Dual Core Comparison

[Cal Vanize]

[OK, so I cross-posted.]

Background:

I'm in the process of building a new computer for a friend who is a
rather demanding business power-user.

The computer will be used mostly for internet browsing / email, business
applications, and some light gaming. The game that would probably
present the most CPU burden would be MS Flight Simulator 2004.

User often has 4 - 6 business applications open at the same time then
may launch FS keeping the other apps in the background. He indicated
that memory usage sometimes tops 1g in his current system.

He wants a "very responsive" system. I don't want to hear him express
any concerns about stability.


System considerations:

The hard drives will be two WD SE16 250gb in RAID 0 (I have concerns
about the reliability of Raptors). Memory will be two gig (2x1gb) of
Corsair XMS Platinum CAS2 (becuase I have it).

O/S will either be W2K or XP Home.

I'll probably use a ASUS A8N-VM CSM since there is not a heavy burden on
video performance. (I run FS 2004 on a GF-6100 board without any problems.)

The board is only capable of ~ 20% overclocking but reports indicate its
VERY stable.

I'm interested in using a dual core processor for this application and
are considering either a X2 3800 or an Opteron 165.


Question:

In this application, are there any opinions on whether the X2 3800 or
Opteron 165 would perform better?

TIA,

CV

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

[OK, so I cross-posted.]

Background:

I'm in the process of building a new computer for a friend who is a rather
demanding business power-user.

The computer will be used mostly for internet browsing / email, business
applications, and some light gaming. The game that would probably present
the most CPU burden would be MS Flight Simulator 2004.

User often has 4 - 6 business applications open at the same time then may
launch FS keeping the other apps in the background. He indicated that
memory usage sometimes tops 1g in his current system.

He wants a "very responsive" system. I don't want to hear him express any
concerns about stability.


System considerations:

The hard drives will be two WD SE16 250gb in RAID 0 (I have concerns about
the reliability of Raptors). Memory will be two gig (2x1gb) of Corsair
XMS Platinum CAS2 (becuase I have it).

O/S will either be W2K or XP Home.

I'll probably use a ASUS A8N-VM CSM since there is not a heavy burden on
video performance. (I run FS 2004 on a GF-6100 board without any
problems.)

The board is only capable of ~ 20% overclocking but reports indicate its
VERY stable.

I'm interested in using a dual core processor for this application and are
considering either a X2 3800 or an Opteron 165.


Question:

In this application, are there any opinions on whether the X2 3800 or
Opteron 165 would perform better?

TIA,

CV

Either processor is overkill of the type of system you are talking about.
The performance of the Opteron 165 and the 3800+ will be about the same.
The Opteron has bigger caches but a slightly slower clock, in some
applications big caches make a huge difference but in a simple desktop
system the sensitivity to cache size is likely to be much smaller.

There is absolutely no reason to do RAID0 on a desktop system, all you are
doing is doubling the probability of a catastrophic disk failure. Disk
performance matters at boot up time and that's it. If you are seeing
much disk activity on a desktop system that's a sure indicator that you
don't have enough RAM. Put one drive (with a 16M cache on it) in the
system and spend the money you would have spent on the second drive on
more RAM, I'd put at least 2G in any new system.

 

[Cal Vanize]

[OK, so I cross-posted.]

Background:

I'm in the process of building a new computer for a friend who is a rather
demanding business power-user.

The computer will be used mostly for internet browsing / email, business
applications, and some light gaming. The game that would probably present
the most CPU burden would be MS Flight Simulator 2004.

User often has 4 - 6 business applications open at the same time then may
launch FS keeping the other apps in the background. He indicated that
memory usage sometimes tops 1g in his current system.

He wants a "very responsive" system. I don't want to hear him express any
concerns about stability.


System considerations:

The hard drives will be two WD SE16 250gb in RAID 0 (I have concerns about
the reliability of Raptors). Memory will be two gig (2x1gb) of Corsair
XMS Platinum CAS2 (becuase I have it).

