AMD Sempron 145 Review

[flibberdipper]

 

 

INTRO

First off, I thought I’d start by saying that I feel like I’m a little late on this, since I’ve had my Sempron for close to a year. I’d also like to say that now there are better options out there for the money, but for $45, the potential in these little guys is extremely impressive.

 

GENERAL PERFORMANCE

This is what matters for most people. So, I’ll get the important stuff out of the way first: These things are not that powerful unless you unlock the other core and overclock them. End of story. At stock, they will bottleneck something as terrible as a Radeon HD 6570, and multitasking is terrible. I often found myself pinning it to the wall. But when you unlock the other core and OC it to about 3.4GHz, it is a TON better. I managed to get lucky and get one where the core was just disabled and not defective, and I was able to take it up to 4823MHz (yes, 4.82GHz), although at 1.6v.

 

GAMING PERFORMANCE

Again, unless you unlock that other core and overclock it, you are basically asking for terrible performance. When I began with mine, I had it paired up with a Radeon HD 6570. Playing something as simple as Spiral Knights would begin to cause a bottleneck. I unlocked the other core, and even without overclocking, boom, an extra 10-20FPS was in my hands. Minecraft… Oh boy. Out of the box I was getting about 40FPS with distance at normal and everything else turned up. Unlocked the other core and I was getting close to 70, 80 in some places (this was with 1.5.7? I think).

 

MULTITASKING PERFORMANCE

Once again, terrible with one core, much better with two. Initially, playing a 1080p video in Firefox (version 26, Flash player) would slow it down (lots of stuff happening on screen, with a high video bitrate). When I unlocked the other core, I was able to play 1440p video without that much of a problem.

 

POWER CONSUMPTION

For what it is based on and how it performs, I’m okay with the 45 watt TDP it carries (85 if you get lucky and are able to keep the other core unlocked). However, the stock cooler is terrible, and you probably should get a better one, since even at bare bones stock it would begin to hit 40C while gaming.

 

CONCLUSION

Overall, I’m really happy I got this processor instead of an APU. Sure, I could have had a lot better price/performance with an APU, but I wanted something I could overclock the living shit out of, and not have it be a big deal if I kill it.

 

IS IT STILL RELEVANT AND WORTH IT?

No. There probably decently better options out there for the $100 I spent on my crappy motherboard and CPU (combined). But if you wanted to have something just to overclock the hell out of or make a mining rig with (which wouldn’t even be worth it, honestly), or even some kind of cheap home file server deal, these things are perfect.

[coen113]

sweet review, nicely detailed

[ZetZet]

heh. it's worse than my 7 6 year old e8400 which i got rid of as fast as i could  :lol:

[WAI]

i have this cpu in my moms and step-brothers builds. rock-solid for my moms needs but eh i upgraded my step-brothers by giving him my previous APU Build which has the 5800k with a 7750 in Dual-Graphics

[Sonefiler]

lolwat

[P e r s e p h o n e]

Dat forum title.

[Askew]

So it's basically a lottery on whether or not the other core is able to be unlocked?

 

I can't see myself buying something like that unless I knew.

[ZetZet]

So it's basically a lottery on whether or not the other core is able to be unlocked?

 

I can't see myself buying something like that unless I knew.

And even if you unlock it it will probably be slower than the new pentiums.

[flibberdipper]

sweet review, nicely detailed

Thanks.

 

heh. it's worse than my 7 6 year old e8400 which i got rid of as fast as i could  :lol:

In day to day tasks though, as long as you have this bad boy unlocked, you probably wouldn't notice a difference.

 

lolwat

I liked mine, and I wanted to get it some attention.

 

So it's basically a lottery on whether or not the other core is able to be unlocked?

 

I can't see myself buying something like that unless I knew.

Yup. If one core is defective, they disable it and market it as a lower-end CPU, such as this one. On other ones, they'll just disable a good core and label it as the cheap CPU. Mine happened to be the second option, thank god. However, you can still overclock most of these things like freaking crazy.

 

And even if you unlock it it will probably be slower than the new pentiums.

Definitely. My dad got an ASUS laptop with a Celeron, and it was able to beat this thing around like a redheaded stepchild.

[KamiKatze]

Haha, you and your silly Sempron. Like the review.

 

 

Edit: your OP was your 10k Post. PARTY HARD!!!

[P e r s e p h o n e]

So it's basically a lottery on whether or not the other core is able to be unlocked?

 

I can't see myself buying something like that unless I knew.

Funny even tmcclelland455 says its crap for most things in his review. Still liked the review though even though it's not pertinent to me in the slightest.

[madscientist56]

That would be really good for photo editing

[Askew]

And even if you unlock it it will probably be slower than the new pentiums.

 

That new pentium sure is a rocket for the dollar.

 

@tmcclelland455 you needs to strap on one of these and

[flibberdipper]

Haha, you and your silly Sempron. Like the review.

 

 

Edit: your OP was your 10k Post. PARTY HARD!!!

I've had some good times with it (almost hit 5GHz!).

 

Funny even tmcclelland455 says its crap for most things in his review. Still liked the review though even though it's not pertinent to me in the slightest.

Aww, thanks. Definitely not crap for overclocking though. Wow.

 

That would be really good for photo editing

If it was 2005, sure.

 

That new pentium sure is a rocket for the dollar.

 

@tmcclelland455 you needs to strap on one of these and

 

I really want one.

[sterreprop]

Nice review!

 

Of topic: Do you still update your iswitched: linux topic? bcs i lost the link

[Mateyyy]

Finally we heard the story of your Sempron  :lol:

[flibberdipper]

Nice review!

 

Of topic: Do you still update your iswitched: linux topic? bcs i lost the link

Yup. I try to do it Monday-Friday around 9PM UTC -05:00.

 

Finally we heard the story of your Sempron  :lol:

The thing that never dies.

[Liam-McShane]

Can I get a screenshot of that @4.8? Please

[flibberdipper]

Can I get a screenshot of that @4.8? Please

Couldn't if I tried. For two reasons.

 

A. By the time it tries to boot into Windows it starts to get unstable.

B. My motherboard is toast.

[P e r s e p h o n e]

You know I think it says a lot that people still like your review and actually want to read it despite it not having to do anything with them. I feel the same way about Linus half the time as I'm not even interested in the product and I know enough about tech to make my own decisions confidently. 

[flibberdipper]

You know I think it says a lot that people still like your review and actually want to read it despite it not having to do anything with them. I feel the same way about Linus half the time as I'm not even interested in the product and I know enough about tech to make my own decisions confidently. 

I'll take that as a compliment that it was good.

 

And I kind of agree. Some of the things Linus unboxes and looks at I really don't even care about, however I still watch them since I'm interested in them.

[theroflcopta]