Sempron vs. Celeron vs. P4 vs. aaarghhhhh

[swanky]

My dear old sister has been struggling with my old, but magnificent AMD K6-300 for the last 2 years. This christmas I thought I ought to reward her, and get her a new PC. Since I'm not really @that* wealthy, I will have to settle for second (or third) best and build a budget computer.

I've also decided to base it on Shuttle, so I get integrated video, audio, networking, etc. the form factor is a big bonus. I know she will appreciate a less imposing computer.

Basically this PC will be used for these demanding tasks:
- office applications
- web browsing
- email

Games? Well, no. Unless you consider changing the fonts in Word amusing.

I've looked at some prices, and it seems that I have the following options:
- Socket A/Sempron (up to 3000+)
- Socket 478/Celeron D (up to 2,8Ghz)
- Socket 478/Pentium 4 2,8 GHz

All these combinations are within my budget. But what's the best choice? I'm fully aware that i probably could go out and get the cheapest option, but we don't do that, do we? Nah, we look for the best value. Oh, and one more thing: I will not be overclocking.

Any input would be highly appreciated!

 

[compudog]

Sempron whips any Celeron so throw Celeron off your list. Good value would be Athlon XP 2500/2600 or thereabouts and nForce 2 offering from Shuttle. MN31N or MN31L both with IGP graphics.

 

[wseyller]

Originally posted by: compudog
Sempron whips any Celeron so throw Celeron off your list. Good value would be Athlon XP 2500/2600 or thereabouts and nForce 2 offering from Shuttle. MN31N or MN31L both with IGP graphics.

I agree. The athlon XP or semperon will be the best bang for the price.

 

[rbownes]

I have a Sempron 3100+ socket 754 and it rocks! Dirt cheap and great performance.

 

[frank84]

Pentium 3? run that under W2K?

that can be done around $200 to $300

 

[swanky]

Thank you all for your fast response! So how does the Athlon stack up against the Sempron? I guess the extra cache would mean some extra oomph?

 

[compudog]

The Athlon XP Barton out performs all but the K8 core Sempron and then it's really close. Great deals on nForce 2 boards right now too.

Check this out!

 

[DGath]

Originally posted by: swanky
Thank you all for your fast response! So how does the Athlon stack up against the Sempron? I guess the extra cache would mean some extra oomph?

Correct. Sempron's = less cache, also cannot go dual channel. If you can handle the performance hit, they are a great chip.

 

[Mik3y]

Originally posted by: DGath

Originally posted by: swanky
Thank you all for your fast response! So how does the Athlon stack up against the Sempron? I guess the extra cache would mean some extra oomph?

Correct. Sempron's = less cache, also cannot go dual channel. If you can handle the performance hit, they are a great chip.

it's not like dual channel's important for amd. only P4's really need it for performance.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: compudog
Sempron whips any Celeron so throw Celeron off your list.

Actually, the Celeron D (based off the Prescott core) is not *nearly* as crippled as the earlier P4 Celerons, but AMD still beats it in terms of price/performance. It is, however, at least worthy of consideration if you could somehow find a really good price on it, or a good MB/CPU bundle or something. The regular P4 Celerons are absolute junk.

AT article comparing performance. Observe the 'old' Celeron 2.6 getting absolutely destroyed by the Athlon 1700+ (and in most cases by even the Duron 1.6Ghz), whereas the new ones are at least kind of competitive.

 

[BW86]

Sempron for sure.

 

[imported_whatever]

if you can afford it, go with the Mobile Athlon XP 2400+ 35W. perfect for a shuttle-type system, cheaper than the 3000+ sempron you mentioned, and puts out very little heat.

 

[unclebabar]

or you could just swap out the K6s2 300 for a k6-2 500 (item 19-103-166) + free beach towel from newegg for about $15 and buy her something different.

I did this for my parents and they couldn't be happier ... well maybe grandkiddies would but you can't get those at newegg.

YMMV

 

[piasabird]

I think the Sempron 3100 which is actually a 32 bit Athlon 64 processor is the most bang for the buck. I think the motherboards for Athlon 64's are dropping to around $85.00. The prices on the Athlon 64 Processors are not much higher.

Unless your sister is an avid gamer she wouldnt notice much difference between an Athlon XP and the Sempron processors. The Asus A7N8X Ultra 400 is a very good Athlon XP motherboard. Easy to build with. I have one I am using now with an XP2800+. If you want a motherboard with integrated video you might be better off with some other brand. You can get an older Radeon 9000 for around $50.00. Some people are also using the Asus A7N8X-X which is just a little cheaper. It is lacking the Dual DDR but is basically the same chipset. While I have the A7N8X Ultra 400 motherboard I am only using one stick of 512 MB DDR333 from crucial.