O/S will either be W2K or XP Home.

I'll probably use a ASUS A8N-VM CSM since there is not a heavy burden on
video performance. (I run FS 2004 on a GF-6100 board without any
problems.)

The board is only capable of ~ 20% overclocking but reports indicate its
VERY stable.

I'm interested in using a dual core processor for this application and are
considering either a X2 3800 or an Opteron 165.


Question:

In this application, are there any opinions on whether the X2 3800 or
Opteron 165 would perform better?

TIA,

CV

Either processor is overkill of the type of system you are talking about.
The performance of the Opteron 165 and the 3800+ will be about the same.
The Opteron has bigger caches but a slightly slower clock, in some
applications big caches make a huge difference but in a simple desktop
system the sensitivity to cache size is likely to be much smaller.

There is absolutely no reason to do RAID0 on a desktop system, all you are
doing is doubling the probability of a catastrophic disk failure. Disk
performance matters at boot up time and that's it. If you are seeing
much disk activity on a desktop system that's a sure indicator that you
don't have enough RAM. Put one drive (with a 16M cache on it) in the
system and spend the money you would have spent on the second drive on
more RAM, I'd put at least 2G in any new system.

What would not be overkill? If not a dual core, what single core proc
would do the truck? At what point would additional processor power not
make any noticable difference in this application?

(As an aside, I've been doing RAID 0 on systems for years even with some
of the old [less reliable] drives. Never had a problem, never lost a
drive. Not that the odds don't point at the increased possibility of
failure. Maybe I've just been lucky.)

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

What would not be overkill? If not a dual core, what single core proc
would do the truck? At what point would additional processor power not
make any noticable difference in this application?

(As an aside, I've been doing RAID 0 on systems for years even with some
of the old [less reliable] drives. Never had a problem, never lost a
drive. Not that the odds don't point at the increased possibility of
failure. Maybe I've just been lucky.)

I'm not saying you shouldn't use a dual core processor, the price is
reasonable on the both the X2 3800+ and the Opteron 165 so there is no
reason not to use one. Using a dual core will give the system plenty of
headroom for the future. All I was saying was that the decision between
the X2 3800+ and the Opteron isn't all that critical, your friend will be
thrilled with either one. As for motherboards, any Nforce4 board will do a
great job. I have an MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum with a 3800+ (single core) in
my workstation and an MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum with an X2 4400+ in my compute
server. Both systems have been running 24/7 since I got them, I haven't
had a single hiccup on either one.

The RAID0 failure issue is a matter of simple probability, if one disk has
an MTBF of 5 years then two disks have an MTBF of 2.5 years. However the
real issue is that it won't speed up the system. Look at the disk light on
your own system, I bet it almost never blinks. If you are seeing a lot of
disk activity then you should add some RAM to your system. You should have
enough RAM so that you can keep all of your frequently used programs in
RAM without having to do any paging.

 

[Don Taylor]

[OK, so I cross-posted.]

Background:

I'm in the process of building a new computer for a friend who is a
rather demanding business power-user.

The computer will be used mostly for internet browsing / email, business
applications,

I've personally never quite understood how having IE open, having OE
open, having word open, and maybe even going wild and having Excel
open, could be considered a "demanding business power-user."

Now if he had an 8192 x 8192 matrix of functions, not just constants,
and demanded that Excel invert that matrix in the blink of an eye,
that would be a business power user. (But the typical person starts
looking worried if I even talk about a matrix function in Excel.)

and some light gaming. The game that would probably
present the most CPU burden would be MS Flight Simulator 2004.

User often has 4 - 6 business applications open at the same time then
may launch FS keeping the other apps in the background. He indicated
that memory usage sometimes tops 1g in his current system.

Give him 4 gigabytes, every app can have its own 512meg

He wants a "very responsive" system. I don't want to hear him express
any concerns about stability.

Give him really stable hardware and only 2 gigabytes, and not have to
worry about Windows freaking out with having address issues.

