Decisions, decisions...

[acole1]

Now before you say, "well duh, the 165," consider these few things that are making my decision difficult.

1) I know some, but not a whole lot about OCing. Yes I realize it is pretty easy if you have the time and determination (and I catch on pretty fast,) but this leads to problem #2.

2) I don't have a lot of time between work and school, nor do I really want to take the effort to be tweaking around to get the most performance out of a chip. I could do some OCing providing it was simple and I don't have to do much with the voltages or ram to make it stable.

3) My third problem comes down to my RAM. It is Kingston HyperX PC-3200, and when we tried to test it's OC ability on a 754 system, it wouldn't OC at all compared to the value ram he had which OC'ed nicely. I realize that the RAM dividers will help wash over these limits... but I will probably not be able to get the killer OC you all are getting. Right? (New ram is out of the question.)

4) I also want a long lasting, stable machine that wont take much work to maintain. If I have to work to keep it running how much is it worth? And if OCing is going to cut down the life of the CPU then is it really a deal?

I realize some of these issues are things are personal preference, and in the end I make the choice , but what would you do in my situation? The benefits of the 4400+ are the large cache (L1 is still 2x that of the 165) and the high stock clock speed that I have seen raised 400-500mhz on stock cooling. Yes, nothing compared to the 1ghz OC's of the 165, but it performs just as well. 800mhz on the 165 puts it at the same place as the 4400+ with 400mhz OC... just for $130 less.

Now its time for me to shut up and listen to what yall have to say!

DFI Ultra-D and Kingston HyperX (3x512) (w/ a possible upgrade to 4x512)

 

[markkleb]

I had the same prob. I had a 3700+ and exchanged it for a opteron 144. The 3700 kicked the optys ass! Careful what you choose..

 

[Cook1]

You can easily OC that 165 on stock voltage, I mean min without much tweaking at all you'd see 2.0-2.4GHz range. As far as your RAM just remember to put them on a divider and you won't have to worry about RAM causing stability issues.

 

[acole1]

So at the end of the day, the 4400+ would perform better with less effort, right?

 

[homestarmy]

I say go for something with a multiplier that will let you get to the 300FSB range, that way you can run a 2/3 divider and have your memory at stock timings.

I would get the Opteron personally. It shouldn't take much tweaking at all to get it up to a 2.7 @ 300FSB, you should easily be able to do it in one night (although you would want to set prime 95 to run while you sleep or are at work).

Even if you want to do a mild OC, you could set the FSB to 240 and use a 5/6 divider to get 2160 which is almost the same, and the 20% FSB increase should make up for that.

I have no doubt that you could get the latter of the two items on stock voltage. I suppose it is possible but unlikely? If you had to up it, it would be less than .1v, nothing you would need a non-stock cooler for.

 

[TecHNooB]

OCing is easy. Just find someone with a DFI mobo who's nice enough to give you all his/her settings and from there you can just tweak voltage. As for the memory, just use a divider. I think the majority of people use dividers anyway. RAM doesn't OC much.

 

[peleejosh]

Yes the 4400 would be better at stock settings. You would not have to overclock it at all to be happy with the speed. And besides, its not like the 4400 wont overclock at all. If you need to overclock, the 4400 will probably oc some.

 

[acole1]

Well I'm know more now, but I'm still not persuaded one way or another yet...

Thanks for the input though!

 

[acole1]

What about the 170?

 

[TecHNooB]

I have a 170. It's good but unless you got watercooling 2.7 is about as high as you can go. Go with a 165. Even if you get a bad OCer, it'll still OC as good as a 4400++

Then make the appropriate "fixed" settings in the bios. That way, all you have to do is play with the cpu voltage, ddr voltage, the multiplier, and occasionally change the cpu multi. Then off to a duel with our old friend Prime95.

 

[Furen]

It seems to me like you dont want to deal with overclocking (it can be a pain in the ass sometimes). Since you plan on running 4x512 dimms (dont 3 dimms run in single-channel mode?) and driving 4 dimms can wreak havoc on some overclocking setups I'd say you should go for either the 4200+ (which is $358) or the 4400+ (which is $458) depending on how much you're willing to spend. I know that everyone keeps recommending going for the 1MB cache parts and, yes, the more cache the better but the benefit from going from 512K to 1MB L2 is pretty minor and can only be seen in gaming, for the most part.

 

[Skott]

Its not too hard really. If you want to overclock then get the 3800 X2 or 165 Opty. Whichever is cheapest IMO. Both overclock very nicely. There is no gurantee one will overclock higher than the other. The Opty can take more punishment though. They'll both get you to 2.4 (4800 X2 speed) at least. After that its a matter of luck. Although 2.6 (FX-60 speed) is very common achievement for both.

If you are not into overclocking or dont want to bother with such things then the old addage 'Buy the most processor you can afford'. That means the 4200 is faster than the 3800, the 4400 is faster than the 4200, the 4600 is faster than the 4400, the 4800 is faster than the 4600, and the FX-60 is faster than the 4800. Buy the fastest you can afford. The same can be said if you insist on Optys. 165, 170, 175, and 180.

Those are basically the two choices for AMD users.

 

[robertk2012]

Originally posted by: acole1
Now before you say, "well duh, the 165," consider these few things that are making my decision difficult.

1) I know some, but not a whole lot about OCing. Yes I realize it is pretty easy if you have the time and determination (and I catch on pretty fast,) but this leads to problem #2.

2) I don't have a lot of time between work and school, nor do I really want to take the effort to be tweaking around to get the most performance out of a chip. I could do some OCing providing it was simple and I don't have to do much with the voltages or ram to make it stable.

3) My third problem comes down to my RAM. It is Kingston HyperX PC-3200, and when we tried to test it's OC ability on a 754 system, it wouldn't OC at all compared to the value ram he had which OC'ed nicely. I realize that the RAM dividers will help wash over these limits... but I will probably not be able to get the killer OC you all are getting. Right? (New ram is out of the question.)

4) I also want a long lasting, stable machine that wont take much work to maintain. If I have to work to keep it running how much is it worth? And if OCing is going to cut down the life of the CPU then is it really a deal?

I realize some of these issues are things are personal preference, and in the end I make the choice , but what would you do in my situation? The benefits of the 4400+ are the large cache (L1 is still 2x that of the 165) and the high stock clock speed that I have seen raised 400-500mhz on stock cooling. Yes, nothing compared to the 1ghz OC's of the 165, but it performs just as well. 800mhz on the 165 puts it at the same place as the 4400+ with 400mhz OC... just for $130 less.

Now its time for me to shut up and listen to what yall have to say!

DFI Ultra-D and Kingston HyperX (3x512) (w/ a possible upgrade to 4x512)

1. Thats what we are for.
2. A mild overclock is simple
3. Ram doesnt really matter. Overclocking the ram gives very little if any boost to performance.
4. Do not increase the voltages much and keep the heat down and you will have no problems.

I recommend the 165 or 3800. Please seach the forum and research a bit before asking questions and then Im sure everyone here will be more than willing to answer.

Do not use 3 sticks. Go with 2 sticks of 512 or get 2 1gb sticks.