AMD's Sempron 3300+: 90nm Budget Computing
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 18, 2005 2:10 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Audio/Video Encoding
MusicMatch Jukebox 7.10
DivX 5.2.1 with AutoGK
Armed with DivX 5.2.1 and the AutoGK front end for Gordian Knot, we took all of the processors to task at encoding a chapter out of Pirates of the Caribbean. We set AutoGK to give us 75% quality of the original DVD rip and did not encode audio.
The Sempron's encoding performance is pretty competitive, but the Celeron D still pulls ahead.
XviD 5 with AutoGK
Another very popular codec is the XviD codec, and so, we measured encoding performance using it instead of DivX for this next test. The rest of the variables remained the same as the DivX test.
Windows Media Encoder 9
To finish up our look at Video Encoding performance, we have two tests both involving Windows Media Encoder 9. The first test is WorldBench 5's WMV9 encoding test.
Next, we have our own home-brewed HD encoding test:
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johnsonx - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
AMD's web site implies that Cool'n'Quiet works with S754 Semprons (for example when you click on downloads for the Sempron processors, you get several revisions of the AMD cpu driver that claim to enable Cool'n'Quiet). However I've tried enabling it on a couple of S2600's, and have had no luck. I had no trouble getting it to work on my A64 2800+, so I assume that Semprons in fact do have cool'n'quiet disabled.I think this is stupid of course, but my opinion of what's stupid obviously carries little weight with AMD...
randomman - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
Nitpick: Xvid isn't at Version 5 - the lastest stable is 1.0 and beta is at 1.1. Which is it?Jep4444 - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
Palermo which is based off of VeniceAsiLuc - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
Is this the Venice or the Winchester core?Jep4444 - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
beat me to it eBauer, the A64 2800+ really should have been tested(ive yet to see anyone use one in a comparison versus the Sempron 3300+ yet which has been annoying me)overclockingoodness - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
#19 AtaStrumf:"As for X800XT distorting the gaming value CPU picture, I think this is something worth thinking about. Maybe you should include a test with a 6600GT, just to see if a more expensive CPU, coupled with a value graphics card actually makes any difference."
Uh, that doesn't make any sense. You won't be able to compare the high-end and low-end chips since they will perform identially on the mid-end graphics solutions. Regardless of how fast the FX55 is, when you add that with a 6600GT - the performance will degrade. Besides, all high end chips will perform almost exactly the same because GPU will be the bottleneck.
What part of bottleneck do you guys not get?
Zebo - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
Those complaining about overclocks...as usual YMMV, don't take one site as gospel, all chips clock differently. Best resource to get an accurate representation is internet forums to get a cross section of the pioneers who took the chance for y'all. Another thing to keep in mind is Anandtech is'nt xtremesystems, they use safe low volts, and go for real stability, basically your average guy type overclock not screenshot overclocks.Zebo - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
Makes you wonder what an AMD FX with 2MB lvl2 Cache would do???eBauer - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
I would have liked to see a A64 2800+ thrown into a mix, especially considering it shares roughly the same price as the new sempron 3300+.Including the 2800+ would have given readers a clear view on why the 3000/3200 939 cpus had the advantage (if it were due to the 512k cache, dual channel memory, or a combination of the two)
Avalon - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
My sempy 2800+ did 2.72ghz on 1.55v, so Anand must have gotten a real dud of a chip. Also, to those wondering about HTPC applications for this chip. I'm pretty positive that CnQ is disabled for semprons, and only available for the A64 line. I've been starting to realize more and more that dual channel is really beneficial to gaming on the K8 platform. There really does seem to be no reason to grab a s754 Sempron anymore, since they don't offer any significant price savings. I'm still glad I got to play with one, but I'll be much happier with a dual channel Venice.