CPU Upgrade??

[folkboat]

Spent the last hour trying to find an answer to this question - no luck!!

Anyway hear goes:

I am currently running GBPVR on a AMD Athlon XP 2000 which runs @ 1667MHZ. Been thinking about upgrading the motherboard/CPU, maybe an AMD Semperon 64 3100+ which runs @1.8 MHZ.

If the speed of the system is dictated by the CPU clock speed (I realize there are other factors ie: bus speed, mem speed..) than an upgrade to a Semperon 64 running at 1.8MHZ isn't really going to yield a great increase in speed?? Especially if I use all the existing components (mem, disks etc).

A new CPU/Motherboard combo runs about $100.00 US. OTOH for a less than 2% increase in speed it isn't worth the effort!

Am I missing something???

[Old Dog]

I'll try...

The "2000" in your current CPU's name implies its as fast as a Pentium running at 2000MHz. The "3100" in the Sempron's name implies its as fast as a Pentium running at 3100MHz.

[gEd]

The AMD PR rating (2000 in this case) was introduced to counter the marketing hype over the Pentium 4's higher clock speeds. A PR rating of 2000 indicates that the cpu will run at the same speed as an AMD Thunderbird (the original Athlon that runs at 1400Mhz) processor would at 2000Mhz.

No you're not missing anything. The Semperon is more of a marketing trick as it is essentially an Athlon XP Barton chip (like I use) and it is not a true A64 processor. By todays standards, this would be a microscopic upgrade. Save up for something better if you really need more power.

How about overclocking it?

Why do you want more power. Does gbpvr not run well on this chip?

[folkboat]

Actually the only reason for an upgrade is I am replacing the Case and Power supply............the current case is ugly and the 200watt PS is 3-4 years old.

GBPVR does indeed run well on the Athlon 2000 CPU (my hardwired MVP's response is a little sluggish).

What I will probably look into is replacing my "very-basic" ATI 7000 32mb video card with something that has hardware based de-interlacing.

Picture on the SDTV is a little soft/blurry.....noticed your using an ATI 9600 does it work well for you??

Never over-clocked might give it a try..........

Thanks

[fuzzweed]

overclocking is a pain in the ass for very little real benefit (IMHO). Unless you REALLY understand the process, and how your motherboard, RAM and PCI cards will react to it, leave it alone and wait until you decide it's time to get a new processor instead

[gEd]

correct: Overclocking can be a PITA and needs to be appoached with some care after doing the research. You also need the right hardware to do it right.

benefit: Mobile AMD 2500 (1.8Ghz) which cost £60 running 100% stable at 2.4GhZ in main rig. This is more than a 3200 CPU that cost ~ £200 at the time.

My 9600 works fine for me. Yeh maybe it is a little soft but I am not motivated to change it atm. Perhaps I should try and post a pic but may be hard to clearly show the image quality in a pic.

[herbs]

No you're not missing anything. The Semperon is more of a marketing trick as it is essentially an Athlon XP Barton chip (like I use) and it is not a true A64 processor. By todays standards, this would be a microscopic upgrade. Save up for something better if you really need more power.

There were two (3 if you include the non 64bit socket 754 version) types of sempron 2800+, one based on the old Socket A the other sempron 64 is not based on the Barton XP chip it is infact based on the socket 754 versions of the Athlon 64 with lower cache and single memory access controller etc. Read more at wikipedia if you really want to know the difference.
It has SSE2 (some mobiles have SSE3), 64bit instruction set which will speed things up if the application is written for them unlike the athlon 2000+ folkboat has which only has SSE1 and no 64bit instructions.

[folkboat]

The never ending quest for Nirvana!!

- a new video card would improve the picture
- a new sound card would improve the audio
- more memory is always good
- faster CPU will..... "well just make it better"
- better cables, bigger power supply, new case

Hells-bells, if you go to avsforums they all but suggest a "mainframe" on a raised floor in an air conditioned room.

Thanks for the replies.

[Ted the Penguin]

Hells-bells, if you go to avsforums they all but suggest a "mainframe" on a raised floor in an air conditioned room.

sounds like the labs at work
not that I wouldnt like to have a personal server room in my house... kinda overkill in my 1br apt.

clock speed is not everything, pipeline efficency, throughput ("gigaflops"). if you noticed intel realized that they were not going to be able to go much further with the netburst architecture, the pipeline had grown to 31 stages and it was getting so hot some processors were overheating at stock speeds. intel israel had already designed the pentium M with its 12-14 stage pipeline, that was the basis for the core, along with the major design changes they made the switch to 65nm process length (which is the distance between the source and drain in each transistor, if anyone was wondering). greatly reducing power consumption while increasing speed (not clock speed, just speed, shorter to go so signals get there quicker). and if you look at the Core 2 the clock speeds, they are low, the EE is below 3GHz