<Bought one>Amd CPU Comparisons

[Ray2047]

Currently looking to replace my Athlon 3200. My mother board will take Phenom II and Sempron. I am looking at a brand new Sempron on Ebay that comes with cooler at a Buy-It-Now price that seems too cheap for a new CPU with cooler. How does the the Sempron compare to the 3200 Athalon I have and the Phenom II.

[T6]

a semprom is a single core, low power consumption, low cache and also low performance solution, it is the smallest option from amd designed to cover the minimum requirements

depending on what 3200 you have, single core possibly, a big semprom can match it or be close to it, a 3200 runs at 2.2 ghz and recent semproms run at that same speed but using ddr2 or ddr3

a phenom II is at minimum two cores cpu(i wouldn't buy a two cores, 3 or 4 minimum)latest and greatest cpu from amd

it is fast(each core at 2.7 ghz or more, lots of cache, upgradeable(shares am+ socket with many other amd models) between many other good things it offers

between a semprom and a phenom there is no comparison, a phenom offers at least triple of the performance of any semprom existent

[Ray2047]

Thank you Titus. Your reply certainly made me want a Phenom but the reality of price is going to probably mean Semprom. My board will accept AM2 or AM3. Which would be a better choice or are they basically the same?

[Old-Polack]

Thank you Titus. Your reply certainly made me want a Phenom but the reality of price is going to probably mean Semprom. My board will accept AM2 or AM3. Which would be a better choice or are they basically the same?

It's hard to deal with "Buy-It-Now price" and "too cheap for new" because it has no meaning. How about putting a real price down, so we can see if we can find something better within a reasonable price range.

[Dragynn]

Thank you Titus. Your reply certainly made me want a Phenom but the reality of price is going to probably mean Semprom. My board will accept AM2 or AM3. Which would be a better choice or are they basically the same?

Titus is twice right my friend, if you buy a Sempron, it will be slower than your current single core 3200, so that's money down the drain for sure. I have seen dual-core Athlon 64's very very cheap still for sale, I paid less than $40.00 for one a few months ago to replace my old single core 3200 (which still works BTW, great processor that, gonna use it for a budget build for someone).

AM2 and AM3 refer to the socket/pin configuration on your motherboard/processor, My 3200 chip is for socket 939 boards which my mobo is, I believe all the 3200's were socket 939, so if your mobo is a 939 an AM2 or AM3 chip will not fit. My replacement chip is a dual-core 3800 for socket 939 specifically.

[Linuzoid]

I agree with Titus T6us, here is a link to an article about the difference between the AM2 socket and AM3 Socket:


http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/socket-am3-phenom,2148.html

If you can afford the Phenom II processor  and your motherboard will accept it, definitely buy it. I own a Phenom II and it is the Cadillac of AMD processors.

[Ray2047]

Thanks all. Just for the record my old Athlon was AM2. One reason I bought this m-board was it would take AM2/AM2+/AM3 and I thought I could later upgrade to a better CPU. Guess I'll keep looking.

One more question. My Gigabyte manual says: "AMD Phenom II/AMD Phenom processor". Does that probably mean a Phenom II X2 won't work? Does the X2 just mean dual cores?  
. M-board is Gigabyte GA-M68M-S2P.
Ok. looks like another day window shopping at Ebay, Newegg, and Tiger Direct.

[T6]

if the money is the limitation a athlon II should be your target

semprom is a cheap temporary solution but a athlon II could be a permanent solution for a limited budget

about the X2 yes, it means how many cores you have

on some models you can activate disabled cores, sometimes you can convert a X2 into a X4

it is not always possible but if you investigate it is a possibility, we talked about this on a recent post

[Ray2047]

Thank you for all your help. Yes it looks like Athlon II is my best bet. Might consider a Phenom if I knew for sure it was the CPU that failed but heck it could be something else.

[Ray2047]

Well just went and bit the bullet. At $60 more then I wanted to spend but it is an upgrade from a 2Ghz CPU to a 3Ghz CPU.

AMD Athlon II X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz 2x
1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor.

Thanks all for the education.

[T6]

somebody correct me if i'm wrong but isn't this one a phenom II converted to athlon?

your mainboard possibly can give you 1 or 2 extra cores!

read the mainboard manual carefuly

"Thank you for all your help. Yes it looks like Athlon II is my best bet. Might consider a Phenom if I knew for sure it was the CPU that failed but heck it could be something else"

from my personal experience i can say that there is more chances of being hit by a lightning than see a bad cpu, a really bad unit

it is more common to see a mainboard damaged in weird ways, also psu and ram can create the most incredible situations where impossible errors happen

normally when in doubt i first replace the whole group, specially psu and mainboard, if errors continue cpu also is replaced and if problem persist and after testing extra ram modules i normally have at hand, i can put a stable system together again

[Ray2047]

normally when in doubt i first replace the whole group, specially PSU and mainboard, if errors continue cpu also is replaced and if problem persist and after testing extra ram modules i normally have at hand

This is the second time the computer has went belly up in less then six months. Last time I started with a new PS and when that didn't help I went with a new  M-board. That fixed it. Both times memory was checked before it took it's last breath. Playing the odds since the CPU is more then three years old. But one reason for keeping CPU price low is to be able to buy a new PSU or RAM or MB. Last resort I'm ready to rebuild the whole core hardware.

Got to get something faster then this Intel 1Ghz I'm using before I throw something at the screen in frustration. And heaven help me if the fails. My last working computer would be a low end P2. <shudder>

[T6]

second pc?

that sounds like you have electricity problems there

time to get a electrician there, also time to get a ups, 600w should be enough for you

[Ray2047]

Epilogue: New CPU is what she needed. Once again all is well in Byteland. Thanks to everyone.