Ultra low-end dilemma.

[CougTek]

Our current bottom-of-the-pit boxes are unacceptable, but unfortunately, they are the ones that we sell the most. Before developping a depression, I'm re-making our entry offerings. Currently, I'm hesitating between Intel and AMD for the best bang-for-the-buck at the extreme low-end of our line-up.

The AMD base box has a Sempron 2500+ (s754) sitting on a VIA K8M800-based motherboard. Those boards are easy to setup and relatively reliable.

The Intel shit box has a Celery D 331 (LGA775) resting on an i865GV-based motherboard. The Celery operates at 2.67GHz and has 256K L2 cache. The Sempron 2500+ is clocked at 1.4GHz and also features 256K L2 cache, although in fact, the Sempron ends up having a little more cache memory since AMD's cache is exclusive, while Intel's isn't. I'm sure the Sempron eats considerably less power than the Celery. But at 2.67GHz versus 1.4GHz for the Sempron, I'm also pretty sure the Celery out-performs the Sempron.

The rest of the system (RAM, HD, otical drive, enclosure and PSU) is similar, as is the price. Both cheapsets (Intel i865GV and VIA K8M800) have very basic features and as long as the boards are stable, the rest is not really important in that price segment. Overclocking potential is irrevelant.

What would you recommend, Sempron 2500+ or Celery D 331? The ultra low-end is the only place where I feel Intel is still somewhat competitive against AMD these days and that would be our only Intel-based advertised box.

Don't talk about switching the K8M800 mainboard with something based on a GeFarce 6100. That would make the boxes 30$ too expensive and that chipset is reserved to the next pricing category.

 

[Tannin]

Maybe I should try a Celeron again because, frankly, I just don't believe that it would cut the mustard. The Intel P4-based chips do OK on a pristine-clean install with no other software running and performing a single task. But the moment you ask them to do two things at once, they turn into limp lettuce leaves and flop miserably. Home users multi-task as routine (though they wouldn't know what the word means, most of them), as they have the extraordinary ability to get 17 various and ill-assorted background apps into their startup before they even get home and open the box. The Sempron will stand up to this sort of abuse much better than the Celeron ever could. (Unless Intel have done something extraordinary since the last time I played with an Intel CPU, which would be last week if I remember correctly.)

Rider: none of this applies to the Intel Pentium-M based chips, which multi-task and stand up to abusive users as well as the AMD chips do, maybe even better.

Rider to rider: it doesn't really apply to the Socket A Semprons either, nor the small-cache Athlon XPs. They cope with crap better than the Intel chips do, but not much better.

Rider to rider to rider: The Sempron to have is the 3100. Same clock speed as the 3000, but twice as much cache, and it really shows. They are hard to get though, and obviously out of contention for this job. But the S-3100 is the pick of the bunch: a poor man's Athlon 64 and a serious performer.

Rider to rider to rider to rider: The VIA chipset you mention works just fine. I see no point in using anything other than that chipset for this job. Bulletproof compatibility and reliability, it just works. (As does a Nvidia Nforce 3, I hasten to add, but not at the same cost. We use Nforce III for non-bideo boards, VIA for UMA boards. I personally dislike Intel chipsets, especially their stupid IDE drivers which used to break all sorts of things and probably still do but I wouldn't know because I never, ever load them anymore. Once bitten, twice shy.

But all that not withstanding, it would be interesting to compare a new-build Intel ultra-budget system against a Sempron. We still see a steady dribble of Intel systems coming in to have work done on them, but rarely see the chip in a context where it has a fair chance to show its stuff - far too many of them are either spyware and realponger-style crap crippled before we see them, or else in vomit boxes which are crippled no mater what chip you put into them. (Not so long ago, I remember being absolutely blown away by how incredibly slow Compaq could manage to make an Athlon 64 3000. I just about fell over when I realised this slug had an A-64 in it, and was even more surprised when I upgraded the RAM to 512MB and it didn't make a whole lot of difference. But then Compaq have a special talent.

