Quiet Sempron machines?
Jan 20, 2006 at 12:08 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 47
patricklang

patricklang

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I'm a few parts away from having 2 PC's, so I'm planning to upgrade my PC and reduce the noise a bit. Currently I'm using an Athlon 1.2ghz in a low-end Antec case w/ 350w PSU, which I plan to give to a family member.

Has anyone here used a Sempron 3000+ first-hand? I want to switch to a CPU that has speed stepping and a variable speed fan to quiet down my PC a bit. I'm using a fanless Geforce FX5200 already, and the power supply fan is not contributing much noise.

I'm looking at the Sempron 3000+ retail boxed with Asus K8N motherboard, seems like a good combo for the price ~$170.

As far as arguments to CPU choice, I don't want to shell out for dual channel RAM and don't do enough gaming or encoding to justify a more expensive socket 939 chip or P4.
 
Jan 20, 2006 at 2:33 AM Post #3 of 47
I wonder if 64bit feature would really matter in the near future, but the cache size DOES matter. there are socket 754 semprons with 256kb L2 cache, and one siwht 128kb. Needless to say, 256kb ones are quite a bit faster. The one I have now is 2800 (1.8ghz stock) and is stable at 2.5ghz with 0.15+ vcore, which is probably somewhere between 3400+ and 3600+ performance. Might be able to better with better mobo, and better cooling with higher vcore, I am only using modest zalman AlCu-7700 and upgrading to Ninja for less noise. Not shabby at all for measly $80 I paid over a half year ago.
 
Jan 20, 2006 at 3:37 AM Post #4 of 47
i have an athlonxp3000+. i use a masscool whisperrock2 cpu cooler. i have it turned down as far as it will go with a zalman fanmate. i have one other fan: a 120mm exhaust also completely turned down with a fanmate. speedfan is telling me that as i type this my temps are cpu-42C mobo-53C hdd-39C. now, these aren't great temps, but they're perfectly safe, and they don't ever go much higher. in my case, i have no need for any speed stepping. though i guess it might be nice to turn voltage down at times to save energy, personally cool-and-quiet has limitations IMHO-such as not jumping back up to max clock speed quick enough. anyway, i honestly think you can do fine without any fancy fan regulators. if you have the $$$ get a thermaltake xp120 and put a completely cranked-down yate-loon or nexus 120mm fan on there, you'll be golden; then just one 120mm exhaust and you're fine. of course, if you want high-end video, it's a different story altogether, i personally just use a basic geforce2 card on this my basic productivity/audio rig. more than enough speed to rip with eac, encode with flac, surf the web, and run other programs at the same time.
 
Jan 20, 2006 at 3:43 AM Post #6 of 47
Quote:

Originally Posted by MikoLayer
I wonder if 64bit feature would really matter in the near future, but the cache size DOES matter. there are socket 754 semprons with 256kb L2 cache, and one siwht 128kb. Needless to say, 256kb ones are quite a bit faster.


actually, cache size doesnt matter a great deal for AMD chips. the pipelines (among other things) are short enough to not require a large L2 or the existance of an L3. netburst, on the other hand, requires a big L2 because of ridiculously long pipes. for AMD, double the cache could mean 5-10% increase in realworld apps.

yes, 64bit will be very useful in the future.
 
Jan 20, 2006 at 4:12 AM Post #7 of 47
In fact, 64 bit is very useful now. Floating point operations will be more precise, leading to more accurate results (there is a workaround on a 32 bit CPU, but it causes a big performance penalty). Fear Factor on an Athlon 64 looks much better than Fear Factor on a P4. With 32 bits, the rounding errors accumulate until they're easily visible.
 
Jan 20, 2006 at 6:37 PM Post #9 of 47
<sigh>I was trying to avoid the whole cache and 64 bit arguments. I have a 64 bit machine at work and am not impressed yet. I'm a software developer, I fully understand the implications of the cache and 64 bit support, and choose to save money. I tested my primary apps on XP 64 bit, and had driver/app incompatibilities (j.River media center) leading to skipping/stuttering sound, and overall the system felt more sluggish. 64 bit doesn't have any benefit for value systems, which is what I'm targeting for myself. I plan to switch to 64 bit when I build a better machine and the apps I care about are 64 bit native.

