X-bit labs

AMD Sempron 2600+ for Socket 754: K8 Architecture Made More Affordable (page 3)

Category: CPU

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 03/04/2005 | 12:03 PM ]

AMD Sempron 2600+ for Socket 754 in Detail

The new Socket 754 AMD Sempron 2600+ processor is the cheapest embodiment of K8 architecture at the moment. No wonder then that its clock rate is only 1.6GHz and the amount of its L2 cache memory is just 128 kilobytes. But the processor is very affordable, being officially priced at only $78.

The new Sempron looks like just any other Socket 754 CPU:

And here’s the package the Sempron 2600+ comes to retail shops in:

The stock cooler enclosed with the Sempron 2600+ for Socket 754 doesn’t boast any extraordinary qualities. It is an all-aluminum device:

The CPU-Z utility we usually check out the characteristics of a tested CPU with doesn’t yet know anything about the new Sempron and identifies the core codename wrongly.

But the information about the cache memory structure is correct:

You may see that AMD reduced the cache memory by disabling some cache lines in the associativity sets, keeping the total number of the sets intact. That is, the cache of the Sempron 2600+ is 16-way set-associative, just the 1MB L2 cache of elder Athlon 64 FX models.

Besides AMD64 technology, Cool’n’Quiet is also disabled in the Sempron 2600+. As a consequence, the processor doesn’t permit to reduce its frequency multiplier. We can’t call that a serious disadvantage, though, since the Sempron 2600+ isn’t a hot chip thanks to the 90nm tech process, small L2 cache, reduced core voltage and low clock rate. We used the stock cooler in our tests of the Sempron 2600+ and the temperature of this processor never exceeded 45°C.