AMD 4400+ or Opteron 185?

[lamere]

i'm not building a new rig, far from it. I have another 939 board that i'm not using and want to drop a chip in there, out of these 2 which would be the better chip?
I cant find ANY reviews on the Opty 185 anywhere, like thay dont exist. 🙁

I cant find any comparisons either, AMD chip to chip or benchmarks...

suggestions?

 

[lobbyone]

The Opteron has 1MB of cache while, I'm betting the 4400+ has 512KB, since you won't be overclocking, might as well save the cash and go for the X2 4400+, as the opty costs much more.

 

[s44]

Originally posted by: lobbyone
The Opteron has 1MB of cache while, I'm betting the 4400+ has 512KB, since you won't be overclocking, might as well save the cash and go for the X2 4400+, as the opty costs much more.

Wrong. Both have 1mb*2. The difference is that the 185 is clocked at 2.6ghz stock, while the 4400+ is 2.2ghz. The other possible difference is that there's a low-power 89W version of the 4400+, which (if retail) comes with the worse heatsink but may have better OC headroom than the regular 4400+.

The Opteron is likely to be faster whether or not you overclock the thing, but it's up to you whether the difference is worth the cost.

 

[lobbyone]

Originally posted by: s44
Wrong. Both have 1mb*2. The difference is that the 185 is clocked at 2.6ghz stock, while the 4400+ is 2.2ghz. The other possible difference is that there's a low-power 89W version of the 4400+, which (if retail) comes with the worse heatsink but may have better OC headroom than the regular 4400+.

My mistake, I was thinking Manchester core...

 

[lamere]

Originally posted by: s44

Originally posted by: lobbyone
The Opteron has 1MB of cache while, I'm betting the 4400+ has 512KB, since you won't be overclocking, might as well save the cash and go for the X2 4400+, as the opty costs much more.

Wrong. Both have 1mb*2. The difference is that the 185 is clocked at 2.6ghz stock, while the 4400+ is 2.2ghz. The other possible difference is that there's a low-power 89W version of the 4400+, which (if retail) comes with the worse heatsink but may have better OC headroom than the regular 4400+.

The Opteron is likely to be faster whether or not you overclock the thing, but it's up to you whether the difference is worth the cost.

so that would theoretically be an 800MHZ increase from both cores combined?
So what if i do plan to OC? I hear that the opty has "locked" multipliers and that it doesnt OC well, and i've heard some get 3GHZ on them which is the opposite.
i've also heard that the opty 185 is just an fx-60, just with locked multipliers.

Head to head, what kind of performance increase would i see over a 4400+ with the opty?
I wish i could find SOME kind of reviews or something so i wouldnt have to bombard the OP with a zillion questions 🙁

 

[SparkyJJO]

Originally posted by: lamere
so that would theoretically be an 800MHZ increase from both cores combined?
So what if i do plan to OC? I hear that the opty has "locked" multipliers and that it doesnt OC well, and i've heard some get 3GHZ on them which is the opposite.
i've also heard that the opty 185 is just an fx-60, just with locked multipliers.

Head to head, what kind of performance increase would i see over a 4400+ with the opty?
I wish i could find SOME kind of reviews or something so i wouldnt have to bombard the OP with a zillion questions 🙁

Both CPUs have locked multipliers. Only the FX CPUs don't. And you are right, the opty 185 is basically the fx-60 except for the locked multipliers.

If you were planning on overclocking I would go for the opteron 165, cheaper and still hits roughly the same top speeds. Catch is the opty 165 has a lower multi so you need a higher HTT to get there but it can be done on a good board.

What determines whether a CPU overclocks well is the stepping codes mostly. Bad steppings won't go very far, good ones will. A bad stepping for air or watercooling on an opty 165 is CCBWE, they take high volts to get anywhere, but for phase cooling it does pretty well. CCBBE or CCB1E are really good for air or water and overclocking, but not for phase change cooling because of a bad cold bug (won't work at low temps). My opty 165 is a CCBBE and it is at 2.81GHz now with stock volts, can hit 3GHz with a small voltage bump but not with my air cooling I have.

As far as head-to-head stock opty 185 vs the 4400, it depends on what you are doing. MS Word? Heh, not really gonna see a difference there 😉 Games? Most are more GPU dependent, but if you have an 8800 series card it could help out some. Video/Audio encoding or decoding? It would be faster.

 

[s44]

Originally posted by: SparkyJJO
If you were planning on overclocking I would go for the opteron 165, cheaper and still hits roughly the same top speeds. Catch is the opty 165 has a lower multi so you need a higher HTT to get there but it can be done on a good board.

Yeah, getting a 9x multiplier up to 3ghz takes a motherboard built for serious overclocking. If, as is probably likely, his current one won't cut it, it may not be that much cheaper to get the 165 (which is a dice roll anyway).

 

[lamere]

Originally posted by: SparkyJJO

Originally posted by: lamere
so that would theoretically be an 800MHZ increase from both cores combined?
So what if i do plan to OC? I hear that the opty has "locked" multipliers and that it doesnt OC well, and i've heard some get 3GHZ on them which is the opposite.
i've also heard that the opty 185 is just an fx-60, just with locked multipliers.

Head to head, what kind of performance increase would i see over a 4400+ with the opty?
I wish i could find SOME kind of reviews or something so i wouldnt have to bombard the OP with a zillion questions 🙁

Both CPUs have locked multipliers. Only the FX CPUs don't. And you are right, the opty 185 is basically the fx-60 except for the locked multipliers.

If you were planning on overclocking I would go for the opteron 165, cheaper and still hits roughly the same top speeds. Catch is the opty 165 has a lower multi so you need a higher HTT to get there but it can be done on a good board.

What determines whether a CPU overclocks well is the stepping codes mostly. Bad steppings won't go very far, good ones will. A bad stepping for air or watercooling on an opty 165 is CCBWE, they take high volts to get anywhere, but for phase cooling it does pretty well. CCBBE or CCB1E are really good for air or water and overclocking, but not for phase change cooling because of a bad cold bug (won't work at low temps). My opty 165 is a CCBBE and it is at 2.81GHz now with stock volts, can hit 3GHz with a small voltage bump but not with my air cooling I have.

As far as head-to-head stock opty 185 vs the 4400, it depends on what you are doing. MS Word? Heh, not really gonna see a difference there 😉 Games? Most are more GPU dependent, but if you have an 8800 series card it could help out some. Video/Audio encoding or decoding? It would be faster.

thanks......

rig is in the sig, mostly gaming/photoshop/compression/RAW image editing.
I have a crossfire rig if thats any consideration for gaming, but i'm really looking at pure number crunching for now.
thanks again man!