System considerations:

The hard drives will be two WD SE16 250gb in RAID 0 (I have concerns
about the reliability of Raptors). Memory will be two gig (2x1gb) of
Corsair XMS Platinum CAS2 (becuase I have it).

O/S will either be W2K or XP Home.

I'll probably use a ASUS A8N-VM CSM since there is not a heavy burden on
video performance. (I run FS 2004 on a GF-6100 board without any problems.)

The board is only capable of ~ 20% overclocking but reports indicate its
VERY stable.

Stability is worth WAY more than 20% more speed. A decade ago I went
into an office and swapped out all the 486DX/33 for 486DX2/66, timed
each of them with my intensive numerical calculations and they were
about 1.8x faster. I didn't tell anyone what I had done but told them
to carefully watch for anything, the slightest difference, the tiniest
change, anything that didn't work or that they noticed. After a week
I went back and carefully asked if they had noticed anything. Nope.
Not a one of them had noticed that the machines were 1.8x faster.

I'm interested in using a dual core processor for this application and
are considering either a X2 3800 or an Opteron 165.

In this application, are there any opinions on whether the X2 3800 or
Opteron 165 would perform better?

Can you REALLY think he can actually do something that will be CPU
limited?

 

[DRS]

[...]

The RAID0 failure issue is a matter of simple probability, if one
disk has an MTBF of 5 years then two disks have an MTBF of 2.5 years.

Er, no.

The MTBF applies across every disk of that type ever made. Getting a second
one has no bearing on whether either will fail at all, fail before the MTBF
or fail after it.

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

[...]

The RAID0 failure issue is a matter of simple probability, if one disk
has an MTBF of 5 years then two disks have an MTBF of 2.5 years.

Er, no.

The MTBF applies across every disk of that type ever made. Getting a
second one has no bearing on whether either will fail at all, fail before
the MTBF or fail after it.

In a RAID0 configuration the failure of either disk will cause you to lose
all of your data, therefore the MTBF of disk system is (single disk
MTBF)/# disks.

 

[Ed]

Nothing against these news group guys but you might want to ask some of
these questions in a forum such as http://forums.amd.com and get a few
more opinions.

Good Luck,
Ed

 

[Ed]

[...]

The RAID0 failure issue is a matter of simple probability, if one disk
has an MTBF of 5 years then two disks have an MTBF of 2.5 years.

Er, no.

The MTBF applies across every disk of that type ever made. Getting a
second one has no bearing on whether either will fail at all, fail before
the MTBF or fail after it.

In a RAID0 configuration the failure of either disk will cause you to lose
all of your data, therefore the MTBF of disk system is (single disk
MTBF)/# disks.

Doesn't matter, any drive that fails looses data, If you have 2 hard
drives in a PC in a non raid config and one drive dies you still need to
replace a drive! The data itself has nothing to do with drive failure
rates, you are confusing the two, and you have heard of drive image
software right?

 

[DRS]

[...]

The RAID0 failure issue is a matter of simple probability, if one
disk has an MTBF of 5 years then two disks have an MTBF of 2.5
years.

Er, no.

The MTBF applies across every disk of that type ever made. Getting a
second one has no bearing on whether either will fail at all, fail
before the MTBF or fail after it.

In a RAID0 configuration the failure of either disk will cause you to
lose all of your data,
True.

therefore the MTBF of disk system is (single
disk MTBF)/# disks.

False. The MTBF is unchanged. Your RAID 0 will be rooted but you're
comparing apples with oranges.

 

[Ed Light]

Not being a math genius,

If you are using two drives from a batch that has one per 100 fail, then
with one drive the probability is 1%, with two drives it's 2%.

Doesn't seem too bad.
--
Ed Light

Smiley :-/
MS Smiley :-\

Send spam to the FTC at
(e-mail address removed)
Thanks, robots.

