AMD Sempron: A Fresh Take on Budget Computing

Price/Performance Analysis

In comparing the price/performance data between similarly priced Celerons and Semprons, we can see that the Semprons take down the Intel platform with ease. In most benchmarks, the Sempron processors outperform the Celeron 335, and since both flavors are cheaper than the slower Celeron, price/performance is obviously in favor of AMD here. This isn't even a contest.

And we can take it even further and look at how much it would cost to build a Celeron system and a Sempron system. The common components between our systems are: 512MB DDR 400 ($90), Radeon 9800 Pro 256 ($250), 80GB WD harddrive ($60). We found some really cheap cases and power supplies for less than $30. All this brings our base total to $430.

To round out our computers, the Sempron system would have a midrange nForce2 board ($50) and a Sempron 2800+ ($103).

Total Sempron System cost: $583

For the Celeron system, we would need an 856PE board ($70) and a Celeron 335 ($127).

Total Celeron System cost: $627

If we bought a Celeron system, we would be getting lower performance for 7.5% more money. This percentage would be even higher if we didn't test with such an expensive video card. Of course, we can't really make statements about system performance with lower end video cards when it comes to games. Business applications, however, are much less affected by video card choice. We could go with integrated graphics or even a $60 video card. We would spend less than $400 on a Sempron system, saving 10% over a Celeron 335 system.

Or we could look at it from another perspective. Rather than building a cheaper Sempron 2800+ system, we could build a Sempron 3100+ system and get a huge performance leap at the same price point. Maybe we've run the "Sempron is a better value than Celeron" into the ground, but the numbers just don't lie.

Moving on to the next comparison, the very low priced 166MHz Tbred Athlon XP 2600+ (which has a sightly higher clock speed than the Sempron 2800+) serves to beat the newest AMD budget chip at its own game, posting better price/performance numbers in our tests. Well, it's really that they post just about the same performance numers in every test, and that the Sempron costs at least $20 more (which, at these prices, is at least 25% more).

Though the Athlon 64 2800+ led just about all of the benchmarks, its higher price makes the Sempron a better value if you don't need the extra little bit of oomph. The winstone benchmarks tell us that average business users won't see an impact from cutting out half of their cache and going with Sempron, and the small performance hit that we see shows up mostly in gaming and source compilation.

Of course, this price/performance data doesn't take into consideration the value added to the Athlon 64 2800+ via x86-64 support. If this is a feature that the user wants, the extra $25 or so won't be a deal breaker, and the slight performance advantage will be an added bonus.

In the end, feature set is the only driving force between which processor to pick when it comes to Sempron 3100+ and Athlon 64 2800+, as performance isn't a large factor in the equation.

So who's the price performance leader here? That would be the inexpensive Athlon XP chips. But the star of the show is really the K8 Sempron, which knocks about $30 off the price of the 2800+ to deliver performance that is right on par with the more expensive chip.