On Thu, 16 Feb 2006 08:48:58 +0000, Wes Newell wrote:

On Thu, 16 Feb 2006 02:40:42 +0000, Brian K wrote:

And I've tried a number of CPU benchmarks that show the Sempron 2600 still
edging over the Sempron 3100...

Then your benchmark results are flawed by other factors of the different
platforms or misconfiguration. The 754 Sempron 3100+ runs stock at 1.8GHz
with 256K L2 cache (roughly a remarked A64 2700+). The Socket A Sempron
2600+ runs stock at 1.83GHz with 256K L2 cache also (roughly a remarked
2200+ XP). The 754 Sempron runs instructions at about 1.75 to 1.45 over
the socket A Sempron. The only benchmarks that that it would win would be
ones to determine raw clockspeed. If I'm not mistaken the socket A Sempron
3000+ at 2GHz with 512K cache doesn't even beat the Sempron 3100+ in a
single benchmark of the 20 or so listed on tomshardware. There is one
listed in Farcry, but that's a mistake, unless yoyu think the 3000+
Sempron is way fatser than an Athlon XP 3200+. The Sempron 3000+ does win
a few of the meaningless benchmarks that only measure core speeds since
it's clocked 200MHz higher, but it's dead in the water on everything else.
The socket A Sempron 2600+ wouldn't win a single benchmark and would be
severely beaten by the 3100+ in all but raw speed test.

Theoretically, yes, my Sempron 3100+ SHOULD be outperforming my Sempron
2600+, I agree completely. Unfortunately, it's just not happening on my
hardware for whatever reason...

Byte Unix Bench dhry2 shows the 2600 at an index of 174.5 vs. the 3100 at
171.5, mencoder shows the 2600 runs about 5fps faster at encoding vhs
captures to DVD, and the 2600 beat the 3100 in a kernel compile also...

Some of that might be due to a faster hard disk in the 2600, maybe, but it
still leaves me scratching my head. I've even got the faster RAM in the
3100! Quite possibly is the cheapass motherboard I got with the bundle
(from Fry's), an ECS Nforce3-A, but I really am at a loss.

Not that I'm really complaining, it's still faster than I needed to begin
with, but it's just odd...

Brian K

Brian K