[mythtv] [semi-OT] x86_64 support, Semprons, and HD playback

[Jeremy Muhlich]

On Wed, 2005-05-11 at 11:15 -0700, Jesse Keating wrote:
> The price difference between a 3100+ Sempron and a 2800+ Athlon64 is
> like $4.  I'd think more cache for a slightly lower clock speed would be
> a better choice in this instance.

Those are not clock speeds, but rather AMD's semi-arbitrary "Processor
Rating" values.  The Sempron PR values are supposed to compare to
Celeron clock speeds, and the A64 is rated against the Pentium 4.  Thus
you can't compare those two chips on the PR number alone.

The Athlon 64 2800+ and the Sempron 3100+ happen to be the exact same
core, running at the *same* 1.8GHz, both on socket 754.  The ONLY
difference is that the Sempron has half the L2 cache, which hurts you a
bit in memory bandwidth-intensive apps like video processing.
Definitely go for the A64 3100+.

Here's a good review I found with some benchmarks:
http://www.anandtech.com/linux/showdoc.aspx?i=2170


 -- Jeremy