Just curious as to which you all think is better. The Sempron is the same core speed and fsb, and although rated as 3300+, it only has a 128K L2 cache, 1/4 that of my P4. I've been contemplating upgrading on the cheap tomorrow on Black Friday, and this info would be really helpful. Thanks!
the performance boost here will come from the on-die memory controller above anything else, so yeah, i'd say it's a good upgrade. How much will it set you back?
Around $180-200. My main concern was the L2 cache, but in a review I read that, like you mentioned, the on-die memory controller really helps. I just wasn't sure.
so basically your tradeoff is 1/2 L2 cache for better architecture and on-die MCH... sounds good. Sell the old stuff and give yourself a discount
Hehe. Thanks for the help, I greatly appreciate it. As for my current hardware, it'll probably be a ********* present to my sister; she's running a 766 MHz Celeron on an old Trigem Cognac board. So, I think it'll be a nice upgrade for her, too.
i'd say it'd be a good c'hristmas pressie for her too. Btw, are you keeping the ram (ddr400 or?) or scrapping it for some faster sticks?
For the moment I'll probably keep the stock stuff (400), but if I find a good deal on faster ram, I'll probabaly upgrade. Although... I've begun to have a few second thoughts. I mean, the price is really low for the computer, but I'm wondering if it's worth the money for what seems like a miniscule performance upgrade, you know? One more thing. When looking at specs for the computer, it seems that this is repeated "AMD Sempron™ 3300+ Processor (128KB L2 Cache, 2.0GHz, 1600 MHz FSB)" As far as I know, the Sempron 3300+ isn't 64-bit, so I don't see how it could have a 1600 MHz FSB.
Socket 754 had an 800MHz HTT frequency; this was DDR, so the effective "FSB" was 1600MHz. 939 has an effective 2GHz HTT link. Save a bit of cache and a 64-bit instruction set, the Sempron is identical to the Athlon 64 - you should see a fair performance increase.