Bring the Troops Home:
http://bringthemhomenow.org

Fight Spam:
http://bluesecurity.com

 

[DRS]

Not being a math genius,

If you are using two drives from a batch that has one per 100 fail,
then with one drive the probability is 1%, with two drives it's 2%.

But the MTBF - a measure of the average life of all such drives - doesn't
change.

 

[Ed Light]

But the MTBF - a measure of the average life of all such drives - doesn't
change.

Right. Me too.


--
Ed Light

Smiley :-/
MS Smiley :-\

Send spam to the FTC at
(e-mail address removed)
Thanks, robots.

Bring the Troops Home:
http://bringthemhomenow.org

Fight Spam:
http://bluesecurity.com

 

[Michael Brown]

But the MTBF - a measure of the average life of all such drives -
doesn't change.

Note that he was talking about the MTBF for the disk *system*, not the MTBF
of individual drives. The MTBF of the individual drives of course remains
the same (and more or less completely disconnected from the MTBF figure
given by the drive manufacturer, but that's another topic ...) but the MTBF
of the system is divided by two (as the assumption is the failure rate of a
drive is an exponential distribution), compared to running a single larger
disk.

Of course, the MTBF of a 2-disk RAID 0 system is the same as the MTBF for a
2-disk RAID 1 system, but the impact of these failures are much different
MTBDL (mean time between data loss) is a far more useful figure.

 

[VanShania]

There are a couple of magazines out(CPU and Smart Computing) that review the
new Vista operating system. They say you will want a dual core processor due
to the fact that Vista has no less than 36 background programs running, and
you want hard drives that have NCQ like Western Digital's Raid Edition hard
drives. And if he wants a responsive system, you will want to do a Raid 0
setup. All this talk of drive failure is a bunch of bull. I'll have 6 WD 320
gb Raid Edition drives in 3 raid 0 arrays when I'm done upgrading. The
secret to drive longevity is to make sure you have fans blowing or sucking
air over them to help keep them cool.
--
Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro 512mb AGP
MSI Theater 550Pro TV Tuner
Thermaltake LanFire Midtower with Antec 550 Watt PSU
Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939 nForce3, A64 3500+, Stock Cooler IdleTemp 28 C
2 Gb Dual Channel PC3200 OCZ Platinum 2-3-2-5 CL2.5
Viewsonic A91f 19in Moniter
PATA WD 80+120 Gb HD 8mb buffers
Pioneer 110D+Liteon 1693S Dual Layer burner
Logitech MX 310 Optical Mouse
Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2 Joystick
Microsoft ergonomic keyboard
Cheap computer speakers with Sennheiser HD 477 Headphones

3DMark05Free-Overall 4006 Original Drivers
Cpu 4264
3Dmark2001 - 17680

Games I'm Playing-
Battlezone II, IL-2 Sturmovick Series
Empire Earth 2, Need For Speed: Underground 2,
Civ IV

[OK, so I cross-posted.]

Background:

I'm in the process of building a new computer for a friend who is a rather
demanding business power-user.

The computer will be used mostly for internet browsing / email, business
applications, and some light gaming. The game that would probably present
the most CPU burden would be MS Flight Simulator 2004.

User often has 4 - 6 business applications open at the same time then may
launch FS keeping the other apps in the background. He indicated that
memory usage sometimes tops 1g in his current system.

He wants a "very responsive" system. I don't want to hear him express any
concerns about stability.


System considerations:

The hard drives will be two WD SE16 250gb in RAID 0 (I have concerns about
the reliability of Raptors). Memory will be two gig (2x1gb) of Corsair
XMS Platinum CAS2 (becuase I have it).

O/S will either be W2K or XP Home.

I'll probably use a ASUS A8N-VM CSM since there is not a heavy burden on
video performance. (I run FS 2004 on a GF-6100 board without any
problems.)

The board is only capable of ~ 20% overclocking but reports indicate its
VERY stable.

I'm interested in using a dual core processor for this application and are
considering either a X2 3800 or an Opteron 165.


