Re: (Techie-pootery) Who knows the Sempron?

After replacing Dr Ivan D. Reid with a small shell script on Saturday 31 Dec
2005 18:31, the following appeared on stdout:

> IF I could convince a Curry's sales-droid to open up a box[1], are
> there easily recognisable differences between a Socket A and a Socket 754
> chip? Or is it cheap enough that I shouldn't bother?

As to the first question, there are some differences in the heatsink and fan
assembly mountings between Socket A and Socket 754, mot notably the
presence of two "handles" on a socket 754, which clip into a plastic plate
that surrounds the processor socket. The socket A mounting system is a
hang-on from the Socket 7 days where a clip attaches to either side of the
ZIF socket. Without taking a list of chipsets with you or removing the HSF,
that's about as good an indication as you will get without seeing one
booted up and running a CPUID utility. I can take a piccy of both and emu
them to you if you need it. I have both types of board/processor here.

As for the second, that is entirely for you to decide. The advantages of 64
over 32 bit are either unnoticeable or significant, depending on what
you're doing. The on-chip memory controller of the 64 bit platform
significantly increases the memory access capabilities of the CPU and SSE3
can be useful in certain circumstances. However, if you're not running a 64
bit OS, you're unlikely to notice a vast difference in performance.

> [1] Or see the owner's manual; the literature on HP's web-site is limited
> and the SR1609UK is exclusive to the Dixon Group in the UK. I'm off to
> google the -FR and -NL versions in hope of enlightenment. IIRC the -FR
> has a 3200+ processor.

Looking at the specifications on the HP site, the fact there's a Radeon
XPress 200 graphics controller (PCI express only, shared system memory)
makes me goove it's a 64 bit.

Bear in mind that this graphics controller is a pig to make jbex with Xorg,
so if you're thinking of using a differtent OS, make sure you add Option
"ColorTiling" "off" (man 4 radeon) in the device section of xorg.conf or
you will end up with a nasty looking garbled screen upon which only the
hardware cursor will appear to be correctly displayed. Or if, unlike me,
you use Linux (I use FreeBSD, which doesn't yet have an ATI proprietary
driver), use the fglrx driver from ATI.

Hope that helps a bit. Sorry I can't be more specific, but HP's site is a
shadow of its former Compaq glory where you could even download the service
and disassembly sheets. Now all you get is sales blurb.
--
Chronos

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