Sempron is the AMD processor targeted to the entry-level market and can be found in two platform versions: socket 462 (a.k.a. socket A), the same motherboard type used by Duron and Athlon XP, and socket 754, the same motherboard type used by some Athlon 64 processors.

The newest model in Sempron line, 3400+, is targeted to the socket 754 platform and is the fastest Sempron CPU to date.

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Figure 1: Sempron 3400+.

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Figure 2: Sempron 3400+, back view, you can see the socket 754 pinout.

Sempron 3400+ runs at 2 GHz, just like Sempron 3300+ and Athlon 64 3200+. The difference between these three CPUs is the amount of L2 memory cache. While Sempron 3400+ has 256 KB of L2 cache, Sempron 3300+ has 128 KB and Athlon 64 3200+ has 1 MB.

One thing you must keep in mind is that the AMD numbering system can only be used for comparison between processors from the same family. You could think that the 3400+ of this CPU means that it is faster than a Athlon 64 3200+, for example, which is not the case, since Athlon 64 3200+ has four times more L2 memory cache than Sempron 3400+. This number can be only used for comparison among other Sempron CPUs.

This new Sempron processor has the 64-bit instructions activated, which makes it a true Athlon 64 CPU but with less memory cache. So you can think of Sempron 3400+ as a “light version” of Athlon 64 3200+.

In this review we will compare the performance of this new Sempron to Athlon 64, Athlon XP, Duron, other Sempron models and also to Intel CPUs.