New system - Opteron or Athlon 64?

[Noozer]

I'm looking at building a new PC. I've pretty much decided on using an FIC
RS482 socket 939 mainboard.

This mainboard provides onboard Radeon X300 SVideo/DVI/VGA dual display,
gigabit LAN, 8 channel sound, 4 DIMM sockets, and some decent overclocking
options. The main use for this PC is going to be as a
PVR/fileserver/occasional Quake 3 or racing sim. I'll be stuffing 2x512meg
low latency memory into this as well as a PCIe-1x TV tuner card.

At this point the only real decision is which processor to purchase. And
then find a decent *QUIET* cooler for it.

My plan was for an Athlon 64 3700+ @2.2Ghz with 1meg cache, but after
reading some information online I'm not so sure now. My cost would be $240
(Canadian bux)

For $400 I could get an Opteron 165 Dual core @1.8Ghz with 2x1meg cache.

For $400 I could get a Athlon 64 X2 3800+ @2.0Ghz with 2x512meg cache.

Where is the sweet spot for performance? I hear that Opterons overclock much
better than the Athlon 64 chips. Now we can get dual core Athlon and Opteron
processors as well.

Considering that I am willing to try overclocking, which processor gives the
best bang for the buck?

 

[johnS]

Considering that I am willing to try overclocking, which processor gives the
best bang for the buck?

Well I only know what Ive read and everyone claims the Opteron 165
overclocks better than the X2s and has a 1 meg cache vs 512 though
different people seem to put zero or some importance on that.

I was planning opteron 165 which was sold cheaper than the X2 dual
3800 at the time. The stock clock speed is lower than the 3800 but it
OCs better supposedly.

Then AMD suddenly jacked up the prices on the 165s -- was $260-280 vs
350 for the X2 3800. Then they were close with the 165 being higher
in the $330 range. But I got the $241 X2 dual core deal so it was no
contest.

Since then Ive seen sites that claimed they got the X2 dual core 3800
up to 2.7.- 2.8 easily so that puts it in Opteron territory. Depends
on who you believe. Before I heard

OPteron 2.8 easy and maybe even higher.
X2 3800 - 2.5 maybe 2.8.

But later I heard X2 2.8 easy and maybe even higher but rare.

That makes them roughly close. But the opteron still has 1 meg cache.
It doest make a difference in all things but a few things Ive seen
tests at one site it did make a difference. Really the only reason it
seems not to get a opteron is price . If its close I dont see any
minus with the opteron except maybe ignorance when you sell may make
it slightly harder ironically to resell. Opteron? Whats that???? Some
weird server chip???

The thing is when you say same price is that retial vs OEM opteron?
The heatsink fan may add 20-30 bucks to the price.

 

[Noozer]

I'm looking at building a new PC. I've pretty much decided on using an FIC
RS482 socket 939 mainboard.

<snip>

This is a DFI RS482 mainboard... Not FIC. Doh!

 

[Noozer]

I'm looking at building a new PC. I've pretty much decided on using an FIC
RS482 socket 939 mainboard.

This mainboard provides onboard Radeon X300 SVideo/DVI/VGA dual display,
gigabit LAN, 8 channel sound, 4 DIMM sockets, and some decent overclocking
options. The main use for this PC is going to be as a
PVR/fileserver/occasional Quake 3 or racing sim. I'll be stuffing 2x512meg
low latency memory into this as well as a PCIe-1x TV tuner card.

At this point the only real decision is which processor to purchase. And
then find a decent *QUIET* cooler for it.

My plan was for an Athlon 64 3700+ @2.2Ghz with 1meg cache, but after
reading some information online I'm not so sure now. My cost would be $240
(Canadian bux)

For $400 I could get an Opteron 165 Dual core @1.8Ghz with 2x1meg cache.

For $400 I could get a Athlon 64 X2 3800+ @2.0Ghz with 2x512meg cache.

Something I hadn't considered is the fact that Opterons need Buffered
memory, where the Athlons don't.

 

[johnS]

Something I hadn't considered is the fact that Opterons need Buffered
memory, where the Athlons don't.

I think those were the 940s .
The 100 series 939 socket opterons dont.

 

[johnS]

Something I hadn't considered is the fact that Opterons need Buffered
memory, where the Athlons don't.

See heres an article on them Xbit labs

Another really important reason why we got so much interested in
taking a closer look at Opteron 165 is the fact that it is very much
different from the majority of Opteron CPUs from other families:
Opteron 165 can work just fine in a regular desktop platform. Firstly,
this processor is compatible with Socket 939 infrastructure, and
secondly, it supports regular non-Registered DDR SDRAM. In other
words, AMD Opteron 165 can be installed into regular Socket 939
mainboards without any incompatibility threats. From this standpoint
AMD Opteron 165 doesn’t differ much from Athlon 64 X2. Moreover, if
AMD didn’t want to push this processor into the Value server segment,
it could have easily been known as Athlon 64 X2 3500+.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/opteron-165.html

 

[Noozer]

See heres an article on them Xbit labs

Another really important reason why we got so much interested in
taking a closer look at Opteron 165 is the fact that it is very much
different from the majority of Opteron CPUs from other families:
Opteron 165 can work just fine in a regular desktop platform. Firstly,
this processor is compatible with Socket 939 infrastructure, and
secondly, it supports regular non-Registered DDR SDRAM. In other
words, AMD Opteron 165 can be installed into regular Socket 939
mainboards without any incompatibility threats. From this standpoint
AMD Opteron 165 doesn't differ much from Athlon 64 X2. Moreover, if
AMD didn't want to push this processor into the Value server segment,
it could have easily been known as Athlon 64 X2 3500+.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/opteron-165.html

Ah! Cool... Thanks!