GamePC:Opteron 244/NForce3 article.

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Tabb
Not impressive? When a 1.8 scores around a 3.0C I am impressed.

 

[Corporate Thug]

it is impressive to me that a $390 p4 3.0 is running with a $720 opteron

 

[mrgoblin]

Originally posted by: Xionide

Originally posted by: Pariah
What's so appealing about "upgrading" to a slower CPU? Let's see how well AMD can ramp up clock speed before we crown the AMD64 anything that interesting because as of now, the performance doesn't merit any sort of congratulations.

"Did you guys read the pages pertaining to gaming performance?"

Yea, a 0.8fps advantage in Warcraft III, slower than Intel in Freelancer and NOLF2, and a 2.6fps advanage in Unreal 2003 run at a paltry 1024x768 resolution. So what?

Listen, its not about the performance right now. People are seeing these rates at a low clock speed and are thinking about the FUTURE these processor's have. If they released a processor like that at 2.5ghz it would give intel an uber b!tch slap.

-Xionide

by the time they release a 2.5 opteron, intel will have something to match/ beat it. I was really hoping for something special as far as the a64 but it looks like its all a bunch of hype and bs. Im off to order my 2.4c now.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: Tabb
Not impressive? When a 1.8 scores around a 3.0C I am impressed.

I forgot to not like AMD since the last AMD vs. Intel thread it seems.

Clock speed is king once again. And I thought it was only Joe Schmuck who buys PCs at Best Buy who rationalized their purchases like this.

 

[mrgoblin]

It would appear joe schmuck had something going

 

[Lyfer]

Originally posted by: shady06
it is impressive to me that a $390 p4 3.0 is running with a $720 opteron

Holy smokes, and I thought the Opteron would be cheaper.

 

[sandorski]

Things to consider:

1) Price: This is an Opteron, Athlon 64 will be cheaper(re:competitive to P4 prices)
2) Performance: The Athlon 64 will likely be released at a higher clock rate than in this review
3) Optomizations: Windows still hasn't optomized for Opteron's memory method
4) The Athlon64 won't own the P4 as the original Athlon owned P3, IMO. AMD will release a competitive cpu whose Model # will compete very favourably with it's P4 counterpart. So don't expect a return to days of lore.
5) Athlon64 will clock up much higher than the current Athlons, providing AMD with a few years in which to hang with Intel's P4 on the Desktop.
6) The truth will be clearer after the Athlon64 is Released and NDA's are up for AT and other websites.

 

[povertystruck]

Its only expensive now, so dont buy one now. Remember this is the is the biggest thing to happen to computers in a long time. Eventually 32 bit will go the way of the 16 bit.

Once the price comes down, it will probably be cheaper than the newest thing intel has to offer. AMD is waiting for the 64-bit version of windows to come out before it produces more chips(which would bring the price down considerably).

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

You people just don't get it. I for one am glad about the REDUCTION in HEAT and noise. P4's are damn hot i tell you, and they are only going to get hotter (prescott is gonna put out 100 watts). To that idiot who said the difference was due to the copper vs aluminum heatsinks your a complete retard, go back and reread the article. The opteron simply puts out less heat which is why it runs cooler and has a HSF with lower noise.

 

[BoberFett]

Take into consideration that the P4 can't do SMP. To do that you need to Xeon which is closer to $500.

Also, just going to pricewatch and grabbing the cheapest CPU you can find isn't the way to compare prices here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the Opteron being billed as a server CPU? And for some reason power users latched onto it while waiting for Athlon 64. I guess if I wanted to look at game benchmarks, I wouldn't compare the Athlon to the Itanium. They're different processors for different uses. Let's look at some TPC results to see how this processor stacks up where it seems to have the brightest future - servers.

Dell PowerEdge 6600/4/2.0GHz/32GB 78116.87 4.85 US $ 4 Intel Xeon MP 2.0 GHz
RacKSaver QuatreX-64 Server 4P 82226.46 2.72 US $ 4 AMD Opteron 844 1.8GHz
Dell PowerEdge 6600/4/2.8GHz/32GB 84595.22 3.84 US $ 4 Intel Xeon MP 2800MHz

Here's the only Opteron with TPC-C results listed, and the Xeon machines that are closest in performance. The benchmarks are bolded. Based on price/performance the Opteron slaps the Xeon silly. Looking at the all the results for the past couple years, the Opteron machine has one of the lowest price/performance ratios of any server. And the servers that do have a comparable ratio are all 75-80% slower than the Opteron.

