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The sempron chips, for all intents and purposes, <i>are</i> athlon XP chips. They're just K8 cores with the 64-bit stuff disabled. And since the K8 is really just a 64-bit K7....well you get the idea.
There are certainly benefits of upgrading, however:
1. integrated memory controller -- way faster than nForce2
2. less power consumption -- runs cooler
3. newer technology -- works in the latest-n-greatest mobos
As far as performance goes, Semprons aren't choked for bus bandwidth like Celerons are; they're clocked to full speed and efficiency. Think of an upgrade from a 1400Mhz t-bird to a Sempron 2800+ as a true 2x performance jump, once you factor in all the peripherals, like new, faster memory and a new graphics card.
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