Re: AMD Sempron 3000+ speed
- From: "Mike T." <noway@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 15 May 2006 10:08:53 -0400
"Paul Parr" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:e49qtf$v8c$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Fed up with the time it took to do video rendering, I decided to upgrade
my
3yr old 1.8 GHz Athlon PC. I've built several PCs in the past but haven't
been in the market for 3 years so I visited told a local component dealer
and told them my first requirement was for a 3 GHz processor.
He sold me a Sempron 3000+, 512 MB RAM (2 x what I had before)and a
Gigabyte
K8 Triton GA-K8VM800M mobo. I used my existing HDDs/DVD-RW etc but had to
get
a new case/PSU separately as he forgot to mention that 24-pin ATX was now
with us.
All went smoothly, but when I came to do video processing it took just as
long as before. A system check shows the speed is 1.8 GHz, despite the AMD
box being labelled 3000+, but I now see a tiny label on the box saying
"operates at 1800MHz".
I went back to the dealer to clarify this and to suggest they had
misrepresented the product to me, given my clear demand for a 3 GHz
processor. They told me that as 'no-one held a gun to my head' and that I
had chosen the items myself, they would not do anything about it - I
wanted
to upgrade to a genuine 3 GHz CPU & mobo and was quite happy to pay the
difference. The matter has not been resolved and I'm looking for advice on
what to do either technically or consumer-wise.
The K8 BIOS allows me to alter the clock speed and I'm tempted to try
raising it to get 3 GHz, but there are warnings in the m/b manual about
possible damage to the system. Given that the AMD small-print says it
operates at 1800 MHz, is this likely?
TIA
PP
OK, there are several issues you are dealing with. First, you need to know
that AMD processors are labelled (roughly) according to the proc. speed that
they match in similar Intel chips. So if you had a "3000+" AMD processor,
this would perform better than a 3GHz Intel processor. So the dealer
selling you a 3000+ AMD processor would have been a good thing.
HOWEVER, you bought a Sempron, which is the crippled (read: low-end, good
for email and web browsing and not much else) member of the AMD family. So
it's not surprising that you didn't get better performance for video
rendering.
I have a feeling that the component dealer is just as much of a victim here
as you are. That is, you went into the dealer not knowing what you needed.
The dealer didn't know what you needed either. So when you asked for a
specific processor, the dealer sold it to you, in spite of the fact that the
processor you asked for is NOT APPROPRIATE for it's intended use.
For what you intend to do, you need an Athlon64 CPU, preferably DUAL CORE.
You also need a LOT more RAM, preferably 2GB or more.
There are two ways you can prepare your system for video rendering:
1) Start over, build socket 939, Athlon 64, dual core (any speed),
preferably with an nvidia chipset mainboard and 1 or 2GB of DDR400 RAM (or
whatever the mainboard calls for, but MINIMUM of 1GB of RAM)
(sell any extra current components on ebay)
OR
2) The motherboard you bought actually isn't too bad. It's not
cutting-edge, but should still do video rendering OK, if properly equipped.
If you can find one, get an athlon64 chip of about 3400 or 3700, socket 754,
to replace the Sempron. Then buy a single stick of 1GB of DDR400 RAM and
install that along with your largest CURRENT stick of RAM. That way, you
end up with a little over 1GB of RAM.
(sell any extra current components on ebay)
The better approach would be plan 1 listed above. But if you aren't careful
about it, you'll have to upgrade your video card, also. (if you have the
money, there is nothing wrong with that, though) If money is tight, #2
would work OK, but it wouldn't perform nearly as well as #1. -Dave
.
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