Barton vs Thoroughbred vs Sempron

[BentValve]

I am looking to upgrade my back-up PC and have already had several T-Bred set-ups and thought they were nice. However I have not had a Barton cored XP or a Sempron.

How do these chips differ in terms of real world speed and OCability?

Ive had: Athlon XP ,1600+, 1700+, 2000+, 2100+ ..the 2100+ T-bred was the best as it ran
at 2.1ghz easily and performed excellent. But really i cannot fault any of them as they all
were decent to some degree.

 

[BlueWeasel]

Nice thread and I'd like to know as well. I know the differences between the T-Breds and Bartons, but don't have a clue about the new chips (Sempron, A64, etc.).

 

[ts3433]

I think most, if not all of the Semprons on Socket A are rebadged 333FSB Thoroughbreds. Not sure exactly how much better the Barton is over a T-bred, though.

 

[miketheidiot]

socket a semprons are equivilent to 1800-2200 thouroughbreds. They are rated against celeron and not P4

 

[SrGuapo]

The only Sempron that is different is the 3100+ (is that right?). It is basically a socket 754 A64 with no support for 64 bit and a smller catch IIRC.

 

[ts3433]

Yup. It's an A64 2800+ (1.8GHz, single channel RAM) with no 64-bit or NX and 256K cache.

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
socket a semprons are equivilent to 1800-2200 thouroughbreds. They are rated against celeron and not P4

THEy ARE TOO COMPETE AGAINST...THEY ARE NOT RATED AGAINST ...

AMD PR rating is not based on Intel chips as much as you ppl disregard what even AMD says....They are based against the TBirds.....

Now I will agree a 2400+ sempron is no 2400+ Tbred...It sandras closer to a 2000+ which equals it equivalent actual clock speed...The rating there are likley against the first Durons....

 

[Rike]

The bartrons are a bit faster clock for clock over the T-breds; the 512kB L2 cache on the bartrons give them the edge.

I have to say through, I love my T-bred 2100+. :heart: About $100 two years ago, totally unlocked, and OCed to 2300Mhz and I can still outpace low end P4's in most apps. A great processor and a great value.:thumbsup:

Of course the bartrons OC just as well. Especially the mobile versions.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: Duvie

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
socket a semprons are equivilent to 1800-2200 thouroughbreds. They are rated against celeron and not P4

THEy ARE TOO COMPETE AGAINST...THEY ARE NOT RATED AGAINST ...

AMD PR rating is not based on Intel chips as much as you ppl disregard what even AMD says....They are based against the TBirds.....

Now I will agree a 2400+ sempron is no 2400+ Tbred...It sandras closer to a 2000+ which equals it equivalent actual clock speed...The rating there are likley against the first Durons....

what? Do A64, AXP and sempron each have different calculations?

and my ass they compare them to tbirds, they can claim it all they want but im not going to believe it.

 

[Avalon]

The barton core has 512KB of L2 cache and runs at a FSB of 166mhz. You can think of the Sempron as a Thorton (half the cache of a barton, same FSB) or think of it as a T-bred with a higher FSB. If you've got $85, then you should go with the 35w 2400+ mobile barton. That will overclock very nicely on a decent setup.

 

[ts3433]

Originally posted by: Avalon
The barton core has 512KB of L2 cache and runs at a FSB of 166mhz.

It runs at 166MHz with most, but also at 200MHz with the XP 3000+ and XP 3200+. I forgot that the 333/256k core was called Thorton...

Mobile XPs are also good budget OCers. I have a 45W 2400 in my box with a semi-cheap Zalman 3100 and it works well.

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot

Originally posted by: Duvie

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
socket a semprons are equivilent to 1800-2200 thouroughbreds. They are rated against celeron and not P4

THEy ARE TOO COMPETE AGAINST...THEY ARE NOT RATED AGAINST ...

AMD PR rating is not based on Intel chips as much as you ppl disregard what even AMD says....They are based against the TBirds.....

