3800+ X2 or Opteron 165?, That is the question.

[factorydiecast]

Personaly, id go for the x2 3800+ for one main reason. Price. They sell for (used) about $220-$250 now. I just bought 2 new retail boxed ones for $240 and one for $250 shipped. I also saw one sell on ebay TODAY for $235 total shipped. So the question becomes, do you really need that much overclocking for spending significantly more? The opteron 170 that is equal to the x2 3800+ at 2.0ghz at stock is $400. Id much rather take a x2 3800+ for $250

Where are you finding these for the prices you mentioned??

 

[Sean Maxwell]

I watched ebay for months, and they all seemed to go for $290-310 at the cheapest. Thanks for all your replies though, I decided on the Opteron 165. It is available on pricegrabber for $317, so I opted for the opteron ^_^. 2 day air shipped was $326 (only $4 more than the 3800) Thanks again.

 

[Zebo]

If you guys really want to see how little difference the extra cache makes look at this latest review ANAND just did..

In it he has a 170 and 3800+, they a virtually identical.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2648

 

[Markfw]

Where does it say its an Opteron 170 ? I just see "As we mentioned earlier in this article, in addition to the X2 3800+ and 4200+, we have included benchmarks of an Athlon 64 X2 running at 2.0GHz, but with a 1MB L2 cache per core (2MB total on die)."

 

[Zebo]

we have included benchmarks of an Athlon 64 X2 running at 2.0GHz, but with a 1MB L2 cache per core (2MB total on die)."

That's a 170 mark

 

[Markfw]

Well, essentially, but I thought they would have said Opteron 170 instead of Athlon64@2.0 1 mb Ls cache.

 

[bjc112]

I would do the 165, if you can confrim your board can pull @ LEAST 300 HTT.

My X2 3800+ is a over achiever..

 

[RichUK]

165's hmmm .. *Drooolll*

Be warned, the 165 runs very hot after pumping more than 1.45 Vcore. My xp90 struggles. Also make sure that you have a board that can stably do an excess of 300HTT OC

 

[sleepeeg3]

If you are a heavy gamer, buy an Opteron 146 and faster video cards.

 

[bjc112]

Originally posted by: sleepeeg3
If you are a heavy gamer, buy an Opteron 146 and faster video cards.

Bah!

No point in NOT getting the 1MB of cache..

I love my X2, but I would go for the Opty!

 

[Sean Maxwell]

thanks guys, went with the opteron.. just seemed sensible.. now im riding on a sexy 2.7ghz and OMFG 2MB L2

 

[DrMrLordX]

Nice job Sean. 2.7ghz on a dual-core is sweet.

 

[jonnythan]

$350 for a 100MHz speed increase? That's an awful lot of money for no performance gain in your games.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Apparently jonnythan hasn't been paying attention to the Quake 4 SMP benchmarks, hmmmm?

 

[Sean Maxwell]

Originally posted by: jonnythan
$350 for a 100MHz speed increase? That's an awful lot of money for no performance gain in your games.

John I realize that its not a huge performace gain for gaming alone, but its just a way overall faster processor for everything. The game performance is ownage for today's games, but just think of tomorrows games. This baby is stable at 2.8GHz for all games but Raven Shield, which doesn't like dual cores. That is a 1GHz overclock. WOW! I recommend it to all who are deciding on a 3800+ X2 or Opteron 165. Its not even going on 40C!

If this thread was about whether I should or shouldn't upgrade, you have a good argument, but I think this thread will help everyone decide on which processor is for them. Which helps out the community.

 

[mininuke]

btw which of this cpu encode video bester ? like xvid divx or h.264

thank you

 

[jonnythan]

At stock speeds, the X2 3800+ will be fastest.

If you are overclocking, they will both overclock to about the same speed.

 

[themusgrat]

Go you, the Opteron is the best choice for your budget. Like someone said, APPARENTLY some people don't know about dual core patches that will make dual cores beast single cores. So there aren't many out now, but they are extremely new and BF2 is supposed to come out with one, so I'm in. BTW, if you would of waited until Monarch had the 165s in supply, I got mine for 290 shipped w/ 3 yr. warranty. Now it is significantly less expensive, and can be sold on ebay for 300+. Good luck OCing.

 

[Nymous]

I'm facing the exact samne decision. From everything I've read online there's not that much difference in the two. I'm going to get which ever one I can find at a lower price.

 

[wmansfield]

Well you better decide soon, the Optergones are about to go up about $30 and the X2 3800 will drop down to about $285

 

[robertk2012]

Originally posted by: jonnythan
At stock speeds, the X2 3800+ will be fastest.

If you are overclocking, they will both overclock to about the same speed.

well lets put your 3800 up against my 165. Im only using 1.4 volts and the thing runs cool and I dont even have a very good HSF. My motherboard is the limitation now.