 

[Santilli]

I just got out of a school district, Cabrillo Unified School District, Half Moon Bay, that has a standard, POS, install, with 2.4 ghz celies. They SUCK eggs. Even with a stripped down, ultra low price install, it barely matched my 1.4 ghz, 8 year old, or so, Athlon. When coupled with a decent hard drive, read scsi Cheetah, my system TOTALLY kicked arse, compared to their 600 dollar a box, POS.

For ULTRA LOW LOAD, THE CELI WAS JUST OK.

S

 

[P5-133XL]

Celerons D's are just plain slow: My experiance is that they make XP 2500's look and feel speedy. I'd go for the Semperon 2500 every time even though it is slower than an XP 2500+ because it is not that much slower (I'd say it is roughly equivilent to a 2300+ XP)

I disagree with Tannin, P4's with HT turned on are fine MultiTaskers. Without HT they seem to be single-process only machines. I'm not saying that HT speeds them up much, but it does fix the multitasking problem. Now if you have an older P4 w/o HT, then you are just hurting with no fix in site.

And yes Compaq/HP can do the seemingly impossible: Make a high speed machine feel outright sluggish right out of the box.

Now my favorite system to play on (a customers) is an Appro quad Opteron with 15K drives. I was just plain shocked on how responsive that machine felt while multitasking. But then there should be a difference between a $12,000+ and all the rest.

 

[Santilli]

Mark:
What OS are you running?

Can that machine work up to 8 cores????

s

 

[CougTek]

Rider to rider to rider: The Sempron to have is the 3100. Same clock speed as the 3000, but twice as much cache, and it really shows. They are hard to get though, and obviously out of contention for this job. But the S-3100 is the pick of the bunch: a poor man's Athlon 64 and a serious performer.

With the current prices, I favor the Sempron 2500+, then the Sempron 2800+ and for anything above that, the Athlon 64 3000+ for socket 754. The A64 3000+ is faster than even a Sempron 3400+ while being some 20$ cheaper here. Same frequency, twice the L2 cache : a no brainer. Older core, but we don't sell systems targeted at overclockers.

Home users multi-task as routine (though they wouldn't know what the word means, most of them), as they have the extraordinary ability to get 17 various and ill-assorted background apps into their startup before they even get home and open the box.

Amen. But don't try to make them understand that it's their fault if their system is slow. Nope. It's slow because it is broken. Whatever, those clueless make my living. I've stopped feeling guilty for their ignorance.

I'll recommend the Sempron. Thanks for your input.

 

[Tannin]

Celerons D's are just plain slow: My experiance is that they make XP 2500's look and feel speedy.

XP 2500s are speedy. You need to compare with a "normal" AMD processor, not one that fights outside its weight class. E.g., XP 2400, 2700; Sempron 2300, 2800. The XP 2500 was an outstanding performer and it takes some very serious grunt to make it look "normal".

Greg: you are comparing apples with piston engines. You can put a nice high-rpm SCSI drive in almost anything and have the system cook along like a champion - yes, including a five-year-old Athlon, and probably even a Celeron.

 

[Tannin]

With the current prices, I favor the Sempron 2500+, then the Sempron 2800+ and for anything above that, the Athlon 64 3000+ for socket 754. The A64 3000+ is faster than even a Sempron 3400+ while being some 20$ cheaper here.

Hmmm ... looks like AMD CPU availability varies quite a bit between our different markets, Coug. For us:

Sempron 2500: end of life, no longer available.
Sempron 2800: entry level, cheapest chip available.
Sempron 3100: fastest Sempron available. (When it is available, we can often only get 3000s instead.)
Sempron 3400: not yet available. (Unless it has just arrived since the last time I spoke to my AMD man.)
Athlon 64 3000: end of life, not been available since about January
Athlon 64 3200: the entry-level Athlon 64 (and entry-level Socket 939 chip, natch). Costs AU$120 more than a Sempron 3100, making it perhaps the second-best price-performance chip around.

Sempron 3100 is clearly better value over here, Sempron 3000 at $140 less has to be considered. The Sempron 2800 has to be considered, but for mine, the Best-to-worst value propositions, in order, are:

Sempron 3100
Athlon 64 3200
Sempron 3000
Sempron 2800
Athlon 64 3500
everything else

If I was building a new system for myself ....... but why would I? My Athlon XP 2500s are quite elderly now but are by no means disgraced in that august company.