Now I will agree a 2400+ sempron is no 2400+ Tbred...It sandras closer to a 2000+ which equals it equivalent actual clock speed...The rating there are likley against the first Durons....

what? Do A64, AXP and sempron each have different calculations?

and my ass they compare them to tbirds, they can claim it all they want but im not going to believe it.

Common kowledge...Go look it up and prove me wrong!!!

 

[nemesismk2]

amd sempron 2800 review

The Sempron 2800 beats the athlon xp 2500 (barton) using synthetic benchmarks because the Sempron 2800 is clocked at 2ghz compared to the xp 2500's 1.8ghz. However when it comes to games the xp2500 actually delivers faster performance than the Sempron 2800!

 

[dguy6789]

Unless were talking about a socket 754 sempron, I would take a barton over a tbread and a socket a based sempron.

Sempron 3100(socket 754)>Barton>Tbred>Sempron socket a

 

[clarkey01]

Well I would have thought it was obvious that semprons pr?s were calibrated to match with competing Celerons (makes sense to me anyway). AXP/Semprons/A64?PR numbers cant not all be based on T-birds. Take the AXP 3200+, whether it just because benchmarks have ?Intel Inside? or are ?Fiddled code? as Vee said in a previous post , it got trampled by the P4 3.2Ghz and yes AMD claimed it was based on a t-brid, but do you think a t-bird at 3.2 Ghz would lose to a p4 at the same clock speed?


AMD fiddle all the time with their PR numbers, they saw Prescott struggling and all of a sudden they decided that 2.4 Ghz was competitive enough ( and to be honest it is) Anyone remember when the 4000+ part was suppose to be 2.6Ghz? and 512k Cache? . Take the S754 3400+, runs at 2.4 Ghz, 512k Cahe, single channel memory, for 600 PR points more you get 512K more and dual channel (4000+). Make what you will of it.

 

[iversonyin]

Does Sempron OC well?

 

[nemesismk2]

Originally posted by: iversonyin
Does Sempron OC well?

I don't know about the Socket A Semprons but the Sempron 3100 is a very good overclocker. Xbit labs got their Sempron 3100 from 1.8ghz to 2.5ghz which is a fantastic overclock:-

Overclocking a Sempron 3100

 

[rogue1979]

The lower end Semprons seem to be making a 200MHz fsb on stock voltage, excellent value.

The 512K L2 cache Barton performs on a average about 3-4% better than a t-bred or sempron at the same clock speed and same fsb speed, this includes gaming benchmarks.

For a budget set-up a 2400+ sempron on a cheap nForce2 motherboard will get 2000MHz on a 200MHz fsb without any overclocking options except fsb adjustment.

Another good budget set-up is a mobile Pentium 4 (1.4, 1.6 or 1.8GHz). They go for $30-$45 on e-bay and all default to a 12x multiplier on a desktop board. Put this on a cheap SiS 661FX motherboard and it should default to 1.60v. I have two on refurbed P4S800-MX motherboards ($29 each) and they take a 200MHz fsb for 2.4GHz perfectly.

 

[sdack]

I bought me a Sempron 3000+ for my socket A mainboard. I was looking for info on that processor, too. However there was a lot of rumours about it and too little coming from AMD. But since it is a processor and a rather cheap one, what could have gone wrong? It comes with a fixed multplier of 12 and runs with a default FSB of 166MHz at 2.0GHz. It has 512KB L2 cache (128KB L1), no NX bit, no cool'n'quiet technology (some people claimed it would be a Paris offspring). I believe it to be a Barton since it must be coming from somewhere and the AthlonXP is a thing of the past now. Besides, AMD already used older Athlons for their Durons.
The speed rating is confusing. It gets compared to a Celeron, however there is no 3.0 GHz Celeron (only 2.9 GHz). I'd say everybody should take the speed rating with a grain of salt, no matter against what the processors are being compared with (no real news ...). AMD also likes to sell their processors for two markets - low-cost & high-end - despite the fact that they always differ only little in technology.

