Lockjaw

Against the old Athlon XP chips?
I'm planning on slightly upgrading my current PC because frankly it's about as archiac as you can get and still be functional. I want to upgrade to premium stuff but budget disallows this for now,but I want to at least PLAY some of the new games and I can barely run Battlefield 1942 on the lowest settings on my current rig.

I was looking at the Fry's paper today and they have a 2800+ Semperon and mobo combo for 99 bucks. This would help me a ton because I could then spend the rest of my budget on a passable videocard(Radeon 9600SE possibly instead of the onboard video which is a Radeon 7000 chip)
Now I'm fairly certain this will be a good bit better than my current set up(XP 1800+)but exactly how much better will this be? Are they a waste of money would I just be better off saving my bucks and suffering for another 6-7 months until I can get a REAL Athlon 64 processor or does this sound at least some what feasible to play stuff like Half-Life 2 at least decently well?

skaven

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.

Dragonlich

Actually... You cannot compare an Athlon 2500+ with a Sempron 2500+; the former is based on a (flawed) P4 comparison, while the latter is based on a Celeron (4) comparison - that's quite a differenc!

You can however compare clockspeed. As Skaven said: they're essentially Athlons, so a 1800 mhz athlon should be as fast as a 1800 mhz sempron.

FloydianOne

Can someone explain to me what types of tasks having a 64bit processor will help in? Isnt it true that until your operating system and applications start to support it... you wont notice anything?

edit: oh and to answer the question, I personally would never try to save money on a motherboard/processor... thats the core and I would hold it to be the most important part... save money on the video card, sound card... etc. etc.

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Lockjaw

Thanks for the help guys this is looking like a viable alternative after all.

And as far as not cheap skating on the processor and mobo. Well I'd agree with you if it were not for my own real life experiences on well thought out and investigated "valueware".

My first PC I built had like a 750 MHZ K6(I think) processor a bargin VIA chipset mobo,bargin memory and a decent sized hard drive and hell even a bargin video card(GeForce 2 but the crappy not fast ones MX I think it was). The most expensive things I bought were a couple of CD-burners. The expensive CD-burners went out on me first but the bargin basement stuff was still working strong until late last year when they failed. And it was because I reboxed it for an older lady who smoked and her smoking screwed that PC up something horrible. The second iteration of my PC was another bargin basement FIC mobo(got to love FRYs) an average processor at the time, the same HD from a few years ago, some cheapy memory, and I bought a nice new GeForce 4 4200Ti card right when they came out. The GeForce card blew up on me within the year. So everything expensive and top of the line goes out on me. I'm not sure what it is and if I'm cursed or something but I don't have the money to throw around on a top of the line mobo and an Athlon 64 3100+ processor only to have it crap out on me in a year and leave me in the lurch. At least this way if I spend like 200 bucks upgrading the entire computer if something bad happens I can at least replace it without going broke in the first place. And if it holds up like all my other bargin stuff has I'll be able to replace it on my own terms and likely build an entirely new box out of the bargin stuff that would still be a fairly good performer.

cyrnel

It sounds as if you're already aware of the "Fry's experience." You probably already know they'll push very hard to get you to upgrade to another board, and if you refuse you'll likely get an old board that's been returned several times. Careful.

Their combo's are mostly a processor plus a $40 srp board thrown in for $20. The salespeople are incented (according to them) to upsell.

For $99 treat it as a recreational test. Try the combo. If it doesn't make the difference you expect then take it back within 14 days & wait for a 754 A64 combo to hit $150. They're already down to $199.

Of course, write down current card/slot locations before the swap, and use a fresh Windows installed on another drive. A rash upgrade could make going back difficult.

Lasereth

Before you upgrade, you really need to prioritize the parts of your PC that need upgrading. Your videocard sucks and the one you are looking to purchase (9600 SE) sucks as well. BF1942 would barely run any better than before if you upgraded to a faster processor. BF1942 doesn't care about your processor that much -- it's waay more interested in your videocard and RAM amounts.

Your processor isn't that bad. It could go for an upgrading, but I'm telling you right now that upgrading the processor would not increase game performance at all (5% max). You need to buy a *good* videocard and a large amount of RAM for games...the processor is actually the aspect of a gaming system that matters the least.

If you do want to ugprade, please get a GeForce 5600 Ultra or Radeon 9600 Pro. Buying a 9600 SE is not an upgrade. Make sure to have at least 768 MB of RAM as well. A processor is important in overall computing, but for games, the videocard and RAM are where it's at.

-Lasereth

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Lockjaw

That 9600 SE card will HAVE to be an upgrade over the onboard video I'm running. Granted it might not be much but it'll be better. The processor I'm wanting because frankly my PC is just flat out needs to be upgraded. I'm planning on doing some other things that I'll need a more robust processor for in the long run. Trust me I've done my long thinking on this one. Memory is no problem.
But I might try your thinking. Get a better vid card and see how things go from there.
I do so hate buying mid range cards though. It's like I can stomach buying the lower end card and dealing with the subpar performance than dumping out all that cash on a better car only to see the card I really wanted drop like 50 bucks in the next two months.

Eric640

Very true words.

Gimli

Please stay away from anything from ATI with an "SE" at the end.

You didn't mention if you were looking at Socket A or Socket 754 CPU solutions. Socket A's are just Athlon XP's with half the L2 cache. Socket 754's have the on-die memory controller, which is like a turbocharger to your Chevy.

Yes, I think your best dollars will go for a decent (non SE) video card. I think a Radeon 9600XT would tickle your pink for just around $120. Plug it in and I'd think you will giggle.

I may be wrong, but I just went through the same upgrade path as you and came to a few conclusions.

Gimli