New winners for HTPC? The Socket AM3 Sempron 140 at 2.7GHz with a 45W TDP. The replacement for Athlon / Sempron LE appears, and AMD has a new, top to bottom, 1 - 4 core line up again. Looks good to me...
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New winners for HTPC? The Socket AM3 Sempron 140 at 2.7GHz with a 45W TDP. The replacement for Athlon / Sempron LE appears, and AMD has a new, top to bottom, 1 - 4 core line up again. Looks good to me...
With this motherboard it will form the basis of a decent budget PC:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Sapph...-RAID-mATX-VGA
The motherboard has the SB700 southbridge too! :)
I'm not sure I still see the point of single core CPUs outside really tiny stuff like netbooks... :S
There's still plenty of software that's not optimised for multithreaded performance, and this hits a price point - show me another current generation processor for < £30. There's plenty of people who want to buy desktop computers just for email and web browsing, and these would serve that purpose perfectly. They'd also be a good option for a HTPC where most of the hard crunching can be offloaded to the GPU (stick one of these in a 785G motherboard, for instance, and you'll have a killer HTPC). I'll be interested to see how they perform when the reviews come out...
I think for a basic build for XP,Vista Basic or a Linux distro like Xubuntu a single core Sempron with a 740G based motherboard will be adequate for general word processing and internet browsing.Quote:
Originally Posted by sammorris
True, but whatever is said about multi-core CPUs beyond dual, the ability to multitask with a dual core compared to a single absolutely transforms performance. You certainly can't find a dual core for £27 but you can for £45. For something so fundamental to the performance of a PC, £18 doesn't seem much to pay. I'm willing to bet a lot of the sales of this CPU go for people who don't realise this. (and for ref, said £45 CPU has the same power consumption as the single core, so is just as worthwhile for a low power system such as an HTPC. I've also yet to see a low budget graphics card powerful enough to run full bitrate HD 1080p smoothly off an old single core CPU)
TBH, I have a notebook with a Pentium M 1.7ghz,1gb of DDR RAM,a 40gb 5400rpm hard drive and SIS integrated graphics and XP SP3.
I usually have an external display connected too(dual display) and have upward of 30+ pdf documents open, two word documents open and a few tabs of firefox at the same time. The main limitation is memory and disk speed and the CPU is certainly fast enough for this task. I also find the notebook is fast enough to play DVDs and 720p video too and this is with the SIS integrated graphics too. 1080p is a bit more of a struggle although modern IGPs are much better in offloading the video decoding from the CPU in this regard.
Desktops have the advantage of faster hard disks and can have more RAM too so I can see that a single core CPU is certainly fast enough.
PDF and Word only use memory, not CPU time :P
True but it illustrates my point that for word processing and internet it is fast enough - also I forgot to add that I usually have PowerPoint and Paint.NET open too for editing images too put into the word documents.Quote:
Originally Posted by sammorris
I agree for anything else that a dual core does have advantages but still single core processors do have a use!!:) I suppose it all comes down to how much you want to spend and certainly go for a dual core and above if the funds do allow it. I am a tad on the stingy side at the moment and the more I can get out of my computers the better!! :p
I disagree... Multitasking has been around for a very long time, and has nothing to do with how many cores you've got.Quote:
Originally Posted by sammorris
Sure - more than one core is useful, but you can still encode video and browse the internet if your OS has a decent CPU scheduler...
Perhaps, but none of my PCs would be as useful without dual core processors, the work PC, the fileserver or the gaming PC (which is actually a quad).
Hate to bump a relatively dormant thread (let alone one of my own ;) ) but the announcement of Windows 7 XP Mode RC jogged my memory for another advantage of the < £30 single core Sempron: full AMD-V support. If I'm an SME and I require Windows XP for some of my legacy software, being able to base my new Windows 7 computers around a cheap single core Sempron and still get the hardware virtualisation support that XP Mode requires is a pretty big deal. Perhaps I should point this out to AMDs new EMEA Marketing manager... ;)
AMD marketing department= EPIC FAIL!! :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by scaryjim
Fortunately, it would appear that AMD know that ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH
Hopefully AMD will be a bit more proactive. They should start to do more advertising in the media too. Most people have heard of Intel,Nvidia and ATI but most people are a tad clueless about AMD.Quote:
Originally Posted by scaryjim
Anyway, now we've seen the first reviews of 785G and they look positive (particularly in respect to power draw), I've settled on a Sempron + 785G mobo for my new HTPC. I've finally persuaded my better half that the Q6600 + 8800GTX is just too power hungry for the job. The only question is what I do with that now...
The 785G does only two channel sound via HDMI though like the 780G:
http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=629
To be honest, Win7 XP Mode isn't amazing, as you can't install any drivers in it...
You could ditch the whole setup or sell the 8800GTX and get a more efficient card. The Q6600 can be undervolted after all.Quote:
Originally Posted by scaryjim
Not a problem, I don't use HDMI anyway... ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH
That's missing the point of XP mode. It's a business tool for companies who want to take advantage of the benefits of Windows 7, but need guaranteed backwards-compatibility for legacy apps. It needs hardware virtualisation, and Intel have been very... erratic... in their implementation of it. It puts AMD in a strong position if any businesses choose to upgrade their PCs when they move to Windows 7...Quote:
Originally Posted by sammorris
p.s. If you think a business upgrading their entire set of PCs in one go sounds far fetched: when I was working in Local Government back in about 2002, the authority I worked for upgraded their entire stock of office PCs practically overnight when they moved to Windows XP. I would guess that was well over 1000 desktops across the organisation. Large organisations do things like that; single core processors are more than adequate for general office work; hardware virtualisation on a cheap single-core processor is *exactly* the kind of thing businesses looking to move to Windows 7 will want to see.
This is looking like the most probable option, I think, although with plenty of other PCs / laptops in the house it may be that we can do without. It'd leave us down a proper gaming machine though... ;(Quote:
Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH
Sell the 8800GTX and you can get an HD4850 or HD4770 to replace it for a bit more money. The HD4750 is also being released in a few weeks time and this will be a bus powered HD4770 with slightly lower clocks. Of course there is the HD4860 too. These should all have better power consumption than a 8800GTX. Even a cheap GTS250 will do the job.Quote:
Originally Posted by scaryjim
IMHO,sell the stuff you don't need and put the money into buying new bits.
but will you actually be able to buy any? :S
Tbh nothing but a 4850 and maybe a 4770 would be an upgrade from an 8800GTX, so the only advantage is lower power. On that note, A 4750 would be a better idea.
I think ATI shot themselves in the foot with the HD4770 IMHO. They should have released it much later with sufficient stock as their existing cards are doing the job well.
Agreed. The 40nm process still doesn't seem to be putting out any products yet. Cutting it a bit fine for the DX11 generation orders.
I reckon if I go down that route it'll be a 4850 or nothing, unless the next generation mid-range comes along and slays it completely. I can probably wait until some games come out that are actually worth playing though... ;) Even my GMA X3100 laptop runs Neverwinter Nights acceptably...
Indeed, so many games I play would even run well on my fileserver, especially my work PC, let alone my gaming PC. For instance, right now four 4870s are playing rollercoaster tycoon (the original) - lmao. it's even lagging slightly because its in a window (which IIRC is software rendered)
I beat you all!! Muhahahhahah! :p
I harnessed the power of the mighter SIS M661MX to play SS2 and Unreal recently!!:lol:
TBH,if it were not for Crysis and Crysis Warhead I would probably have used my x1900gt until this year. Bioshock,GRAW2 and Stalker all run fine on lower settings and resolutions using it.