Dell PowerEdge 2650 20108.79 2.28 US $
HP HP ProLiant ML350G3-1P 19526.27 2.38 US $
HP HP ProLiant ML370G3-1M-1P 19718.01 2.44 US $
HP HP Proliant ML370G3-1P 19140.72 2.45 US $
IBM IBM eServer xSeries 235 1P c/s 18936.05 2.46 US $
HP HP ProLiant DL380G3-1P 18818.46 2.47 US $
RacKSaver QuatreX-64 Server 4P 82226.46 2.72 US $
Dell PowerEdge 2650/2.4/1P 16756.52 2.78 US $
IBM IBM eServer xSeries 225/2.4Ghz/1P 18077.98 2.79 US $
IBM IBM eServer xSeries 235/2.4GHz/1P 17559.31 2.99 US $
Dell PowerEdge 4600/2.2/1P 12579.04 3.31 US $


If you want to compare AMDs latest and greatest to Intel, why not wait until they actually release the desktop version. Then if that sucks you can flame away.

Edit: Granted, there is a vast amount of configuration that has to be taken into account when looking at TPC benchmarks including storage, clients, etc. But generally a company tests the configuration that is going to show them in the best possible light. If Dell could build a server to compete with the RackServer performance for the same price, they would.

 

[MikeMike]

ok YOU guys are gettin all fussied about a DUAL chip, the 144, will cost about 1/2 irc. just getting it to work in a dual setup costs more. thus half would make it competitive w/ the 3.0

then 64bit processing.

and Athlon64 will prolly cost less than a comparable opteron just cuz the opteron is for workstations.

edit: FUDGE U BOBER FUDGE U

MIKE

 

[Stunt]

the highest clocked aXP is at 2.2ghz.
with the extra pipelining implemented into hammer, and the athlon being so similar to aXP, i suspect a64 to reach some more respectable speeds.
at this point, amd is offering enough performance to be competitive, i'm sure they will clock it much higher as needed.
also keep in mind, a64 will have a smaller cache than opteron allowing it to have better yields (less silicon defects occur).
as for price, it is a new technology and will decrease in price when amd feels it has the yields and manufaturing output to supply demand for their products.
people are expecting so much out of the hammer release.
fact of the matter is, aXP is a good alternative at the moment, so as amd phases in the a64, they will try to keep prices high and wait until they are ready to let the a64 loose on the mainstream (untill yields and output come to speed).

 

[grant2]

Originally posted by: Xionide

Listen, its not about the performance right now. People are seeing these rates at a low clock speed and are thinking about the FUTURE these processor's have. If they released a processor like that at 2.5ghz it would give intel an uber b!tch slap.

And if Intel released a xeon like that at 4.0ghz, it would give AMD an uber b!tch slap.

While we're playing the imagination game, let's imagine an Pentium 10 @ 50 terrahertz vs. Operton 4828 @ 35 terrahertz... hey, who wins now?

 

[BoberFett]

Actually, if you scale the clockspeeds, a Xeon 4.xx would be roughly equal to an Opteron 2.5. So it's a matter of who can scale faster. The Opteron/A64 is just starting it's life cycle. How much life does the current Intel architecture have left? And when the world does start shifting to 64 bit, AMD is ready while Intel isn't. The processor war isn't over yet.

 

[grant2]

What makes you think the opteron has more clockspeed headroom left than the p4? Because it has a new name?

From what I understand, the opteron is a tweaked athlon w/ 64 bit & memory controller added. Maybe I'm missing something but it seems like the the p4 architecture was released much more recently.

Speculation aside, Opteron performance NOW is mediocre. Let's consider this a64-2.5ghz if/when it shows up.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: grant2
What makes you think the opteron has more clockspeed headroom left than the p4? Because it has a new name?

From what I understand, the opteron is a tweaked athlon w/ 64 bit & memory controller added. Maybe I'm missing something but it seems like the the p4 architecture was released much more recently.

Speculation aside, Opteron performance NOW is mediocre. Let's consider this a64-2.5ghz if/when it shows up.

It also has a deeper pipeline, the reason it will clock higher than current Athlons.