3.0ghz northwood vs. an opteron 165

[kainthelongshot]

Just curious to see how they stack up. Would I see a big step in performance if I upgraded to an opteron 165? (consider both cpu's are at stock settings)

-Kainthelongshot

 

[krotchy]

I made almost the identical step up. I went from a 3ghz northwood (non-OC cuz it was a DELL) to an opteron 170 (OCed to 2667). Considering the video card went from AGP to PCI-E+SLI, and it has 2 7900gt's vs 1 FX5600m, I pretty much experienced almost a ten-fold performance increase in everything. Also I love being able to defrag my computer, play music, and still do whatever I feel like with no slowdown (even gaming!) As far as the processor alone goes it is defitely snappier, and dual core rocks to me. I would highly recommend it, however with Conroe on the horizon it may be worthwhile to wait.

 

[F1shF4t]

well in single threaded apps it will be similar, when u start multitasking it should blow the northwood out of the water, and that thing should overclock like crazy. Dual core i brilliant i can do numerous things at once with absolutely no slowdowns.

And about conroe sure, u can wait, but seriously when something new faster comes out, it wont make ur opteron slow, thats the point it will still be fast now just something faster will be avalable. Look at it this way, the pD is slower than X2, conroe will be faster by about the same margin over X2, does it matter in the long run for general usage. Or look at it this way, what difference right now does it make if u have a 2ghz p4 or a 2000+ athlon XP, none as they equally slow nowdays.

I would get the opteron now, as its fast, and its on a tested platform out for a few years, most bugs have been ironed out, who knows what new cpu and chipsets bring to the table in terms of stability, i would rather wait and let people try it then a year later get the new line of quicker and better cpus. But thats just me, iwas on northwood till venice came, and before that athlon 64 hasnt really gave any good reason to upgrade.

 

[kainthelongshot]

That sounds like a plan . . .

I'm in the process of specing out a computer for a family member and instead of buying more legacy hardware (another northwood) I might as well jump to the next level and offload my current northwood. Granted my current setup still has life in it (proably another couple of years even) I just hate buying new "old" hardware (does that even make sense ). Better yet I can even still use my Crucial Ballistix Memory with the opty setup.

Actually, my current setup, I am running a PCI-E vid card. I've got a pretty rare asus P4GD1 Mobo that accepts a the 478 socket and a PCI-E setup. Its getting to a point that my vid card is simply bottlenecked at the CPU.

And I'm starting to agree. I like new hardware but I like tested "new" hardware better. Even if M2 or Conroe comes out, I'd probably wait a year or so before even considering it. My only beef is will 939's start to drop in price?

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: kainthelongshot
Just curious to see how they stack up. Would I see a big step in performance if I upgraded to an opteron 165? (consider both cpu's are at stock settings)

-Kainthelongshot

I'd say net performance improvement will be between 50% to 75%.

 

[n19htmare]

I'd say single threaded apps will be the nearly the same. You'll see the difference in only multi-threaded apps and those arent everywhere yet.

As far as new hardware and "old" i know what you mean.

How bad does this family member need a computer?

If you have a Asus P4GD1, what do you mean you can't Overclock it? If it has Dell bios maybe someone knows if it can be flashed to original asus bios.

If your family member does not need computer soon than wait. Price drops have been seen for the Pentiums already but 939 price drops have not happened . but should with the launch of AM2

 

[Absolute0]

Yeah pretty much, 165 = 1.8 Ghz but with 1mb cache it's just slightly faster than a 3000+ which is barely faster than a 3.0C

So in single threaded apps which is just about everything, a 165 will barely be faster. Multitasking is the big difference. Opteron 165s are great but that mostly hinges on you overclocking them to the max.

 

[Bobthelost]

Anyone who wastes money getting an opteron 165 to run it at stock should be dragged outside and shot. Other than those rare people who DO use it as a server chip where the higher tolerances might be required. The 3800X2 is slightly cheaper and runs 200mhz faster than the opteron.

If you are overclocking then it's a whole different kettle of fish.

 

[kainthelongshot]

Originally posted by: Bobthelost
Anyone who wastes money getting an opteron 165 to run it at stock should be dragged outside and shot. Other than those rare people who DO use it as a server chip where the higher tolerances might be required. The 3800X2 is slightly cheaper and runs 200mhz faster than the opteron.

If you are overclocking then it's a whole different kettle of fish.

Woah Woah Woah! No one said I wasn't going to overclock. And no one said I had a Dell. I believe krotchy is just relating his experience with a northwood when he had his Dell. I'm asking the question on how in similar setup (minus the overclocking) the two chips stack up. Granted if I can raise an opteron speed up to say 2.4-2.7 I effecitively have a a 4600+ x2. (correct me if i'm wrong).

So before bobthelost, actually loses it, the question wasn't about whether i was going to overclock it was about the chip in general. (It be a given that I will overclock in the event i get an opteron). What I need to know is what kind of gains am I going to get right out of the gate and wether an investment in an opteron is worthwhile.

 

[secretanchitman]

an opteron 165 offers a 50% performance boost over a northwood 3.0C? wow...

i wonder how much performance boost ill get if i get a opteron 165 over my 2.4C @ 3.3Ghz (5:4/275FSB).

 

[F1shF4t]

Originally posted by: kainthelongshot

Originally posted by: Bobthelost
Anyone who wastes money getting an opteron 165 to run it at stock should be dragged outside and shot. Other than those rare people who DO use it as a server chip where the higher tolerances might be required. The 3800X2 is slightly cheaper and runs 200mhz faster than the opteron.

If you are overclocking then it's a whole different kettle of fish.

Woah Woah Woah! No one said I wasn't going to overclock. And no one said I had a Dell. I believe krotchy is just relating his experience with a northwood when he had his Dell. I'm asking the question on how in similar setup (minus the overclocking) the two chips stack up. Granted if I can raise an opteron speed up to say 2.4-2.7 I effecitively have a a 4600+ x2. (correct me if i'm wrong).

So before bobthelost, actually loses it, the question wasn't about whether i was going to overclock it was about the chip in general. (It be a given that I will overclock in the event i get an opteron). What I need to know is what kind of gains am I going to get right out of the gate and wether an investment in an opteron is worthwhile.

at 2.4ghz the opteron WILL BE a 4800+, at 2.7ghz it will spank a fx60 easy since the fx60 is only cloked at 2.6ghz

 

[bargainshopper]

Originally posted by: krotchy
I made almost the identical step up. I went from a 3ghz northwood (non-OC cuz it was a DELL) to an opteron 170 (OCed to 2667). Considering the video card went from AGP to PCI-E+SLI, and it has 2 7900gt's vs 1 FX5600m, I pretty much experienced almost a ten-fold performance increase in everything. Also I love being able to defrag my computer, play music, and still do whatever I feel like with no slowdown (even gaming!) As far as the processor alone goes it is defitely snappier, and dual core rocks to me. I would highly recommend it, however with Conroe on the horizon it may be worthwhile to wait.

I am confused. I assume disk defrag is an I/O bounded app, how can dual core help in this incident? I would think the benefits of dual core will only show up when two or more threads are running and none of them are I/O bounded.