AMD SEMPRON 3100 REVIEW

"In this article we test the AMD Sempron 3100 cpu against the Athlon XP 3200 and XP 2500. The following software was used, Half Life 2, Doom3, Far Cry, Tribes Vengeance, Warhammer Dawn of War, Xpand Rally, Unreal Tournament 2004, Quake III Arena, 3dmark 2001-2005, SiSoftware Sandra 2005, Cpu Bench 2003, Metabench, Kribi Bench, Realstorm and Science Mark 2."

AMD Sempron processors for desktop and mobile products offer best in class performance, compatibility with all the applications you need, and the reliability of AMD processors. Best-in-class performance for everyday computing. The AMD Sempron™ processor performs at the top of its class when running the home and business applications that you need most. Full-featured to improve your computing experience. The AMD Sempron™ processor lets you enjoy a dynamic Internet experience with smooth streaming video and audio. Compatible with leading operating systems and over 60,000 of the world’s most popular software applications. Enjoy reliable, responsive performance on thousands of software applications—including those that let you communicate with family and friends. With 35 years of design and manufacturing experience, you can count on AMD to deliver innovative solutions.

Today we are looking at the AMD Sempron 3100 processor which is the fastest Sempron cpu currently available (atleast until the AMD Sempron 3300 becomes available). The previous Sempron processors used Socket A but the AMD Sempron 3100 is strictly Socket 754 only. Although the AMD Sempron 3100 is mostly an Athlon64 processor it does have a few differences. The AMD Sempron 3100 has 64bit support disabled so it's only a 32bit processor and it also only has 256k L2 Cache unlike the Athlon64's 512k cache.

INTEGRATED MEMORY CONTROLLER - Improves the memory performance by integrating a DDR memory controller into the processor. By running at the processor’s core frequency, an integrated memory controller greatly increases bandwidth directly available to the processor at significantly reduced latencies.

COOL'N'QUIET - "In the past, increased processor performance has often meant increased power consumption and increased noise levels. AMD Cool‘n’Quiet™ technology is an innovative solution available on AMD Athlon™ 64 processor-based systems that can effectively lower the power consumption and enable a quieter-running system while delivering performance on demand, for the ultimate computing experience."

NX BIT - "With the power of AMD64 technology, your computer has security built right in. The combination of AMD64 technology with Windows XP SP2 can help your system to better withstand attacks from certain classes of viruses. This can help you experience safer e-mail and Internet browsing."

3DMARK BENCHMARK 3DMARK 2001 SE 14615 13809 12574 3DMARK 2003 5124 5050 4834 3DMARK 2005 1005 1001 999 AMD SEMPRON 3100 AMD ATHLON XP 3200 AMD ATHLON XP 2500 COMMENT - "The Sempron 3100 thanks in part to it's integrated memory controller beats the Athlon XP 3200 by 6% which is an extra 806 points. 3dmark 2003 is more of a video card benchmark so the results are much closer together than with 3dmark 2001 SE, however the Sempron 3100 was still able to beat the Athlon XP 3200 by a modest 2%. 3dmark 2005 is even more of a video card benchmark than even 3dmark 2003 and the three results are within 1%." BENCHMARK SETTINGS 3DMARK 2001 SE 1024x768 Resolution 32Bit color D3D Hardware T&L Antialiasing Disabled Double Frame Buffer Compressed Texture Format 24Bit Z-Buffer Depth 3DMARK 2003 1024x768 Resolution No Pixel Processing Optimal Texture Filtering 4x Max Anisotropy Optimal Vertex Shaders No Repeat Tests No Fixed Framerate 3DMARK 2005 1024x768 Resolution No Anti-Aliasing Optimal Filtering HLSL VS Target 2_0 HLSL PS Target 2_0 No Fixed Framerate

3DMARK CPU SCORES 3DMARK 2003 633 574 504 3DMARK 2005 2949 2589 2366 AMD SEMPRON 3100 AMD ATHLON XP 3200 AMD ATHLON XP 2500 COMMENT - "3dmark 2003 and 3dmark 2005 contain a series of tests to stress the processor rather than the video card. Once again the Sempron 3100 cpu is the processor to own for good 3dmark performance. The Sempron 3100 beats the Athlon XP 3200 by 10% with 3dmark 2003 and 13% with 3dmark 2005. This is a very good result for the Sempron 3100 which is 400mhz or 19% slower than the Athlon XP 3200." BENCHMARK SETTINGS 3DMARK 2003 1024x768 Resolution No Pixel Processing Optimal Texture Filtering 4x Max Anisotropy Optimal Vertex Shaders No Repeat Tests No Fixed Framerate 3DMARK 2005 1024x768 Resolution No Anti-Aliasing Optimal Filtering HLSL VS Target 2_0 HLSL PS Target 2_0 No Fixed Framerate

CPU BENCH 2003 OVERALL 6718 6590 5596 AMD SEMPRON 3100 AMD ATHLON XP 3200 AMD ATHLON XP 2500 COMMENT - "Using CPU Bench 2003 the Sempron 3100 outperforms the Athlon XP 3200 by a modest 2% and the Athlon XP 2500 a much better 17%."

KRIBI BENCH OFFICE 18.40 18.85 16.18 JET SHADOW 16.83 19.38 16.14 SPONGE 9.58 10.37 8.74 AMD SEMPRON 3100 AMD ATHLON XP 3200 AMD ATHLON XP 2500 COMMENT - "Using Kribi Bench the Sempron 3100 loses to the Athlon XP 3200 firstly by 3% in the Office test, then by 14% in the Jet Shadow test and finally by 8% in the Sponge test. The Sempron 3100 however does better against the Athlon XP 2500 and beats it by between 5% and 13%."

META BENCH OVERALL 3030 3337 2810 RAYTRACE1 6315 7058 5714 RAYTRACE2 6315 6315 5714 RAYTRACE3 2400 2666 2220 AMD SEMPRON 3100 AMD ATHLON XP 3200 AMD ATHLON XP 2500 COMMENT - "We have selected to display the Overall score and the three fpu intensive Raytracing tests. The Sempron 3100 loses overall to the Athlon XP 3200 by 10% and by between 0% to 11% in the Raytracing tests."