Opteron vs E2xxx?

[rogue1979]

Socket 939 opteron @ 2.8Ghz vs E2140 @2.8Ghz?

Just wondering if there will by any significant gaming performance advantage for the E2xxx
gaming at medium resolutions (mostly 1280 x 1024 or 1152 x 864) using a 9600GT.

Not worried about 10% or less, for example if a game is chugging down to 25 fps, 2.5 extra frames is not gonna make much difference.

 

[Markfw]

should be 20-30% difference I think.

 

[nerp]

The E2140 @ 2.8 will be signficantly peppier than the Opteron at the same clockspeed. The difference in performance between my Opty 180 @ 2.7 and my E2180 @ 3.2 is breathaking. At the same clock speed there is a noticable difference, even in basic windows tasks.

It also seems that finding an E2xxx chip and DDR2 is a much more cost effective solution than an Opteron, 939 board (if you can even find one) and DDR1 memory.

 

[MarcVenice]

Nah, the 1mb l2 cache will make a difference on the e2200. It will be closer to 15-20% then to 30%. What games do you play ? I think a opteron @ 2.8ghz is still sufficient for most games, save perhaps SC and WiC for example. My x2 @ 2.6ghz still performs just fine, I'm more GPU restricted at 1680*1050 though.

 

[v8envy]

CPU performance is at least 20% faster at the same clock for the E2XXX. In-game differences will be smaller than that unless you play at 1024x768 and focus on staring at the FPS counter.

I must ask -- why stop the E2xxx at 2.8 ghz? Wouldn't it make more sense to compare a 'very good' OC on the opty to at least an 'average' OC on the E2140? You'd have to get an awful chip not to hit 3 ghz on stock volts, and with the kind of OC effort it takes to get an opty to 2.8 you should get 3.2 out of a typical E2140. At 3.2 vs 2.8 the difference will be 30-50%, depending on the app -- I don't know if that's 'breathtaking', but it's very very very perceptible.

That said, if you already have the opty just hang out and wait unless there's a game you absolutely aren't capable of handling. If you're buying new and willing to OC then AMD is not the way to fly.

 

[superstition]

You'd have to get an awful chip not to hit 3 ghz on stock volts.

Actually, from what I've read, plenty of e2140s can't hit 3 at stock. Mine can't (DS3L and Tuniq).

 

[AndroidVageta]

Don't know how they compare, but my E2200 (2.2ghz stock) at 2.8ghz overclocked on my system is slightly faster than my buddies E6600 at stock speeds (2.4ghz) and the E6600 has more cache. Another factor is pricing...a E2140 is what, like $65 (paid $85 for my E2200)? Much cheaper than an Opteron and easier to upgrade too considering the Opty is S939 and uses DRR1 which is also more expensive (and getting more rare) than DDR 2. Don't be fooled by the E2XXX lower cache...it does make a difference between its 2MB and 4MB cache brethren but is still a hell of a chip and should have no problem beating the Opteron. As far as resolutions are concerned, I have really no issues playing at 1280x720 resolution on any game...even Crysis fairs pretty decently on a E2XXX series CPU. Plus, the E2XXX runs cooler too.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: nerp
The E2140 @ 2.8 will be signficantly peppier than the Opteron at the same clockspeed. The difference in performance between my Opty 180 @ 2.7 and my E2180 @ 3.2 is breathaking. At the same clock speed there is a noticable difference, even in basic windows tasks.

It also seems that finding an E2xxx chip and DDR2 is a much more cost effective solution than an Opteron, 939 board (if you can even find one) and DDR1 memory.

I highly doubt most any situation regarding this scenario is going to involve a full upgrade path. At most it'd be contemplating upgrading a s939 system to one of the few Opteron 1xx chips still floating around vs. a completely system upgrade. So that'd be CPU vs. CPU+Mobo+RAM...granted the Opterons still floating around are relatively expensive.

However if the question is about an already existing system vs. spending more money to replace it with a new CPU+Mobo+RAM, I would not recommend upgrading.

Originally posted by: superstition

You'd have to get an awful chip not to hit 3 ghz on stock volts.

