Athlon 260u vs 235e vs 400e

[airmark]

Hello,
After disappointing performance from my Sempron 140 (almost 100% cpu usage for 1080p material not hardware accelerated by the graphics card) I'm thinking of returning it and getting one of the following:
Athlon II X2 260u
Athlon II X2 235e
Athlon II X2 240e
Athlon II X3 400e
Based on this webpage: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php it seems that the last 3 CPUs are actually very close in performance (I suppose the extra core of the 400e is offset by the lower speed and less L2 cache per core). The first one is not on that list, because is only officially sold as OEM but I can find it right now on a well-known auction site. The advantage is the even less power draw (25w TDP vs 45w). Am I right to think that performance-wise it would be true to the naming convention, i.e. be faster than the 240e? I searched for reviews/benchmarks with no success.
thanks

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Have you tried unlocking your Sempron 140 to a dual core??

 

[Big.Wayne]

almost 100% cpu usage for 1080p material not hardware accelerated by the graphics card

Which graphics card airmark? . . . I thought all the newer ones dealt with HD material fine? . . . sorry I'm not that whizz-bang with all the video decoding/accelerated stuff?

 

[airmark]

Have you tried unlocking your Sempron 140 to a dual core??

yes, no luck

 

[airmark]

Which graphics card airmark? . . . I thought all the newer ones dealt with HD material fine? . . . sorry I'm not that whizz-bang with all the video decoding/accelerated stuff?

hd5670. Deals fine with all blu-ray material. But mkvs played with kmplayer (i.e. using only cpu acceleration) the system struggles. It's still playable, but I'd rather have the system be comfortable with anything that I throw at it rather than just borderline.

 

[craptakular]

If your not seeing stuttering then it is running everything you throw at it

I have a Sempron 140 in my HTPC and it hasn't stuttered on anything.

 

[Paracelsus]

Aye, graphics cards are still picky about the files they can accelerate.

 

[airmark]

If your not seeing stuttering then it is running everything you throw at it

I have a Sempron 140 in my HTPC and it hasn't stuttered on anything.

yes, but if it's borderline, it means that if i want to use ffdshow with some post-processing instead of plain vanilla coreavc, it will struggle. Same if a fancier filter comes up next week, etc.

 

[sibeer]

The 260u is a 1.8Ghz chip so surely performance will be less. They seem to just come up with any name they like for the eco chips as the previous version was called a Athlon X2 6850e and also ran at 1.8Ghz.

Must say that I use a Atom on Ion mobo with Windows 7 and the Shark 007 codec pack. It plays any mkvs I have found straight through WMC and they look the part too. Surely the Radeon should have a similar effect when the system is forced to use accelerated codecs.

 

[airmark]

The 260u is a 1.8Ghz chip so surely performance will be less. They seem to just come up with any name they like for the eco chips as the previous version was called a Athlon X2 6850e and also ran at 1.8Ghz.

Must say that I use a Atom on Ion mobo with Windows 7 and the Shark 007 codec pack. It plays any mkvs I have found straight through WMC and they look the part too. Surely the Radeon should have a similar effect when the system is forced to use accelerated codecs.

OK, so the 260u will be rather slow...

will check that codec pack. But I guess I just want a beefier CPU for whatever might come out, and although you can say I can keep the sempron for a while and then upgrade, if I can return the sempron right now, it will probably be easier.

 

[airmark]

if I can return the sempron right now, it will probably be easier.

turns out I can't return it. So, I'll wait for a bit, probably try to optimize software settings. Then upgrade if and when it becomes unbearably slow.