You might save some money using old optical drives/floppy or maybe even the case. I recommend a new hard drive. The case should have good air flow. I am using an Antec SLK3700AMB case with a 12 cm exhaust fan. It runs very quiet using a stock Retail CPU Cooler that came with the Athlon XP CPU. I am also using a 80 Gig Western Digital IDE Hard Drive.

 

[Macro2]

RE:"I think the Sempron 3100 which is actually a 32 bit Athlon 64 processor is the most bang for the buck."

 

[unclebabar]

Considering the intended purposes:
- office applications
- web browsing
- email

really you should consider the k6-2 500 esp. if she's still motoring along with a 66 MHz bus and more RAM if the magnificent computer is currently skimping. The difference in responsiveness with the just the chip is very noticable.

Installation consisted of removing the heatsink then chip and replacing with new chip and same heatsink. no thermal compound no lapping no nothing. Chip takes about 16W compared to 60W or whatever for the others. Some newer components may take less energy but I think you still come out ahead.

Assuming you save 50 W and the computer is on 8hr/day, 250 days per year and electricity is 6 cents per kilowatt hour, you could save her $60 per year. Not a whole lot, but still better than throwing the money away for power she really has no use for. If I recall correctly the different between the 300 and 500 is about 4W, depending on what 300 you have.

I have a P4 3.2 and a XP 2500+ myself but they do double duty as space heaters.

 

[CraigRT]

I'd go with an AthlonXP for sure... 2500+'s are cheap, and has tons of power for the $

 

[magomago]

Originally posted by: whatever
if you can afford it, go with the Mobile Athlon XP 2400+ 35W. perfect for a shuttle-type system, cheaper than the 3000+ sempron you mentioned, and puts out very little heat.

ding ding ding ding!!! This way you can stick it in a small form factor (something i wouldn't try with the latest P4s, although A64 is fine to do it with) and toss on a fatty heatsink and see if you can go silent~

but don't bother with socket A semprons. they are just rebadged athlonXPs with higher PR ratings. If you do go semporon, go socket 754.

But Mobile Athlon + Cheap kt600 with video out (KT600 comes with more features than nforce 2, and i doubt the 5% preformance will be missed) and 512 megs of ram and you have the heart of a asystem that will last another few years for your sister~

 

[bluemax]

I would recommend the Shuttle SN41G2 (Ver.2 has the bigger, quieter power supply) and the Mobile AthlonXP-M. Since the Shuttle comes with its own cooling solution it's just as well you'd be getting an OEM processor, and a speedy one at that!

This model doesn't do Semprons if I'm correct.

That's great bang for the buck - and even includes GOOD onboard audio and GF4MX video. Should she decide to try something in 3D she'll appreciate something better than Intel, SiS or VIA imbedded video. The Soundstorm audio is excelent as well!

Don't forget to buy the PC-8 Parallel port cable if she's got a legacy printer she wants to keep using!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: DGath

Originally posted by: swanky
Thank you all for your fast response! So how does the Athlon stack up against the Sempron? I guess the extra cache would mean some extra oomph?

Correct. Sempron's = less cache, also cannot go dual channel. If you can handle the performance hit, they are a great chip.

I assume that you are speaking of the Socket 754 chips. The Socket-A Sempron's ability to use dual-channel memory, would be down to the motherboard chipset, which basically means a dual-channel NF2-based board. You won't see any performance advantage though, realistically, unless you are also using integrated GFMX video.

What about a cheap Duron, on an SiS chipset, and either a cheap video card, or maybe just integrated video? For office tasks, web browsing, and no games.. the person doesn't really even need an AXP even. I'm not sure if they even still make Durons though, quite frankly. I've been out of the loop on the low-end AMD stuff recently, I know that they are phasing out some of their old stuff.

Remember, they're coming off an a K6-300, which is about equivalent to a Pentium 233 MMX.

(Heck, a used Slot-1/socket370 Celeron 533 to a 933 would be fine too, even, for those tasks. I set someone up last year with a Tully Celly 1.2Ghz, 512MB PC100, on an ECS SiS635T chipset, and the thing was fast and rock-solid. I was disappointed that I couldn't manage to get it OC'ed to 1.6Ghz, because then it would have been almost the equal of my current 1.67Ghz XP2000 rig, except that the SiS635T chipset is probably more effient than my KT400/8235. PCI bandwidth sucks on my KT400.)

 

[bluemax]

If you don't need gaming power at all - the ultimate budget would be the classic, proven-reliable Shuttle SK41G with a Duron (Applebred) 1600 or 1800. Cheap, speedy, awesome. I'd get one!