Keepin' a dead socket alive, Opteron 180 drop-in replacement!

nerp

Diamond Member
Dec 31, 2005
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So I sit here at work with an Opteron 180 in my shirt pocket (don?t worry, it?s in its special bubble.)

Based on some quick searching, its stepping, LCB9E 0651RPMW is a decent one and I should reach 3 ghz on air. Is this crazy of me to expect?

I got it at really low price (bout $90) and it?s brand new retail box. Can?t believe how cheap it was considering its original price way back. Even when I settled on my current Opteron 148 for $200 ? which seemed to be a steal at the time ? I never imagined picking up a 180 so cheap. Thus, I feel I can milk this setup for another year or two before being forced to move to a new platform. I would be interested in building a cool and quiet c2d box but this would force me to break down and get DDR2 memory and a new board. A $90 shot-in-the-arm to a dual core Opteron was too tempting to pass up. I mean, my single core 148 rocks my games pretty good still and for general use it?s been stellar. There are times when I?ve slammed it with an encode going, for example, but nothing so unbearable.

I?m curious if anyone has played with this stepping or the 180 in general. I?ve got a very, very stable setup with the 148 operating at 2750ghz, and would ideally like to drop in the 180 and run at 3ghz, which is what I?d be looking at with the 180?s 12x stepping -- the 148 is 11x -- and my 1:1 with memory @ 250. HT is at 4 and I was really happy with the evenness of my settings. Is expecting the 180 to just drop in and hum with my current setting configuration a pipe dream? This is all being cooled with a Zalman CNPS9700 and heat generally isn?t much of an issue with these Opterons.

Any thoughts or similar recent experiences? I see Newegg is still clearing out some 939 Opterons and there are a few other retailers clearing out 170s, 175s, 180s and 185s. Seems like a decent way to eke more life out of this socket. It?s not as if my memory is really killing me. And I might be inclined to wait two years ? by then we?ll be on DDR3 and it?s always fun to skip a generation for bragging rights, eh? :D

And jeepers crow! An Opteron 180, even at stock, is nothing to sneeze at. I?m psyched.


 

nerp

Diamond Member
Dec 31, 2005
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Local computer shop that bought out a different local computer shop that recently went out of business. The owner had one left. :/

The newegg prices aren't that bad, though. Especially considering how much they went for a while ago.
 
Oct 30, 2004
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You lucky ducky, you. This morning I installed an Athlon X2 4400 to replace my Opteron 148, but it's a horrible overclocker and I feel badly about it, especially since I have my mobo's CPU voltage set to 1.575 just to run it at 11 x 230 (2.53 Ghz).
 

Dadofamunky

Platinum Member
Jan 4, 2005
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Don't get your hopes up for 3 GHz. I've never seen anyone getting that with the Opties on air. But 2.8-2.9 should be doable with good cooling. Obviously, dial the system back to stock settings before dropping in the new chip.

It's always good to be able to get good cheap upgrades like that.
 

Puffnstuff

Lifer
Mar 9, 2005
16,187
4,871
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Two years ago I bought an opty 175 for my abit fatal1ty an8 mb. It would run at 2.5ghz all day but don't ask any more of it or everything would come to a halt. You may or may not do better. That cpu is still in service in my youngest sons pc on the last 939 mb I have and when it croaks it's off to c2d land for him. My oldest has a fairly recent am2 5600+ and we just aren't impressed with the performance. He gets my current c2d next week when my q6600 gets here. I used amd cpu's for many years but there's just no denying the c2d performance factor. I hope that you get your opty cranked up till you hearts desire.
 

Zap

Elite Member
Oct 13, 1999
22,377
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Originally posted by: Puffnstuff
Two years ago I bought an opty 175 for my abit fatal1ty an8 mb. It would run at 2.5ghz all day but don't ask any more of it or everything would come to a halt.

