomino still, today.

If you're going to ignore all the boards that won't work
with newer CPUs, then i guess you can keep claiming all do
work, but that's not very useful to anyone who has a board
that won't work.

I'm goimg to ignore a board that one person can't get to work while there
are many others with the same model board that it does work with. So if
jack, James, Tom , Tim , etc. have success, but Dumas doesn't, you
consider that to mean the board doesn't work? I consider it just a
defective board or the person didn't...... If only one person can get it
to work that's proof enough to me, taking in the fact there's abosolutely
no reason it shouldn't work.

 

[kony]

I'm goimg to ignore a board that one person can't get to work while there
are many others with the same model board that it does work with. So if
jack, James, Tom , Tim , etc. have success, but Dumas doesn't, you
consider that to mean the board doesn't work? I consider it just a
defective board or the person didn't...... If only one person can get it
to work that's proof enough to me, taking in the fact there's abosolutely
no reason it shouldn't work.

Except that if that "one person" did nothing differently in
order to get it to work, there is another variable involved.
If you, I, and everyone else can't identify that variable,
then any effected boards can't be assumed to work. I
mentioned a specific board and you yourself had no working
resolution, so why do you expect it would "magically" work
for someone else?

Again, board ran fine, before CPU swap, after original CPU
was reinstall, and still today OC'd, nearly 2 years later.
Voltage, multiplier, FSB, Mem, were all correct and system
ran with same settings except different multiplier and
voltage with the Palomino. It posted, could get into bios
but soon locked up, OS wouldn't load either... severely
instable.

Alluding to a theory that doesn't always work in practice
is normally a reason to reformulate the theory. Vaguely
claiming "someone must have done something wrong" doesn't
quite cut it if you can't identify what was wrong, so
ultimately, in the end it did NOT work.

 

[Wes Newell]

Yes I know the chipset "can" support it, but that's not
quite the same as the motherboard supporting it, or even
working if not "supported".

i guess that depends on your interpretation of support. AFAIK, there are
no manufactures that make a KT133 chipset board that even claims to
support XP cpu's. But as you know that' doesn't mean they won't work.

Point was, it can't be assumed to work, there are examples
of it not working. It's easy to assume that somebody did
something wrong if they don't get same results you did, but
it's not always true, particularly when dealing with
different parts (motherboard).

If I could remember all the KT133 boards that I know do run XP cpu's, the
list would be very long and include boards from drom all the well know
manufactures and some not so well known. All you have to do to verify this
is search back through the AMD news groups for messages from me. Might
take some time though.

Results 1 - 10 of about 12,600 for wes newell. (0.36 seconds)

But starting with Abit, all their KT133/A boards (KT7's) will run all
cores. Asus, all A7V's, MSI K7T's (just upgraded my borthers first model
MSI K7T board to Tbred B core). etc., etc.

 

[Never anonymous Bud]

As Athlon PR ratings are supposed to align to the Intel P4 of
comparable performance

AMD has repeatedly said that IS NOT true.

 

[Wes Newell]

I always thought that's what the Duron was for.

Durons don't have PR numbers. A marketing drawback.

I can imagine the conversation in the AMD board room went more like:-

A: Sh*t, the market just isn't confused enough anymore.
B: I think they're even starting to understand our obscure PR
numbering.
A: How on earth are we going to compete with Intel if people actually
understand what they're buying?

If people actually knew what they were buying, this wouldn't be a
problem.

B: I know let's release a whole new set of chips with a new name!

But they didn't do this. They only changed the name of current cores.

A: Yeah, great idea, and while we're about let's use a completely
different PR rating!

Right the Sempron rating is compared to Celerons. And since I've always
claimed that 90% of the people are stupid, most will think it's the same
rating as the Athlons.

B: Wow... great. And we can put the prices up because nobody will have
a f*cking clue they're buying *less* power for *more* money! A and B
together: Agreed! MOTION CARRIED!

Now that sounds about right.

I think they would have been better off just raising prices and leaving
the name and rating alone. But that wouldn't get the numbers up, so I
understqnd thier marketing stratagy even if I don't agree with it. But
they all do it, Intel included.

 

[Paul Hopwood]

Actually AMD is taking more of the market than past quarters
and are in the black now.

Actually, isn't that what I just said? ;-)

--

 

[Tony Hill]

Geez, AMD should of just called those Durons then!

That's basically what they're doing, except that the Duron brand name
never really caught on. They are hoping that the new Sempron brand
name will catch on with customers were Duron failed. From a marketing
perspective it's not a bad idea, though most of us techies don't like
it very much.

FWIW the real deal on the Sempr0n line is in their mobile chips.
These look like they should be EXCELLENT bargains. They are all
Athlon64-based, dirt-cheap and are available as low-voltage models
with a maximum power consumption of only 25W.

 

[Tony Hill]

Actually AMD is taking more of the market than past quarters
and are in the black now.

AMD's profit/loss always seems to be more determined by how their
flash business is doing anyway. The CPU line has pretty much always
been hovering right around the break-even point, never making much
money but never losing much.

Flash, on the other hand, sometimes lost AMD boatloads of money, but
at times like right now it is very profitable. This current quarter
should probably see very decent profits for AMD because their flash
business has been doing really well for the past few months.

 

[Tony Hill]

I always thought that's what the Duron was for.

Consider 'Sempron' as the new name for 'Duron' and things will make
more sense. The 'Duron' brand name never caught on and it was
actually discontinued about a year ago (if you check AMD's website
you'll notice that they no longer sell the Duron and it's listed as a
legacy product alongside the K6 line). Sempron is just a new name but
designed for fill the same market.

 

[Paul Hopwood]

AMD's profit/loss always seems to be more determined by how their
flash business is doing anyway. The CPU line has pretty much always
been hovering right around the break-even point, never making much
money but never losing much.

Probably true a while ago but their earnings from CPU operations have
been performing better than memory sales for a while now, making
significantly better profits (or lower losses) against marginally
lower revenues.

Flash, on the other hand, sometimes lost AMD boatloads of money, but
at times like right now it is very profitable. This current quarter
should probably see very decent profits for AMD because their flash
business has been doing really well for the past few months.

It's probably true to say the flash market is more volatile so has a
more severe effect on AMDs financial performance than the (relatively)
stable CPU market. AMD seems to be doing rather well in both markets
at the moment and reporting healthy profits as a result. Their
exposure to both markets is such that a relatively small shift in
either market can make or break the company.

--

 

[Paul Hopwood]

AMD has repeatedly said that IS NOT true.

......while consistently managing to make them fairly close and failing
to explain adequately what it's actually based on. Hmmmmmm.. ;-)

--

 

[David Maynard]

.....while consistently managing to make them fairly close and failing
to explain adequately what it's actually based on. Hmmmmmm.. ;-)

They've explained in excruciating detail what the 'XP' rating is based on:
a suite of benchmarks comparing it to the performance of the classic athlon
and what clock rate the 'classic' would have to run at, if it could, to
match the performance of the XP processor being tested.