Will AMD release any more Athlon XPs?

[mehmetmunur]

AMD has stated that they are not planning on continuing Athlon XP chips past the first half of 2005. Do you have any information on whether they will release any Athlon XPs beyond 3200+, such as Athlon XP 3400+, 3600+ etc.

I do not need a top end processor since I don't do a lot of gaming, video encoding etc. At the moment, I have an AMD Athlon XP 2500+ with 512MB of RAM and was planning on upgrading to an Athlon XP 3200+, or faster if they became available in the next 1 1/2 - 2 years, and 1GB of RAM, without having to change the motherboard, followed in another 2 years to an upgrade to 64 bit computing. Does this sound like a reasonable CPU upgrade path?

 

[Gamingphreek]

No they will not. However the Semprons are rolling out. I cant remember what the max speed is for it on Sckt A but it is also coming out for 754M/B's.

That is the future AXP of the AXP, but its supposed to be the value chip now.

-Kevin

 

[Sonic587]

SktA is pretty much dead. The best you're ever going to get is a mobile Barton. Releasing XPs rated at 3400+ or 3600+ would do nothing except add confusion the market.

 

[RussianSoldier]

planning to upgrade to a XP 3200+ also; waiting for the prices to come down slightly...

 

[o1die]

I got an xp2600 barton combo from Fry's recently for $75 just for a spare. I have no intention of getting sempron. Barton is probably better overall.

 

[mehmetmunur]

AMD's FAQs on Sempron state that they are planning on a 3100+(754) as a top model. From my understanding Sempron is not replacing Athlon XP, but AMD Duron instead. Since my main objective is to stay away from a motherboard change for as long as possible, using a high-end Sempron would not be advantageous.

AMD has enough market confusion as it is with Athlon XP 2800+, Athlon 64 2800+, and now Sempron in the same # range. Thus you have 3 different cores with same numbering schemes.

I would only hope that they would release a faster A XP before stopping production. This would only make the upgrade more desirable for people such as me, who do not wish to upgrade to 64 bit computing before the software (Windows XP 64 bit which got pushed back once again to mid-end 2005), and hardware (Socket 939, DDR2, BTX motherboards, PCI Express) settled down in price and reliability. I do not want to upgrade to Scoket 754 and then have to make another upgrade to 939 soon thereafter.

 

[Gikaseixas]

It would be really good if they released a barton rated at 2400 mhz and named it XP3500. That would allow the proven VIA and Nvidia chipsets (motherboard) to stay around a bit longer. I don't think it will happen, sad i know

 

[oldman420]

i think the mobile barton is as good as they can do in a 32 bit core these cpu's are the cream of the cream of the crop they could reduce the process but that would create even more heat. so get the mobile bartons while you can cause this old man thinks thats as good as its going to get

 

[zephyrprime]

they could reduce the process but that would create even more heat.

Reducing the process would reduce heat so long as they don't add more transistors.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I was kind of wondering, would the new Socket-A Sempr0ns be faster than an equivalently-clocked Athlon XP or Barton XP, due to a newer core design?

I'm currently running an Athlon XP (older TBred-A) XP1800+ CPU at 10.0 x 166Mhz @ 1.525v, which shows as XP2000+ speeds in BIOS. Not a huge overclock, because I am limited in what I can do for voltage adjustments with my MSI KT4V-L mobo. (Default CPU voltage is 1.5v, cannot increase past 1.6v in BIOS, so can't even hit same default 1.65v of normal TBred-B chips.)

So I've been wondering lately - if AMD is dropping production of Socket-A mobile Barton chips, would it be better to try to snag one while they are still semi-plentiful and OC that, or wait until the Socket-A Sempr0ns arrive, and simply upgrade to one of them then. I guess it comes down to what the Sempr0ns are going to cost, and how they benchmark against an overclocked mobile Barton.

