AMD takes Intel head on in Celeron Sempr0n match

SOURCES IN TAIWAN said AMD has shown them a roadmap which reveals what's going to be in and what's going to be out in the next nine months or so.

And as part of AMD's move to the "value" Socket A market, we understand that we'll see a Sempron model 2400+ while as we reported yesterday most of the Athlon XP 2500+ and below are for the junk yard.

The Intel Celeron chip is still doing pretty well, AMD acknowledges, so AMD will pitch its Sempr0ns head to head against Celeron.

The stuff it's shown the Taiwanese folk reveal that a Sempr0n at 2800+ creams a Celeron 2.8GHz chip.

Unfortunately, AMD hasn't gone and really whacked it to Intel by using the 320, 325, 330 and 335 numbers that Chipzilla is now using.

Instead it's positioning the Sempr0ns rather like the following chart we scribbled down on the back of a gag [surely fag? Ed.] packet.

What they got?	Celeron D	Sempr0bably
Numbers !	320 (2.4GHz)	2400+ (1.66GHz)
	325 (2.53GHz)	2500+ (1.75GHz)
	330 (2.66GHz)	2600+ (1.83GHz)
	335 (2.80GHz)	2800+ (2GHz)
	335+	3100+ (1.8GHz)
L1 Cache	28K	128K
L2 Cache	256K (inc)	256K (ex)
Total Cash	256K	384K
Bus	533MHz	333MHz recurring

You know how AMD came up with the word Sempr0n? It's telling people it comes from the Latin "semper", as in "always". As in "always" faithful, thinks AMD, means reliable, solid in tone, durable, steadfast, and "always there for me". Like a workhorse. Or a doormat?

We'd humbly suggest that AMD has not always been semper thesame with its model number scheme, which seems to change from time to time.

Oh, yes, you'll need a BIOS change for the Sempron in motherboards that support it.

How the heck do you tell a Sempr0n from any other socket A CPU? The answer is you can't because the CPUID won't give you a clue. You can also bung them into MP systems, if you were wondering. µ