7. Mobile Sempron: A Celeron M-Killer?

Because our Turion 64 test system, the MSI megabook M635, also works with an AMD Sempron Mobile 2800+, we decided to include that processor in our overall comparison as well. As with the Turion 64, it's very hard to find technical information about this processor. Thus, we had to restrict ourselves to only a couple of items we used for our comparisons.

Turion 64 vs Mobile Sempron: Smaller L2 cache, smaller die, cheaper price, but also less performance

As with the Turion 64 CPU family, the Mobile Sempron CPU family is also an offspring of the Athlon 64 CPUs. The Mobile Semprons also partake of the 90nm SOI finishing process used to create the Turions. They also come in two Thermal Design Power versions with 62 W or 25 W maximum possible values. The 62 Watt models take the code name "Albany" and are designed for use in so-called full-size notebooks. The 25 Watt models take the code name "Roma" and present themselves as low-price options for thin and light notebooks. The L2 cache is either 256 kB or 128 kB, noticeably smaller than in top Turion 64 models where the L2 caches are 1 MB. The smaller L2 cache shines only because of its low production costs and equally low price point. Even the surface area of the Mobile Sempron die is much smaller than that of the Turion 64. In the areas of performance and capability this means these chips also lag behind.

In contrast with Intel's low cost Celeron M mobile processor, however, the Mobile Sempron models offer the same energy saving technology as the Turion 64 CPUs. But in terms of performance, their smaller L2 caches make them lag behind the Celeron M. But their miniscule power consumption owing to integrated Powernow technology makes them great low-price options for use in modern portable typewriters-cum-notebooks.

The Mobile Semprons are identified with four-digit numbers followed by a plus sign, like the Mobile Athlon 64. With 754 pins, however, all models are pin-compatible with the Turion 64 and also handle SSE3 multimedia instructions. The 64-bit extensions designed to work with current and future 64-bit programs and OS', are still missing from the Mobile Semprons.