I would really like to max out the lifetime of this board/system as much as possible, I don't think that I'm going to be able to do a major upgrade for another year at least, by then, technologies like SATA-2 and PCI-Express should be common, and have the bugs worked out of them, and price premiums for them should have evaporated.

When I do finally upgrade, it will probably be to something with those technologies, on a cheap, decent, A64 system. But until a real A64-compatible version of Windows' ships, doing so would also be pointless for me. (Not a big Linux guy, although I've used it before.)

 

[Zap]

The socket A Semprons will basically be a Tbred with a new PR rating (versus Celeron). At the same true MHz/FSB, would perform identical to a Tbred.

I actually wouldn't mind a Sempron 3100+ in a nice overclock-friendly socket 754 board. Then again, I wouldn't mind a Celeron D in a good overclock-friendly socket 478 board. Call me sick.

 

[Zebo]

There is hardly reason to buy them with semptrons on the scene. AMD is getting out of the sub $80 processor biz I think.

When nforce4 comes out with suondstorm, then there will be no reason at all since the only thing holding the XP up right now is Nforce2 mobos.

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: Zebo
When nforce4 comes out with suondstorm, then there will be no reason at all since the only thing holding the XP up right now is Nforce2 mobos.

According to the nVidia contacts at nforcershq.com, SoundStorm will NOT be included in nforce4.

Read through this rather lengthy thread for more info:
http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=47085

Basically the gist is that
1) The Inquirer article is the only source that ever said nForce4 would include SoundStorm, and that part of the article is not true.
2) Motherboard manufacturers do not ask nVidia for it, so nVidia dropped it. The reason manufacturers do not ask for it? They don't get scored down at review sites like AT and other for not having only AC97 sound. They see no benefit to SoundStorm and added cost, so it won't be making an appearance anytime soon... at least until review sites start demanding better onboard audio options and scoring down for normal 5.1.

A sad state of affairs, but true.

What's really sad is that I bet audio performance has a larger impact on overall FPS than CL 2 vs. CL3 memory, yet we see thousands of articles on superfast memory and ZERO on the benefits of real/good sound hardware.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: Concillian


A sad state of affairs, but true.

What's really sad is that I bet audio performance has a larger impact on overall FPS than CL 2 vs. CL3 memory, yet we see thousands of articles on superfast memory and ZERO on the benefits of real/good sound hardware.

Indeed. Thanks for the link

One positive I guess, is today, one can buy a good sound card like CHAINTECH 7.1 wit VIA ENVY 24HT-S chipset for about $25. Still disappoiting IMO as I like everything integrated.

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: Zebo

Originally posted by: Concillian


A sad state of affairs, but true.

What's really sad is that I bet audio performance has a larger impact on overall FPS than CL 2 vs. CL3 memory, yet we see thousands of articles on superfast memory and ZERO on the benefits of real/good sound hardware.

Indeed. Thanks for the link

One positive I guess, is today, one can buy a good sound card like CHAINTECH 7.1 wit VIA ENVY 24HT-S chipset for about $25. Still disappoiting IMO as I like everything integrated.

The Chaintech isn't even in the same ballpark as Soundstorm as far as usefullness though. Soundstorm also offered better hardware acceleration for games.

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: Nebor
The Chaintech isn't even in the same ballpark as Soundstorm as far as usefullness though. Soundstorm also offered better hardware acceleration for games.

Aye, I have a couple soundstorm boards and I have the Chaintech. The chaintech offers quality, the SounStorm offers 3D hardware acceleration.

However, it has also been noted that the SoundStorm is totally capable of producing quality as good as the VIA chipset cards, it just needs a decent DAC. Apparently we can blame the motherboard manufacturers for this too, as they couple the SoundStorms with things like the DAC from the Realtek 650 AC97. Apparently there were a few nForce1 boards with good DACs on them that are reported to be of much higher quality than the current crop of nForce2 SoundStorms because of the DACs.

Learned all kinds of things I never knew at nforcershq.