Re clueless: yeah. I've stopped felling sorry for people who come in bleating about how their system is screwed when it's working perfectly, just riddled with spyware. Now it's bang, bang, "that will be $75 thanks, come back tomorrow". I can lecture them till I'm blue in the face about security, but half of them don't get it. When the cash register speaks, they listen.

 

[Mercutio]

There's no question in my mind that the Sempron is the way to go. Tannin's already covered the "why" pretty well, but as I believe I've said before, the $300 AMD machine you're talking about really isn't a bad computer anyway. What can you complain about, besides not having some massive amount of RAM?

 

[Buck]

Sempron would be my choice. Currently, I have the 2600, 3000, 3100, 3300, and 3400 available. When they are available, I view the 3100 and 2600 as the best value.

 

[P5-133XL]

Mark:
What OS are you running?

Can that machine work up to 8 cores????

s

The machine is running Windows 2003 Server.

Yes, it could go dual core and operate with 8 cores but the cost of upgrading it isn't justified considering it is way over powered for what it does right now. Currently, it is running 4x846 (an 846 is roughly a 2800).

 

[emitlive]

You're all missing the point. This is "ultra low end". Price and availability are all that matter.

But in any case, Celeron delivers better 'bang for the buck' when you look at the complete package. The AMD integrated video sucks dogs' balls.

 

[Mercutio]

Care to back up that well reasoned and insightful opinion?

 

[mubs]

Rider: ...

Rider to rider: ...

Rider to rider to rider: ...

Rider to rider to rider to rider: ...

ERROR: STACK OVERFLOW

 

[emitlive]

Care to back up that well reasoned and insightful opinion?

Huh? I just stated the obvious. I'm not offering business lessons and if you want benchmarks, try Google.

 

[Mercutio]

Humor me, o new guy.
The first few things I see suggest that top-end Celerons might be a reasonable alternative to top-end Semprons, but that's not what we're talking about here.

Are you suggesting that there's some critical difference in the mainboard chipset for the Celeron over the Sempron? Like crappy intel onboard graphics being better than crappy S3 ones?

 

[mubs]

Kinda combative character.

 

[ddrueding]

Kinda combative character.

yep.

 

[Gilbo]

Care to back up that well reasoned and insightful opinion?

Huh? I just stated the obvious. I'm not offering business lessons and if you want benchmarks, try Google.

Thanks for coming out. You sure convinced me of one thing: your opinion is never going to be valued by me.

 

[Mercutio]

On the other hand, he's posting on topic.

 

[Gilbo]

Both the NVidia and ATI integrated graphics available for AMD chips are significantly superior performance-wise to their Intel equivalents. They're also cheaper.

 

[Mercutio]

Of course, Coug is still talking about a Via-based platform. "Cheaper" they may be, both ATI and nvidia chipsets are both out of the realm of the truly low-end machine.

 

[Tannin]

So how does the current VIA integrated chipset compare, performance-wise, with the Intel one? I'll take it on faith that the Nvidia one is superior - just as I take pretty much all video performance matters on faith these days, as there is nothing I do with a computer that any video card made in the last five years can't handle without even raising a sweat. I do notice a difference between UMA and stand-alone video, but usually assume that this has as much to do with the better quality motherboard as it has to do with the video itself. (Never tested it though: I used to use rainy weekends for this stuff, these days I just drive north till the sun is shining and go looking for wildlife.)

 

[CougTek]

Re : VIA's integrated graphics sucks.

I agree entirely, but so does Intel's Extreme Graphic 2 engine. Regarding which one sucks less...both are ok for 2D and miserable for 3D, period. There's no winner, both CAN'T do 3D. In my book, it's a tie.

 

[Mercutio]

What's the equivalent GPU to the onboard video on an nvidia 6150-based board?

 

[CougTek]

A GeFarce 6200 is slightly more powerful. But I'm almost sure the integrated GPU from the 6150 is faster than an old GeFarce 5200.