Performance

To make our final opinion about AMD’s new inexpensive processor for Socket 754 systems we decided to compare the Sempron 2600+ to the available alternatives. The immediate rival to the Sempron 2600+ for Socket 754 is the older Sempron 2600+ for Socket A and the symmetrical offer from Intel, the Celeron D325, of 2.53GHz frequency and a similar price.

Considering the good overclockability of the Sempron 2600+ for Socket 754, we also tested it overclocked to 2.5GHz. When thus sped up, it competes with midrange processors as well as with the overclocked Celeron D 325. We should confess at the start that our sample of the Celeron D 325 was not the best possible in terms of overclockability. It could only work normally at 3.4GHz, i.e. the FSB frequency was increased from the default 133MHz to 179MHz.

So, we used the following hardware items for our tests of the performance of the new Sempron 2600+:

• Processors:
• AMD Sempron 2600+ (Socket A, 1.83GHz, 256KB L2);
• AMD Sempron 2600+ (Socket 754, 1.6GHz, 128KB L2);
• AMD Sempron 3100+ (Socket 754, 1.8GHz, 256KB L2);
• AMD Athlon 64 2800+ (Socket 754, 1.8GHz, 512KB L2);
• AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (Socket 939, 1.8GHz, 512KB L2);
• AMD Athlon 64 3400+ (Socket 754, 2.2GHz, 1024KB L2);
• AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (Socket 939, 2.2GHz, 512KB L2);
• Intel Celeron D 325 (Socket 478, 2.53GHz, 256KB L2);
• Intel Pentium 4 2.8E (Socket 478, 2.8GHz, 1024KB L2);
• Intel Pentium 4 3.4E (Socket 478, 2.8GHz, 1024KB L2).
• Mainboards:
• ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe (Socket 478, i865PE);
• ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe (Socket A, NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400);
• DFI LANPARTY UT nF3 250Gb (Socket 754, NVIDIA nForce3 250Gb);
• MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum (Socket 754, NVIDIA nForce3 250Gb).
• 2 x 512MB Corsair CMX512-3200XLPRO DDR400 SDRAM.
• PowerColor RADEON X800 XT graphics card (AGP 8x, 500MHz/500MHz).
• Western Digital Raptor WD740GD hard disk drive (Serial ATA-150).

We performed our tests in Windows XP SP2; the BIOS parameters of the mainboards were set up for the maximum performance.

The popular SuperPi benchmark has it this way: in spite of its smaller L2 cache and lower clock rate, the Sempron 2600+ for Socket 754 is slightly faster than its Socket A predecessor. The integrated memory controller is a trump of K8 architecture, and it shows its best in this test. We also see that the new Sempron 2600+ is faster than its direct competitor from Intel, the Celeron D 325, in SuperPi.

As for the speed of the overclocked Sempron 2600+, it leaves all midrange CPUs behind thanks to its rather high clock rate.

The Socket 754 version of the Sempron 2600+ looks unimpressive in the first two tests of the PCMark04 suite. It is slower than both Sempron 2600+ for Socket A and Celeron D 325. Yet overclocking the Sempron 2600+ to 2.5GHz saves the day as only the Pentium 4 3.4E of all the participating processors can score a better result.

As for the memory subsystem performance, don’t forget that all Socket 754 processors, including the Sempron 2600+, have a single-channel memory controller. That’s why all Socket 939 and Pentium 4 processors have a better score in the memory benchmark from PCMark04 ?they are just working with dual-channel DDR400 SDRAM.

The new Sempron 2600+ for Socket 754 systems performs faster in 3DMark2001 SE than its immediate rivals, the older Sempron 2600+ for Socket A and the Celeron D 325. The gap is quite wide, by the way, amounting to 13% between the new and old Sempron 2600+. A similar gap is between the Sempron 2600+ for Socket 754 and the Celeron D 325.

The performance of the overclocked Sempron 2600+ is again highly satisfying: at 2.5GHz clock rate, this CPU leaves all midrange processors from Intel behind and is a little slower than the full-featured Athlon 64 3400+ and 3500+.

The Sempron 2600+ overclocked to 2.5GHz looks even better in the newer benchmark from Futuremark. This CPU has a higher 3DMark05 CPU score than the Athlon 64 3500+ as well as the Pentium 4 3.4E! It also has a second best basic score (after the Athlon 64 3500+). This is yet another confirmation of the fact that a well-overclocked Sempron 2600+ for Socket 754 can challenge any midrange CPU.