Is Dual Opti 240's the best bang for the buck?

adaboy

Junior Member
Feb 15, 2004
16
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I am in the process of replacing my Mobo and CPU and have a budget of around $600. At my price point it appears my options are as follows:

Dual Opti 240
Athlon 64 3400
Intel 3.4C
Dual Xeon 2.4

For the most part half of my "leasure" time is spent between media encoding (Mpeg2 and Mp3) and playing MMPOG (SWG, EQ, and FFXI). I have read of some very good success of people running there stock 240's at 1.6 which is in essence a 242. As far as a dual xeon I have not heard much from people OCing these. What would everyone recomend?
 

myocardia

Diamond Member
Jun 21, 2003
9,291
30
91
Don't forget that if you go with either of the server chips, you're gonna be forced to buy registered ram, also, which is quite expensive. I don't see how it would be possible to buy 2 Opteron 240's, a dual-capable motherboard, and enough registered PC3200 ram to be able to do video encoding, for anywhere near $600. I say get either a Athlon 64 3400 or an Intel 3.4C, assuming you already own a decent amount of PC3200 ram. You could spend the money you would have left over on either two Hitachi (8.5ms access times) hard-drives, or one 74gb WD Raptor (10k rpm, 5ms access time), and you'd end up with a very fast media encoding system.:)
 

adaboy

Junior Member
Feb 15, 2004
16
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Here is what Im looking at if I go the opti path

Opti 240 2x$219
MSI K8T Master2-FAR $207
Total $648

My ram budget is seperate so i was looking at 1GB of memory. If i get the opti I was going to buy 4x256mb Buffalo Technology ECC reg memory for $51 a stick. If you use opti processors you are limited to PC2700 so it only costs about $10 more per stick to buy the ecc reg stuff. Luckly i dont need to hold back on harddrives since I have 4 X 36GB 10k drives.
 

Vette73

Lifer
Jul 5, 2000
21,503
9
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You know you can run 2 1XX chips. Unless AMD has changed them, which I doubt, the 1XX series chips are the same as the 2XX chips.
So get a couple OEM 144's and run them. A little cheaper and the board you are talking about comes with the heatsinks already.
And the Opterons DO support PC3200 now. So get 2 512mg slabs or 2 1Gb slabs. I would not get 4 slabs, try and stick with 2 matching slabs.

Anandtech's article talked about the 1XX, 2XX, and 8XX all being the same right NOW. But in the future they will probable lock them out.
 

myocardia

Diamond Member
Jun 21, 2003
9,291
30
91
Haha, you're the only person I've ever seen who has a "separate ram budget".:D But did you consider that you aren't going to be able to overclock if you use PC2700? That was why I suggested registered PC3200.:)

edit: And Marlin is completely right about using four sticks of ram. Use 2x512MB sticks, or 2x1GB sticks.
 

MDE

Lifer
Jul 17, 2003
13,199
1
81
Use 4 sticks, 2 sticks for each CPU. Remember that the on-chip memory controllers are dual-channel.
 

Flyermax2k3

Diamond Member
Mar 1, 2003
3,204
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Originally posted by: myocardia
Haha, you're the only person I've ever seen who has a "separate ram budget".:D But did you consider that you aren't going to be able to overclock if you use PC2700? That was why I suggested registered PC3200.:)

edit: And Marlin is completely right about using four sticks of ram. Use 2x512MB sticks, or 2x1GB sticks.

Eh, you aren't going to be able to overclock with a dual board anyway. Not a REAL dual board anyway (MSI doesn't count) ;)
 

Vette73

Lifer
Jul 5, 2000
21,503
9
0
Originally posted by: MonkeyDriveExpress
Use 4 sticks, 2 sticks for each CPU. Remember that the on-chip memory controllers are dual-channel.


The board he is talking about only has 1 4slab bank. So using 4 will be a waste and probable cause more problems with latency and lack of upgrade path.

To get 2 4slab banks you need to use a AMD chipset and that is gonna cost you as the only ones I have seen for sale are by tyan.

 

MDE

Lifer
Jul 17, 2003
13,199
1
81
Originally posted by: Marlin1975
Originally posted by: MonkeyDriveExpress
Use 4 sticks, 2 sticks for each CPU. Remember that the on-chip memory controllers are dual-channel.
The board he is talking about only has 1 4slab bank. So using 4 will be a waste and probable cause more problems with latency and lack of upgrade path.

To get 2 4slab banks you need to use a AMD chipset and that is gonna cost you as the only ones I have seen for sale are by tyan.
Memory is totally chipset independant for the Opterons, it's just that the only boards giving you memory banks for each CPU seem to be AMD chipsets. For this board however, just get the two sticks.
 

adaboy

Junior Member
Feb 15, 2004
16
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0
So back to my orginal question.....Would the dual opti be the best overal choice for performance. Mainly for when i do Mpeg2 ecoding for my budget?
 