I'll check into the cpu coolers recommended, thanks for the suggestions.

Do you know if that ECS NForce3 250 based board supports cool&quiet speed stepping? Asus's comparable board advertises it, but ECS doesn't specify.
 
Jan 20, 2006 at 7:14 PM Post #10 of 47
Stick with the proven good mobo makers, Asus, DFI, Gigabyte, MSI, they all support CnQ on their new boards. The sempron runs cool, like sick cool. A scythe ninja is a great heatsink, but overkill for cooling a sempron passively IMO unless you have a very high ambient temp, or very little case airflow. You could probably get away with a XP90 passive with good localized airflow. I would go with a low-end Socket 939 venice core chip myself, they still run very cool, and are extemely undervoltable, but have more kick when you really need it. Something about the sempron is just a bit laggy by comparison. Regardless of what some say, cache does make an important difference.
 
Jan 21, 2006 at 2:48 AM Post #12 of 47
here's my best advice: don't sweat it. people will argue till they're blue in the face about what cpu-or-whatever is better; like you just offended they're dead relative and they need to rebuttal
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but really, you're on the right track. anyone of these fellows could steer you in the right direction. if you want you can PM me and i'll help you. honestly, it's really not too complicated. you can get good simple reliable components very easily. as far as quiet is concerned, you just want a quiet psu, quiet case fan(s), and quiet hard drive(s). as far as hdd's, seagate (or better yet) samsung, is all you should consider

the truth is, it is always possible for a pc to be quieter, AND your room will ALWAYS HAVE SOME AMBIENT NOISE. you must determine how much $$$$$ you want to drop on silence. personally, my setup is very budget and i absolutely cannot hear it EVER even though it's right next to me. all in all, everyone will always have vastly different opinions, but you're here at headfi, and you'll have a hard time going wrong with most of these folks' help
 
Jan 21, 2006 at 2:52 AM Post #13 of 47
Quote:

Originally Posted by Iron_Dreamer
Stick with the proven good mobo makers, Asus, DFI, Gigabyte, MSI, they all support CnQ on their new boards. The sempron runs cool, like sick cool. A scythe ninja is a great heatsink, but overkill for cooling a sempron passively IMO unless you have a very high ambient temp, or very little case airflow. You could probably get away with a XP90 passive with good localized airflow. I would go with a low-end Socket 939 venice core chip myself, they still run very cool, and are extemely undervoltable, but have more kick when you really need it. Something about the sempron is just a bit laggy by comparison. Regardless of what some say, cache does make an important difference.


agreed; i'd also add Abit to the reccommended mobo's.
 
Jan 21, 2006 at 3:16 AM Post #14 of 47
Jan 21, 2006 at 9:09 PM Post #15 of 47
Quote:

Originally Posted by cire
unless 5-10% difference counts as "important", you're wrong:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item=219&num=2
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=2395&p=2


Well for most games it wouldnt really matter since they are GPU bounded anyway. But look at the UT charts from AT : 46.5fps to 54.2fps, going from 256kb palermo to 512kb 939, both clocked identically at 1.8ghz. Unless I am mistaken, dual channel doesnt account for much of that difference, so it is got to be the cache. What other performance related difference to chips have, other than L2 cache and the dual channel? As for 64bit, I havnt heard of Fear Factor (sorry for my ignorance
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) and the only game I hear people actually do see a clear difference in is FarCry 64bit. If you are getting a sub $100 CPU, I would assume you arent planning on using it for heavy 3d FPS gaming in next 5 years or so when 64bit may actually become an absolute must have. At this point, I just dont see anything so exciting about 64bit OS and apps other than some people liking "snappiness" and others switching back due to driver issues.

Again, I dont think it really matters THAT much since for gaming it is most likely be the GPU that sets the limits for the most time (except for UT, HL2 currently) and you didnt sound like you were going all out to build the fastest gaming machine.

If I was worried about being future proof, I would shell out a tad more and spring for a opty 144/146, as they dont require monster cooling to reach 2.7~2.8 either. If you want something cheap, I would say concentrate getting more cache for better speed NOW.
 
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