Question:

In this application, are there any opinions on whether the X2 3800 or
Opteron 165 would perform better?

TIA,

CV

 

[NoNoBadDog!]

As far as HDD go, Western Digital are more prone to failure than most other
brands.

I service computers. When the HDD is the failing component, it is most
often a Western Digital (all flavors). I don't have hard figures, but a
best guess would be that perhaps 70% of bad HDD are WD. Also high on the
list are Iomega and AcomDATA. I would not recommend them *AT ALL*.

FWIW, the most reliable hard drives are the ones made by Seagate. I see
very few failed Seagate HDD.

Raid 0 in not necessary or recommended for the average user, and is not
necessary for Vista. The new breed of drives with Perpendicular Recording
and NCQ are fast enough in a JBOD installation.

I would also stay away from any Microsoft joysticks. Since you are already
going with a Logitech mouse, I would also recommend one of their keyboards
and joysticks. They are of much better build quality than the MS.



Bobby

There are a couple of magazines out(CPU and Smart Computing) that review
the new Vista operating system. They say you will want a dual core
processor due to the fact that Vista has no less than 36 background
programs running, and you want hard drives that have NCQ like Western
Digital's Raid Edition hard drives. And if he wants a responsive system,
you will want to do a Raid 0 setup. All this talk of drive failure is a
bunch of bull. I'll have 6 WD 320 gb Raid Edition drives in 3 raid 0
arrays when I'm done upgrading. The secret to drive longevity is to make
sure you have fans blowing or sucking air over them to help keep them
cool.
--
Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro 512mb AGP
MSI Theater 550Pro TV Tuner
Thermaltake LanFire Midtower with Antec 550 Watt PSU
Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939 nForce3, A64 3500+, Stock Cooler IdleTemp 28 C
2 Gb Dual Channel PC3200 OCZ Platinum 2-3-2-5 CL2.5
Viewsonic A91f 19in Moniter
PATA WD 80+120 Gb HD 8mb buffers
Pioneer 110D+Liteon 1693S Dual Layer burner
Logitech MX 310 Optical Mouse
Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2 Joystick
Microsoft ergonomic keyboard
Cheap computer speakers with Sennheiser HD 477 Headphones

3DMark05Free-Overall 4006 Original Drivers
Cpu 4264
3Dmark2001 - 17680

Games I'm Playing-
Battlezone II, IL-2 Sturmovick Series
Empire Earth 2, Need For Speed: Underground 2,
Civ IV

[OK, so I cross-posted.]

Background:

I'm in the process of building a new computer for a friend who is a
rather demanding business power-user.

The computer will be used mostly for internet browsing / email, business
applications, and some light gaming. The game that would probably
present the most CPU burden would be MS Flight Simulator 2004.

User often has 4 - 6 business applications open at the same time then may
launch FS keeping the other apps in the background. He indicated that
memory usage sometimes tops 1g in his current system.

He wants a "very responsive" system. I don't want to hear him express
any concerns about stability.


System considerations:

The hard drives will be two WD SE16 250gb in RAID 0 (I have concerns
about the reliability of Raptors). Memory will be two gig (2x1gb) of
Corsair XMS Platinum CAS2 (becuase I have it).

O/S will either be W2K or XP Home.

I'll probably use a ASUS A8N-VM CSM since there is not a heavy burden on
video performance. (I run FS 2004 on a GF-6100 board without any
problems.)

The board is only capable of ~ 20% overclocking but reports indicate its
VERY stable.

I'm interested in using a dual core processor for this application and
are considering either a X2 3800 or an Opteron 165.


Question:

In this application, are there any opinions on whether the X2 3800 or
Opteron 165 would perform better?

TIA,

CV

 

[Hawk]

As far as HDD go, Western Digital are more prone to failure than most other
brands.

I service computers. When the HDD is the failing component, it is most often a
Western Digital (all flavors). I don't have hard figures, but a best guess
would be that perhaps 70% of bad HDD are WD. Also high on the list are Iomega
and AcomDATA. I would not recommend them *AT ALL*.

