amd opteron vs athlon 64 x2

[Tom Forsmo]

Hi

Can anybody explain to me the difference between the two amd processors
opteron and athlon 64 x2 on am2 design?

I am having any problems seeing any real difference

tom

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Hi

Can anybody explain to me the difference between the two amd processors
opteron and athlon 64 x2 on am2 design?

I am having any problems seeing any real difference

tom

That's because there really isn't any. The X2's usually only have 1MB of
combined L2 cache, while the Opterons have 2M.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Tom Forsmo]

That's because there really isn't any. The X2's usually only have 1MB of
combined L2 cache, while the Opterons have 2M.

Does that mean amd is discontinuing opteron or are they going to just
keep rebranding it with a larger L2 cache?

Incidentally the X2 6000, and a few models below it, has 2MB L2 cache,
so that would probably make it the same as an opteron then, wouldn´t it?

tom

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Does that mean amd is discontinuing opteron or are they going to just
keep rebranding it with a larger L2 cache?

Just keep rebranding it.

Incidentally the X2 6000, and a few models below it, has 2MB L2 cache,
so that would probably make it the same as an opteron then, wouldn´t it?

Yup.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Kai Harrekilde-Petersen]

Just keep rebranding it.

The non-FX versions of the AMD64 X2's does not (officially) support
ECC memory, as far as I can read the AMD website.

I prefer ECC memory, so I found a Socket AM2 motherboard where the
vendor had approved both ECC DRAM *and* Opteron. The only snag was
that the BIOS was too old - had to find a friend with a flash
programmer to get the thing running


Kai

 

[Yousuf Khan]

The non-FX versions of the AMD64 X2's does not (officially) support
ECC memory, as far as I can read the AMD website.

I prefer ECC memory, so I found a Socket AM2 motherboard where the
vendor had approved both ECC DRAM *and* Opteron. The only snag was
that the BIOS was too old - had to find a friend with a flash
programmer to get the thing running

Don't you mean registered memory rather than ECC memory? You can often
have non-registered, but ECC memory available.

 

[Wan Ker]

Hi

Can anybody explain to me the difference between the two amd processors
opteron and athlon 64 x2 on am2 design?

I am having any problems seeing any real difference

tom

essentially the same

opteron is designed for server and workstation use. so they test them more.
and they come from better batches of silicon

this means they are more stable under heavier load as they are intended to
work 24/7/365

also means they tend to over clock better.

both support ECC memory

opteron 1st generation require buffered memory, second generation doesn't.

opterons also scale to 8-way

 

[Kai Harrekilde-Petersen]

Don't you mean registered memory rather than ECC memory? You can often
have non-registered, but ECC memory available.

Erh, I'm a little confused here. The 1xxx Opterons (Socket AM2) runs
with non-registered ECC memory while the Socket F versions (2xxx and
8xxx) use registered ECC memory, if that's what you were thinking of.


Kai

 

[Tom Forsmo]

essentially the same

opteron is designed for server and workstation use. so they test them more.
and they come from better batches of silicon

this means they are more stable under heavier load as they are intended to
work 24/7/365

I also read in an article on toms hardware that server
processors/systems have multiple memory controllers, bus controllers and
separate memory banks/caches for each processor to be better able to
spread tasks between processors, basically giving the system more real
multitasking hardware.

If, at the moment, there is no difference between opteron and athlon 64
x2, and its seems that mb technologies for the athlon platform are
newer/faster than that on the opteron mb (until socket F comes out, I
suppose) then one can buy the athlon system and get the same
performance, correct?

Of course thats barring the reliability and scaling factors which
obviously the opteron system will be better at.

regards

tom