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AMD Semprons Watch
Are AMD Semprons any good? for gaming, multimedia stuff, etc. ?
Thanks,
Wiz
Thanks,
Wiz
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#2
Simple answer... No, not really. especially for demanding things like gaming and multimedia stuff. A slight improvement on a Celeron in terms of gaming but that's it.
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ok heres the thing. Theres this PC for Sale which im considering getting. Here are the specs.
AMD Sempron 3000+ Processor -- Are Semprons any good?
1024 MB DDR-SDRam
256MB ATI Radeon Xpress 200 Graphics Card -- Is this any good?
160GB HD
DVD-RW drive
9-in-1 Card Reader
Its a Compaq Presario SR1727
Annnndd...... Its priced at round about 250 pounds.
Should I get it?
Comment on the quality, reliability etc. of the parts would be helpful.
Also, I went onto the ATI website to check whether the graphics card is any good, and it seems to me that it is. Any comments?
Thanks,
Wiz
AMD Sempron 3000+ Processor -- Are Semprons any good?
1024 MB DDR-SDRam
256MB ATI Radeon Xpress 200 Graphics Card -- Is this any good?
160GB HD
DVD-RW drive
9-in-1 Card Reader
Its a Compaq Presario SR1727
Annnndd...... Its priced at round about 250 pounds.
Should I get it?
Comment on the quality, reliability etc. of the parts would be helpful.
Also, I went onto the ATI website to check whether the graphics card is any good, and it seems to me that it is. Any comments?
Thanks,
Wiz
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#4
The graphics card is far from the best for gaming. What games are you thinking of? High-end, or relatively low?
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well, things like battle for middle earth 2, NFS Most wanted, etc. Not very high end stuff. But there would be a lot of Multimedia use - eg, DVD, Videos etc.
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#6
By multimedia use, you mean watching DVDs etc and not editting them? For watching them, this will be fine, but not so for editting them. The graphics card will also be fine for the type of games you're playing.
In general, yes this PC is fine for what you want now, but may not be in a few years.
In general, yes this PC is fine for what you want now, but may not be in a few years.
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Have a look at what ATI claims about this graphics card,
ATI Radeon Xpress 200
They make it out to be really good. It says -
"The Radeon® Xpress 200 brings both stunning 3D graphics and universal connectivity in a chipset design that provides exceptional value for the high performance. "
"ATI Radeon® Xpress 200 provides the industry’s highest performance for on-board video processing to bring out the best from graphics-intensive commercial applications."
"The new chipset can effortlessly scale from everyday multimedia applications to high-definition 3D gaming. The Radeon® Xpress 200 is the first chipset solution in the market with a DirectX™ 9.0 graphics core that is a derivative of Radeon® X300."
Lies and all damn lies?
ATI Radeon Xpress 200
They make it out to be really good. It says -
"The Radeon® Xpress 200 brings both stunning 3D graphics and universal connectivity in a chipset design that provides exceptional value for the high performance. "
"ATI Radeon® Xpress 200 provides the industry’s highest performance for on-board video processing to bring out the best from graphics-intensive commercial applications."
"The new chipset can effortlessly scale from everyday multimedia applications to high-definition 3D gaming. The Radeon® Xpress 200 is the first chipset solution in the market with a DirectX™ 9.0 graphics core that is a derivative of Radeon® X300."
Lies and all damn lies?
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#8
Well, not lies, but ATI are never going to say their own product is naff.
It does say, as you pointed out, that it's an onboard card, which isn't great for gaming given it shares your PCs RAM, so you need more RAM than if you had a separate card. It does have 1gig of RAM though which, presuming its of a decent standard, will be fine for your needs. As stated before, if you want to get a new, high-level game, your card might struggle without bumping up both the quality and quantity of RAM.
Perhaps, some other people will be able to offer a better insight into Compaq itself though.
It does say, as you pointed out, that it's an onboard card, which isn't great for gaming given it shares your PCs RAM, so you need more RAM than if you had a separate card. It does have 1gig of RAM though which, presuming its of a decent standard, will be fine for your needs. As stated before, if you want to get a new, high-level game, your card might struggle without bumping up both the quality and quantity of RAM.
Perhaps, some other people will be able to offer a better insight into Compaq itself though.
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#9
dude...youre paying £250...of course its going to be naff for anything other than using the internet or office.
if you want to play games you're gonna have to spend double or triple your current outlay.
if you want to play games you're gonna have to spend double or triple your current outlay.
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#10
the sempron 64s aren't bad cpus.
Tip- go for a 2800 or 3100. Not the 3000. This is due to the 2800s or 3100s having 256kb L2 cache instead of 128k.
Tip- go for a 2800 or 3100. Not the 3000. This is due to the 2800s or 3100s having 256kb L2 cache instead of 128k.
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#12
I've had a Sempron 2800 32-bit Socket A for the last year and I cannot fault it, I run the fan at 1500 RPM and the CPU only generates 40c of heat under heavy load. As a result the system is virtualy silent.
It is also very poweful, it can decode AVI to MPEG 2 with complex effects in minutes, compared to hours with my old Althlon XP.
Mine has 256kb L2 though the later XPs had 512kb.
It is also very poweful, it can decode AVI to MPEG 2 with complex effects in minutes, compared to hours with my old Althlon XP.
Mine has 256kb L2 though the later XPs had 512kb.
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#14
No theyre not. Theyre old i think. Older that Athlon XP's, which are older than AMD 64's, which are older than AMD FX's.
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#15
Semprons are newer than XP's, a lot newer, a lot of them also use a much more modern artitecture(sp), the Socket A versions are just rebranded versions of Althlon XPs.
Put it this way my PC can handle Vice City really smoothly in full res and my video card is poor, an ATI 9600 SE.
Put it this way my PC can handle Vice City really smoothly in full res and my video card is poor, an ATI 9600 SE.
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#16
(Original post by __WiZaRD__)
hmm, ok, would it make a massive difference performance wise?
hmm, ok, would it make a massive difference performance wise?
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(Original post by FPS Doug)
The Level-2 Cache size probably wouldn't that much influence on gaming performance. You should be more concerned with the on-board memory of your graphics card, as opposed to the CPU's cache size.
The Level-2 Cache size probably wouldn't that much influence on gaming performance. You should be more concerned with the on-board memory of your graphics card, as opposed to the CPU's cache size.
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#18
(Original post by derf)
No theyre not. Theyre old i think. Older that Athlon XP's, which are older than AMD 64's, which are older than AMD FX's.
No theyre not. Theyre old i think. Older that Athlon XP's, which are older than AMD 64's, which are older than AMD FX's.
Also note that (if I remember correctly) the Sempron 3000+ has 512k of L2 cache compared to the 256k of the other models. The L2 doesn't make a lot of different on the AXP architecture, but it's nice to have it for particularly CPU-dependent tasks such as video encoding.
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#19
Yep the 3000 does indeed have the full 512kb cache, well the 2800 does as well but it is disabled 
.
.
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#20
(Original post by FPS Doug)
The Level-2 Cache size probably wouldn't that much influence on gaming performance. You should be more concerned with the on-board memory of your graphics card, as opposed to the CPU's cache size.
The Level-2 Cache size probably wouldn't that much influence on gaming performance. You should be more concerned with the on-board memory of your graphics card, as opposed to the CPU's cache size.
On-board memory of the graphics card is largely unimportant compared to the actual GPU itself.
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