My experience is the opposite of yours, the #1 failed brand I run across is IBM
with WD being one of the most reliable makes. I don't think any single persons
relatively small dataset means a whole lot.

(*>

 

[Dylan C]

There are a couple of magazines out(CPU and Smart Computing) that review the
new Vista operating system. They say you will want a dual core processor due
to the fact that Vista has no less than 36 background programs running,

All that overhead and an Windows's basic functions havent changed since
Win95. If what you read is true, then Vista better be a huge
advancement in OS function, not just look and feel. Otherwise you could
run Win2K on my old Duron 700 and it would be just as "snappy" as Vista
on my current X2 3800.

-Dylan C

 

[John Weiss]

The computer will be used mostly for internet browsing / email, business
applications, and some light gaming. The game that would probably present the
most CPU burden would be MS Flight Simulator 2004.

User often has 4 - 6 business applications open at the same time then may
launch FS keeping the other apps in the background. He indicated that memory
usage sometimes tops 1g in his current system.

He wants a "very responsive" system. I don't want to hear him express any
concerns about stability.

System considerations:

The hard drives will be two WD SE16 250gb in RAID 0 (I have concerns about the
reliability of Raptors). Memory will be two gig (2x1gb) of Corsair XMS
Platinum CAS2 (becuase I have it).

O/S will either be W2K or XP Home.

I'll probably use a ASUS A8N-VM CSM since there is not a heavy burden on video
performance. (I run FS 2004 on a GF-6100 board without any problems.)

The board is only capable of ~ 20% overclocking but reports indicate its VERY
stable.

I'm interested in using a dual core processor for this application and are
considering either a X2 3800 or an Opteron 165.

Question:

In this application, are there any opinions on whether the X2 3800 or Opteron
165 would perform better?

Stability concerns are at odds with overclocking and RAID 0. I've already lost
a RAID array due to a MS foulup in a Win XP update. You may be lucky so far,
but...

I have seen no concerns about reliability with the Raptor 74s (I have a pair).
I saw some early concerns about the Raptor 36s, but researching statistics I
could find at the time indicated the failure/return rate was in line with other
IDE HDs (as many for noise as for actual failure). The 74s have been very
reliable (and quiet); the 150s should be the same.

I'd go with the fastest X2 you can afford. The X2 goes to 2.4 GHz now (3800+ is
2 GHz), while the 165 is at 1.8 GHz.

 

[VanShania]

personally, I think hard drives fail mainly because of bad handling by the
vendors and /or new owners. I had 1 WD HD fail, but it gave warning signs
right out of the antistatic covering(OEM). It was clicking anytime it was
accessed. And since the vendor I bought it from dropped my replacement on
the desk, I guess that said it all. I did try a logitech joystick once and I
wasn't impressed. Although their new 10 button one looked pretty good. But I
found microsoft's joysticks to be more user friendly. I think most people
start out as average users until they get to see how a computer can make
life simpler. Then they become power users and wish they would have gone
with a raid enabled motherboard so those 4gb (home/ripped)movies would
transfer a little quicker, or games load/install quicker, etc. I read an
online review recently and he said that once you go raid 0, you'll never go
back. Also JBOD is also a (slowest)raid array that is the slower than any
non-raid setup, and I believe if one drive fails, the whole array is also
lost. You have used Vista yourself?

--
Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro 512mb AGP
MSI Theater 550Pro TV Tuner
Thermaltake LanFire Midtower with Antec 550 Watt PSU
Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939 nForce3, A64 3500+, Stock Cooler IdleTemp 28 C
2 Gb Dual Channel PC3200 OCZ Platinum 2-3-2-5 CL2.5
Viewsonic A91f 19in Moniter
PATA WD 80+120 Gb HD 8mb buffers
Pioneer 110D+Liteon 1693S Dual Layer burner
Logitech MX 310 Optical Mouse
Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2 Joystick
Microsoft ergonomic keyboard
Cheap computer speakers with Sennheiser HD 477 Headphones

3DMark05Free-Overall 4006 Original Drivers
Cpu 4264
3Dmark2001 - 17680

Games I'm Playing-
Battlezone II, IL-2 Sturmovick Series
Empire Earth 2, Need For Speed: Underground 2,
Civ IV

As far as HDD go, Western Digital are more prone to failure than most
other brands.

