Opteron 165 or 3800+ dual core?

[Nick]

Hi,

I'm building a new PC, and have the choice of either a dual core AMD
3800+ or a opteron 165 processor (both socket 939). I'll be running
Windows XP media centre or XP Pro on it.

I'm after some pro's and con's for each. I'll have 1GB PC3200 RAM, and
2x250GB RAID SATA drives too.

Thanks
Nick

 

[Andrew MacPherson]

3800+ or a opteron 165

I just went through the same headache. My heart said opteron... more
cache, better testing, all that stuff. But my wallet kept reminding me
it's a lot of money for something that'll be worth half that about ten
minutes after you buy. So in the end overclockers.co.uk and their £190
OEM x2 3800 won me over.

I also couldn't find and real demonstration that the extra cache was a
significant benefit (on average anyway). I also didn't like the x9
multiplier on the opteron. x10 on the 3800 gives you a bit more room to
play with if experimenting with a bit of overclocking.

Andrew McP

 

[Bill]

I'm building a new PC, and have the choice of either a dual core AMD
3800+ or a opteron 165 processor (both socket 939). I'll be running
Windows XP media centre or XP Pro on it.

In their stock forms, they both perform about the same, with the slight
edge going to the x2 3800+ because of it's slightly higher clock speed
of 2.0GHz compared to the 165's 1.8GHz.

If you intend to overclock, they both have similar headroom.

And while the Opteron has a larger L2 cache, it doesn't help much unless
you're running specialized apps or a server that would keep code within
the cache.

For the most part, I'd buy whichever CPU is cheaper at the time of
purchase.

 

[stanmc]

Hi,

I'm building a new PC, and have the choice of either a dual core AMD
3800+ or a opteron 165 processor (both socket 939). I'll be running
Windows XP media centre or XP Pro on it.

I'm after some pro's and con's for each. I'll have 1GB PC3200 RAM, and
2x250GB RAID SATA drives too.

Thanks
Nick

You might want to read this article in x-bit labs reviews.

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