Actually, from what I've read, plenty of e2140s can't hit 3 at stock. Mine can't (DS3L and Tuniq).

I was going to say t he same thing. Mine tops out right around 2.8GHz stable on stock volts, and from what I've observed most all chips require at least a small bump in volts to hit 3GHz.

However his original point is still valid - an Opteron @ 2.8GHz is going to require a significant bump in the voltage, it simply wouldn't be a 'fair' comparison to leave the E2xxx @ stock volts.

But if the OP already has the full Opty system, and the E2xxx system would basically be a complete upgrade (new CPU, mobo, RAM), I also agree that its probably best to wait it out as the performance improvement isn't anything too significant as the Opty should still have plenty of pep for most games.

 

[lopri]

I would say they're just about even.

 

[nyker96]

E2140 can go 3ghz easily and little voltage is needed if you got a M0 rev. I can say it's about 20% faster in video stuff and 10% in general app at the same speed as opty.

 

[superstition]

I have an MO and my voltage is greater than 1.350. I just bumped it up a notch because of buggy behavior and I don't have time to do endless priming.

 

[nerp]

Why did I say breathaking? Because I have both the Opteron and the E2180 side by side. When encoding the same xvid movie, the opty is at 40-50 fps depending. The intel chip is 80-120 fps. The cuts encoding time in half. In source games, I get 50-80 more fps with the same video card. That's pretty breathtaking for me, considering the $69 dollar chip is blowing away a chip I paid almost $150 for and was once priced in the $500 range. The E2180 has always been a budget chip.

 

[MarcVenice]

Nerp, I'm not saying your lieing, but I very much doubt that your 3.2ghz e2180 is 2-3 times faster then a 2.75ghz opteron 180, when all things are equal. I can see right now one rig has 2gb of ram, the other has 4gb. Not sure how that affects things, but I doubt it makes that big of a difference. According to your statements a e2180 is almost 50-100% faster clock for clock. That's simply ridiculous. 50-80 more FPS, going from where ? from 500 to 550 fps ? or from 50 to 100/130 ? Once again, very much doubt it.

We all know c2d is 20-25% faster clock for clock, I had this discussion with someone else not long ago. Because of the limited l2 cache it's more likely that the e2x00 series are 20% faster clock for clock then opteron dualcores. Being 20% faster clock for clock, and being clocked at 3,2ghz instead of 2.75ghz doesn't really account for being 2-3 times faster when encoding though.

 

[Twsmit]

I just jumped from a x2 3800+ @ 2.6ghz, similar to an Opteron to my E2180. Still burning in the 2180 and trying to find its max speed, but at 3.2ghz which I can get ~95% stable it's faster. Company of Heroes seems a little peppier and the built in benchmark gave me slightly better frames. 3dmark gave me an extra 2000+ points and superpi gave me a nice boost in performance.

I would say the upgrade to a 3ghz E2xxx is probably a good 25% faster in most benchmarks. In windows the performance is similar... (ie very fast) and in most games the FPS is similar because they are usually GPU limited.

If your upgrading from a single core 939, get a dually and be happy for another year. Otherwise the E2xxx are a good value, not to mention DDR2 is so cheap that 4GB is almost a no brainer based on the low price.

 

[v8envy]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
stuff

Marc, it's possible. Remember that commercial encoding apps may be optimized for an instruction mix that the core2 likes a lot more than the AMD. And it's not a very cache dependent application. I can't find them now (of course) but I could swear on a stack of bibles I've seen reviews showing core2 CPUs at 3 ghz outperforming an amd6400+ by a factor of 2 to 1 with popular commercial encoding apps.

Even the old Netbursts used to significantly outperform any AMD chip in encoding.

But in general I'd say the difference will be below 50% -- as you'd expect from a 20% IPC advantage and 20% clock rate advantage.

Oh, as far as E2140 hitting 3.0 on stock volts -- the E2XXX OC thread seemed to have a lot more 3.0 successes than failures at stock volts. You can always get a bum chip -- for example my X3210 won't go over 3 ghz no matter what I do, and it's a GO stepping quad. On the other hand my M0 E2180 had 0 problems hitting 300x10 at 1.3125v and 333x10 at 1.41v but your mileage may vary.