I service computers. When the HDD is the failing component, it is most
often a Western Digital (all flavors). I don't have hard figures, but a
best guess would be that perhaps 70% of bad HDD are WD. Also high on the
list are Iomega and AcomDATA. I would not recommend them *AT ALL*.

FWIW, the most reliable hard drives are the ones made by Seagate. I see
very few failed Seagate HDD.

Raid 0 in not necessary or recommended for the average user, and is not
necessary for Vista. The new breed of drives with Perpendicular Recording
and NCQ are fast enough in a JBOD installation.

I would also stay away from any Microsoft joysticks. Since you are
already going with a Logitech mouse, I would also recommend one of their
keyboards and joysticks. They are of much better build quality than the
MS.



Bobby

There are a couple of magazines out(CPU and Smart Computing) that review
the new Vista operating system. They say you will want a dual core
processor due to the fact that Vista has no less than 36 background
programs running, and you want hard drives that have NCQ like Western
Digital's Raid Edition hard drives. And if he wants a responsive system,
you will want to do a Raid 0 setup. All this talk of drive failure is a
bunch of bull. I'll have 6 WD 320 gb Raid Edition drives in 3 raid 0
arrays when I'm done upgrading. The secret to drive longevity is to make
sure you have fans blowing or sucking air over them to help keep them
cool.
--
Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro 512mb AGP
MSI Theater 550Pro TV Tuner
Thermaltake LanFire Midtower with Antec 550 Watt PSU
Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939 nForce3, A64 3500+, Stock Cooler IdleTemp 28 C
2 Gb Dual Channel PC3200 OCZ Platinum 2-3-2-5 CL2.5
Viewsonic A91f 19in Moniter
PATA WD 80+120 Gb HD 8mb buffers
Pioneer 110D+Liteon 1693S Dual Layer burner
Logitech MX 310 Optical Mouse
Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2 Joystick
Microsoft ergonomic keyboard
Cheap computer speakers with Sennheiser HD 477 Headphones

3DMark05Free-Overall 4006 Original Drivers
Cpu 4264
3Dmark2001 - 17680

Games I'm Playing-
Battlezone II, IL-2 Sturmovick Series
Empire Earth 2, Need For Speed: Underground 2,
Civ IV

[OK, so I cross-posted.]

Background:

I'm in the process of building a new computer for a friend who is a
rather demanding business power-user.

The computer will be used mostly for internet browsing / email, business
applications, and some light gaming. The game that would probably
present the most CPU burden would be MS Flight Simulator 2004.

User often has 4 - 6 business applications open at the same time then
may launch FS keeping the other apps in the background. He indicated
that memory usage sometimes tops 1g in his current system.

He wants a "very responsive" system. I don't want to hear him express
any concerns about stability.


System considerations:

The hard drives will be two WD SE16 250gb in RAID 0 (I have concerns
about the reliability of Raptors). Memory will be two gig (2x1gb) of
Corsair XMS Platinum CAS2 (becuase I have it).

O/S will either be W2K or XP Home.

I'll probably use a ASUS A8N-VM CSM since there is not a heavy burden on
video performance. (I run FS 2004 on a GF-6100 board without any
problems.)

The board is only capable of ~ 20% overclocking but reports indicate its
VERY stable.

I'm interested in using a dual core processor for this application and
are considering either a X2 3800 or an Opteron 165.


Question:

In this application, are there any opinions on whether the X2 3800 or
Opteron 165 would perform better?

TIA,

CV