Vette73

Lifer
Jul 5, 2000
21,503
9
0
Originally posted by: adaboy
So back to my orginal question.....Would the dual opti be the best overal choice for performance. Mainly for when i do Mpeg2 ecoding for my budget?


For your budget, yes. A Dual Xeon would be a little better at decoding, but the oprice really goes up and when 64but OS's are mainstream you will see a more leveel playing feild if not better with the Athlon64's/Opterons

 

Cat

Golden Member
Oct 10, 1999
1,059
0
0
Originally posted by: Marlin1975
You know you can run 2 1XX chips. Unless AMD has changed them, which I doubt, the 1XX series chips are the same as the 2XX chips.
So get a couple OEM 144's and run them. A little cheaper and the board you are talking about comes with the heatsinks already.
And the Opterons DO support PC3200 now. So get 2 512mg slabs or 2 1Gb slabs. I would not get 4 slabs, try and stick with 2 matching slabs.

Anandtech's article talked about the 1XX, 2XX, and 8XX all being the same right NOW. But in the future they will probable lock them out.

URL for proof? This would be tempting if true.
 

Vette73

Lifer
Jul 5, 2000
21,503
9
0
Originally posted by: Cat
Originally posted by: Marlin1975
You know you can run 2 1XX chips. Unless AMD has changed them, which I doubt, the 1XX series chips are the same as the 2XX chips.
So get a couple OEM 144's and run them. A little cheaper and the board you are talking about comes with the heatsinks already.
And the Opterons DO support PC3200 now. So get 2 512mg slabs or 2 1Gb slabs. I would not get 4 slabs, try and stick with 2 matching slabs.

Anandtech's article talked about the 1XX, 2XX, and 8XX all being the same right NOW. But in the future they will probable lock them out.

URL for proof? This would be tempting if true.


Yep here is the part is says in the atricle.........

"Note that we used the phrased ?validated for use? because there is very little stopping an Opteron 100 CPU from being used in a dual processor environment (an Opteron 100 is identical to an Opteron 200 and an Opteron 800). As far as we know at this point, AMD has not prevented CPUs from being used in configurations in which they weren?t intended to be used. Although, it wouldn?t be too hard for them to prevent it in the future if it becomes a problem. "

Heres the full listing

Kinda like the AthlonXP's can run in a 760MPX board they are juts not tested for it.
 

jkj

Senior member
Nov 6, 2001
295
0
0
So why wouldnt you just get a 144 over a a64 3000+ I know the 144 is 200mhz slower. What do the benchmarks for it looks like. Is the Fx51 nothing more than a 148?
 

Vette73

Lifer
Jul 5, 2000
21,503
9
0
Originally posted by: jkj
So why wouldnt you just get a 144 over a a64 3000+ I know the 144 is 200mhz slower. What do the benchmarks for it looks like. Is the Fx51 nothing more than a 148?


Its slower, requires a socket 940, and requires Reg memory. So it will cost more. And yea the AthlonFX chips are just Opterons. The Socket 939 will see AthlonFX's that do NOT require Reg memory yet still do dual Ch memory.

 

hytek369

Lifer
Mar 20, 2002
11,053
0
76
Originally posted by: Marlin1975
Originally posted by: Cat
Originally posted by: Marlin1975
You know you can run 2 1XX chips. Unless AMD has changed them, which I doubt, the 1XX series chips are the same as the 2XX chips.
So get a couple OEM 144's and run them. A little cheaper and the board you are talking about comes with the heatsinks already.
And the Opterons DO support PC3200 now. So get 2 512mg slabs or 2 1Gb slabs. I would not get 4 slabs, try and stick with 2 matching slabs.

Anandtech's article talked about the 1XX, 2XX, and 8XX all being the same right NOW. But in the future they will probable lock them out.

URL for proof? This would be tempting if true.



Yep here is the part is says in the atricle.........

"Note that we used the phrased ?validated for use? because there is very little stopping an Opteron 100 CPU from being used in a dual processor environment (an Opteron 100 is identical to an Opteron 200 and an Opteron 800). As far as we know at this point, AMD has not prevented CPUs from being used in configurations in which they weren?t intended to be used. Although, it wouldn?t be too hard for them to prevent it in the future if it becomes a problem. "

Heres the full listing

Kinda like the AthlonXP's can run in a 760MPX board they are juts not tested for it.



damn, i wished i knew this sooner.
 

jkj

Senior member
Nov 6, 2001
295
0
0
Older technology I thought the opteron was the same as the fx 51. are there any socket 939 opterons