K8 Sempron 2500+

Has anyone tried one of these? Does its 256kB of L2 hold it back compaired to A64? I'm thinking of pairing it with MSI's K8N PCIe board, does it have any OC features.

This is an economy gaming rig. Im not using it to replace my current machine.

Not a huge amount of difference...it would beat your Barton 2500+ hands down though.

uhhh for superior performance go A64, they run dual channel ram, bigger cache(for multi-tasking) and OC better. but might cost a little more

However if you don't feel like paying more for an A64 i suggest getting the DFI nforce-3 250gb. Probably the best 754 socket overclocker. I'm just thinking my power supply is garbage and i can't go up anymore at the moment.

Note: the semprons do not run dual channel ram, and even overclocking alot(say my 3100 up to 2.6ghz) will only perform equal to an A64 3200+ or so... so needless to say even with major overclocking, its really not a huge performance increase.

All in all, unless you HAVE to stick to a budget, i'm trying to tell everyone, do NOT get 754 socket, its old, its dead, and A64 spanks it. lol

yeah, this machine is on a serious budget.

What about DFI's nF4X Infinity? It uses nForce4, but can it OC as well?

See my sig .

My system has been great. Its really fast. I love it.

For a good cache performance comparison see this article on X-bit Labs. You'll notice the only really noteable differences are in compression and gaming.

Regarding the 2500+ Sempron K8. I wouldn't recommend it to an overclocker. If you are going to go low end K8 pay a bit more and get a 2600+ or 2800+. With that 7 multi the 2500+ has, you'll only be at 2100 mhz at 300 htt. I've got a K8 Sempron combo that cost me $80 (2600+ & refurb Asrock K8 Upgrade-NF3) clocked up to 2.63. For how much it cost its a very fast rig. I wouldn't mind using it as my main box one bit.

Yeah, get the next fastest chip, even if it has 128KB of l2 cache because that makes little difference.