 

[Markfw]

But in general I'd say the difference will be below 50% -- as you'd expect from a 20% IPC advantage and 20% clock rate advantage.

:thumbsup:

 

[lopri]

I'd like to reiterate my experience: They're just about equal up to 2.7~2.8GHz and E21x0 will pull ahead past that point, thanks to increased overall system performance.

AT Review: http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3051

 

[MarcVenice]

So when gaming the e2x00 CPU wasn't actually significantly faster, when encoding it is a little to a fair amount faster. He asked for gaming performance though, so I'd say no, not worth getting a e2x00 cpu, with a new mobo + ram, coz your opty at 2.8ghz is still plenty fast and a e2x00 cpu isn't going to be that big of an improvent, even if you clock it at 3.2ghz.

 

[Lithan]

Tough call. Basically look at the price difference. The core 2's have the greatest speed advantage of any chip other than x64 vs p4 back in the day... at least since p2 vs k6. 20% is HUGE for cpus... but do you need it is the question. If you're gaming, Optys are still probably fast enough that there will be little to no FPS difference... Memory will probably contribute more to that than cpu. If you need to upgrade now and there's $150 or more difference, I'd go with Opty upgrade. If you can bring the difference under $100 it becomes a tougher call. The core 2 would probably last you One more upgrade... I doubt the 939 setup would... basically going 939 would just push the inevitable platform change back some... and its up to you how much you'd have to save to make it worthwhile.

Of course if you dont already have the opteron mobo and ddr1 memory... then it's a no brainer. There's practically no price difference ($50> anyway) and core 2 is faster in every respect.

final opinion: If you already own the opty, and are just asking if the $200+ investment in core 2 is wise, I'd have to say that the upgrade probably isnt worth it for gaming. Wait until you want DDR2/3 or SLI or some other mobo upgrade... ram and low end core 2's are so ridiculously cheap right now that the Mobo could wind up costing more than those two elements combined.

 

[rogue1979]

I already have the 2140 @ 2.8GHz with 2GB of DDR2. Asrock Conroe1333, so motherboard limited at 350Mhz fsb.

I also have a socket 939 3600+ X2 @ 2.6GHz and 2GB of DDR1. It's a nice Nforce4 motherboard with good overclocking ability, good air cooling. Gonna upgrade both to 9600 GT's. With only 256K x 2 L2 cache I was figuring the 3600+ might cpu limit the 9600GT by a fair amount. Right now both are running 7900GT's and being gpu limited there is almost no difference in gaming.

So the decision is:

Should I buy the Opteron 165-170 which I have seen at newegg for $79-$89
and proceed to overclock it, figuring to hit 2.7-2.8GHz or so?

Or just buy another 2140/Asrock Conroe1333/2GB DDR2 667 which comes out to about $160 shipped including aftermarket cooler?

No, I don't want to shell out more bucks for a better 775 motherboard, the Asrock is only $47 and if I'm gonna spend extra money to get more performance, then upgrading to an 8800GT would be a faster choice for gaming.

Or I could just put the 9600GT in the 3600+@2.6GHz and see what happens?

 

[v8envy]

That's one take on it. Now let's see what an E2XXX running on a P35 rather than Nvidia chipset looks like:

http://www.tomshardware.com/20...m_dual_core/page8.html -- we see the performance of an E2 series vs. the E6750

and here

http://www.tomshardware.com/20...verclocker/page14.html we see the performance of a 5000+BE clocked to 3.3 ghz.

There is a 20% gaming performance delta between the 6750 at 2.66 ghz vs the 3.3 ghz 5000+ chip in CPU limited titles. In favor of the core2 cpu. In the first graph you can see the E2XXX at 3.2 ghz matching the E6750 for gaming and not falling far behind the 3 ghz 6850. In other applications the E2xxx outperformed the 6750 and was much closer to the 6850.

That said, if you have an opty there's no reason to upgrade to a low end core2, just keep hanging. If you are going to upgrade, the core2 pathway is cheaper and faster.