Opteron for personal use / gaming

[Xesh]

Are there any disadvanages to using (single) Opteron processors for personal use? Newegg has good deals on refurbs for mobo, processor, and RAM (are their refurbs usually reliable?). Only problem I see is that the SK8N only supports PC2700 memory.

 

[ts3433]

Why would you want to use a single Opteron?

 

[coejus]

Cost?

 

[Matthias99]

No (other than cost). The Opteron 1XX CPUs are functionally identical to Socket939 Athlon64s of the same clock speed (in fact, they might be a tad faster because of the extra L2 cache). It's just that most server motherboards are a bit slower and sometimes significantly more expensive than 'desktop' models (and often lack features like onboard SATA, sound, and sometimes even AGP), and you have to use registered ECC RAM, which costs more.

Are you sure the board only supports PC2700? The memory controller is in the CPU on the A64, and they all are supposed to support PC3200.

 

[Mik3y]

newer opterons are hte same as the fx. ex. fx-51 = opteron 248, fx-53 = opteorn 250. if you get the latest ones, they will be great for gaming.

 

[Xesh]

Total cost for Opteron 144, ASUS SK8N, and 2x215MB ECC PC3200 is $362.52 (unshipped). But they're all refurbs, and the RAM is a brand I've never heard of - Transcend.

edit:

may as well enumerate the price:
memory $162.52
SK8N $60.00
proc $140.00

Seems like a great deal, but I'd prefer a 3000+ 939pin if I could get these parts at a similar price.

 

[ts3433]

An Opteron 144 is 1.8GHz/1MB. I'm pretty sure for the same money as those refurbs you could get, new and shipped, a 3000+ or 3200+ (754; these are 2GHz and 2.2GHz, respectively, with 512K cache), Chaintech VNF3-250 (or other good value 754 NF3 board), and 2x512MB of value PC3200. For a little more you could probably even go 939.

 

[Xesh]

The 144 is 1.8GHz. If I'm not mistaken, that's 2800+ for 754 and 3000+ for 939? Also has the 1MB cache though.

 

[ts3433]

/is stupid and knows it, see an actually informative post below...

 

[Xesh]

Hmm.... well, here's the big picture. I currently run a 1.2 T-bird on Epox 8kha(+?) and 512 pc2100. i can really only carry over the case, cd burner, network card, and sound card (santa cruz). Maybe a really old DVD-ROM drive. I also need a new HD (the one I have is 20GB) and vid card (Geforce 2 Pro). I'm on a budget. Best road?

I know this opens up the question a bit... thanks for any tips.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: ts3433
In clockspeeds, that's the equal, but performance will probably go in this order:

940 ~ or < 754 < 939

because the 940 requires registered memory, which is a little slower than unbuffered (and also more expensive), the 754 has half the cache and unbuffered memory, and the 939 has dual channel (a small gain of about 5-8%).

The 940s have dual channel memory. And the difference from registered to unbuffered memory is pretty small. With the larger cache and DC, a S940 chip should beat a S754 chip at the same physical clock speed pretty soundly, even if the memory is a hair slower.

It *might* lose out to a S939 on a fast desktop MB with fast RAM. But it would be close.

 

[coejus]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: ts3433
In clockspeeds, that's the equal, but performance will probably go in this order:

940 ~ or < 754 < 939

because the 940 requires registered memory, which is a little slower than unbuffered (and also more expensive), the 754 has half the cache and unbuffered memory, and the 939 has dual channel (a small gain of about 5-8%).

The 940s have dual channel memory. And the difference from registered to unbuffered memory is pretty small. With the larger cache and DC, a S940 chip should beat a S754 chip at the same physical clock speed pretty soundly, even if the memory is a hair slower.

It *might* lose out to a S939 on a fast desktop MB with fast RAM. But it would be close.

I wonder how the comparison will look at the end of 2005 when 939 allows for dual-core processors.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: coejus

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: ts3433
In clockspeeds, that's the equal, but performance will probably go in this order:

940 ~ or < 754 < 939

because the 940 requires registered memory, which is a little slower than unbuffered (and also more expensive), the 754 has half the cache and unbuffered memory, and the 939 has dual channel (a small gain of about 5-8%).

The 940s have dual channel memory. And the difference from registered to unbuffered memory is pretty small. With the larger cache and DC, a S940 chip should beat a S754 chip at the same physical clock speed pretty soundly, even if the memory is a hair slower.

It *might* lose out to a S939 on a fast desktop MB with fast RAM. But it would be close.

I wonder how the comparison will look at the end of 2005 when 939 allows for dual-core processors.

They're coming for S940 first. 😛