About its ability for overclocking: That depends mostly on how good one self is at it (again no news?). I have not yet unlocked the multiplier and only played with the FSB. I can get mine to 184MHz before it starts to become unstable. I left it at 180MHz and therefore now got it running with 2.16GHz.

There is one difference between the Sempron 3000+ and the previous AthlonXP: It gets only 1.60V whereas the Bartons used to get 1.65V. The maximum is again vcc_core+0.5V. So when overclocking make sure to not exceed the new limit.
At 1.6V it runs rather cool. When idle its temperature is about 35°C - not even hand-warm - and just 5°C above my mainboard's sensor. Under a high load it climbs to 50-55 °C, which is then 15-20°C above the mainboard (35°C). On the other hand - I've got a solid copper cooler from Thermaltake and a 430W power supply with a strong and steady 'breath'.

When I find the time I will take my setup apart again and unlock the multiplier, hoping to get it down to 10 and with an FSB of atleast 200MHz. Right now I would say it compares to an Athlon XP 2800+ but when overclocked properly should become an XP 3200+.

-Sven

 

[Staz]

Earlier posters already explained the difference between the CPU's, so not addressing that. But for Overclocking, the leader of those CPU's is the mobile Barton without a doubt. I have a 2500+ mobile barton with a stock of 1826MHz(11x166). I was easilly able to overclock it to 2200MHz(11x200), which is the speed of a 3200+ CPU. Plus this overclock was done on air at default voltages. I have heard this CPU can go higher, but I didn't want to push it any more.

As you can see, the mobile Bartons are very good overclockers, so I would pick one of them up.

And one thing I forgot to add, mobile Bartons are multiplier UNLOCKED!

 

[clarkey01]

But I think you need quite a high overclock on a barton 2500+ to reach the bottom end of the A64 in terms of gaming. But defo a great bang for buck chip for the overclock.

 

[sdack]

Originally posted by: clarkey01
But I think you need quite a high overclock on a barton 2500+ to reach the bottom end of the A64 in terms of gaming. But defo a great bang for buck chip for the overclock.

Why do you give such an answer? I cannot see any help in it or information that is not commonly known. I mean everybody _knows_ that a larger cache is better, an on-board memory controller is better and more MHz are better (what striking news that must be ...). Or was there ever a processor from AMD that did worse than its predecessor?
And if a game can't run at its highest setting, rumourse have it that it sometimes helps decreasing them ...

What is your secret??

Sven

 

[clarkey01]

A friend of mine was thinking of picking up a mobile barton and overclocking for gaming ( and so am I), now even I admit I thought a barton @ 2.5 Ghz and above would beat the A64?s in gaming applications until I saw the benches. You seem quite offended and abusive about me stating that you?d need a high overclock to compete with A64?s in games , I was only stating.

Its not like im anti AMD or anti AXPM. So Chill.

 

[sdack]

I was only having fun with your response ...

Talking about the Sempron (and since I got one): How do you change its multiplier? If I do it from the BIOS it doesn't boot at all. Some it ignores, but otherwise has no effect. It must be locked and from what I've read just now there are locked and super-locked CPUs (before and after a mysterious week 39). The super-locked cannot be unlocked by either pencil tricks on the chip or by wire on the pins/in the socket. What can be done is to turn Bartons and TBreds into mobile versions. However they do not work in Nvidia nForce boards. Is that true for all mobile Athlons or just for those modded to be mobiles? So since I got such a board the answer seems to be No. I have to live with a fixed multiplier of 12 :-(

Sven

 

[Staz]

You guys got off on a tangent. An A64 was never offered as an option by the original poster, only the different flavors of the XP CPU. Yes, the A64 is a superior CPU, expecially for gaming, but since the poster only asked about the different flavors of the XP chip, the responses were directed that way.