Basically YMMV. I know that many people loved to claim that 2.7GHz was "guaranteed" on Opterons, but I had three Opteron 144 chips and though two were good for 2.7-2.9GHz on air, one could barely do around 2.2GHz. When I mentioned it here, I could swear that people's brains burst upon reading that - I was called a liar and worse. :shocked:

For the OP, just find out what it does and be happy that you're extending the life of your system for really cheap. That's a hot deal you got! Let us know how it turns out.
 

nerp

Diamond Member
Dec 31, 2005
9,865
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Well, she purrs at 2.4 and there is a decidedly better flow to things. Moving from single to dual core is quite noticable and I'm pleased as punch for that alone.

If I lowered the multi to 11 I got it to the same overclock as my 148 at 2750, however it fails prime after about 5-10 minutes on each core. The system seems stable enough and I bet I could get away with it for day to day use. But I'd rather have a fully prime stable machine like I had with my 148 so I moved it back down to 2.4 since I didn't have time to mess around with voltages or other settings that might give stability at similar clockspeeds. I might try going to about 2.6 and memory at 252 instead of 250 and see what happens. So far temperatures are right in line with what I saw with the 148. I'm very happy and even if I end up sticking with the stock 2.4ghz, the second core more than makes up for it.



 

nerp

Diamond Member
Dec 31, 2005
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Hmm, upping the vcore a notch to 1.54 seems to have induced stability in prime. Temps are a little higher than I'd like when both cores are stressed fully, but I suspect my motherboard isn't the most accurate in reporting temperature. It idles nice and cool at 32C, supposedly. I don't think I should worry too much about temps in the mid 50s during priming, no?

 

betasub

Platinum Member
Mar 22, 2006
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50-60C is okay for the Opterons when running Prime stress test. If you really want to make your Opteron sweat and test your CPU cooling, try S&M stress test app.
 

nerp

Diamond Member
Dec 31, 2005
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Will do! Still priming away with no errors now that I've nudged the vcore up. I want to stress this as hard as possible to make sure it's golden. The fact that it looks like I've achieved the same overclock going from single to dual tickles me. I'm tempted to push it a little higher but there's a voice in my head telling me to stop while I'm ahead.
 

Dadofamunky

Platinum Member
Jan 4, 2005
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Originally posted by: nerp
Hmm, upping the vcore a notch to 1.54 seems to have induced stability in prime. Temps are a little higher than I'd like when both cores are stressed fully, but I suspect my motherboard isn't the most accurate in reporting temperature. It idles nice and cool at 32C, supposedly. I don't think I should worry too much about temps in the mid 50s during priming, no?

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Prime stable? You are GOLDEN. Are you running two copies concurrently?
 

nerp

Diamond Member
Dec 31, 2005
9,865
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Originally posted by: Dadofamunky
Originally posted by: nerp
Hmm, upping the vcore a notch to 1.54 seems to have induced stability in prime. Temps are a little higher than I'd like when both cores are stressed fully, but I suspect my motherboard isn't the most accurate in reporting temperature. It idles nice and cool at 32C, supposedly. I don't think I should worry too much about temps in the mid 50s during priming, no?

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Prime stable? You are GOLDEN. Are you running two copies concurrently?

Yep.

Now to move the 148 into the woman's box and relegate her current machine to a mundane task.
 

Dadofamunky

Platinum Member
Jan 4, 2005
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Originally posted by: nerp
Originally posted by: Dadofamunky

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Prime stable? You are GOLDEN. Are you running two copies concurrently?

Yep.

Now to move the 148 into the woman's box and relegate her current machine to a mundane task.

Careful, you don't want to spoil her, you know. :D
 

bob4432

Lifer
Sep 6, 2003
11,726
45
91
Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
You lucky ducky, you. This morning I installed an Athlon X2 4400 to replace my Opteron 148, but it's a horrible overclocker and I feel badly about it, especially since I have my mobo's CPU voltage set to 1.575 just to run it at 11 x 230 (2.53 Ghz).

i hear you there. i got a free 4200 x2 and it won't do 2.3 on stock V...not a big deal to me but the 3800 i had in there (that went into the home file server) would do 2.5 on stock V...guess i got a bad 4200...too lazy to take the home server apart
 

Amaroque

Platinum Member
Jan 2, 2005
2,178
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Yeah, my X2 3800 does 2.4 with stock voltage. It's really up to luck of the draw.