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POLL: Opteron SMP, Xeon SMP, or P4 HT kicks most a$$?

N

nemaNIN

Member
i'm building me a shiny new rig...

but i dont know what to go with.... (i'd like to stay with SMP, i've become spolied..)

so what kicks more a$$?

1) dual Opteron 242s
2) dual Xeon 2.8Ghz (533FSB)
3) single P4 3.4Ghx (800FSB)
4) other (what?)

mmmmmmmmmm... new rig... :😀rools::

thanks 😉
 
anything and everything.

not a heavy gamer, or i'd just go w/ the single. graphics work. audio, video, etc. i just want the most raw power, the fastest user experience, future-proofness, and of course, bag-for-the-buck.

but, i've been SMP for 4 years now and the lack of bottle necking would be difficult to part with......

looks like dual 242s (all i could really afford right now) are out-performed by the dual 2.8 xeons.... why opterons over xeons?

(thanks for the replies so far!)

edit:: im looking to spend about $800 for the mobo, cpu, and (hopefully) the ram... but i could go a little higher. and could also buy one proc now and the second later.
 
You could always get A64 3000/3200+ or even 3400+ and some watercooling for the same price as dual opterons and overclock it to 2.3-2.5ghz. Or get a 3.4 C and overclock it to 3.8-3.9ghz on water. Or get mobile barton xp-m 2600+ or 2.8C and overclock those on water.

Hmmm...not sure if dual 1.6 opterons would be faster though i am not an expert in that area. But i did hear somewhere that dual setup increases speeds by about 25-50% not by 100% as if you would have had 1.6x2 = 3.2ghz opteron cpu. Not 100% sure on this answer but that would mean about the speed of a 2.4ghz A64 if based on a 50% improvement that a 2nd opteron gives you. Plus there is a hassle of paying extra for registered ram and not being able to reuse it in the next upgrade.

I am pretty sure A64 3400+ will achieve around 2.35-2.4 on air alone so watercooling should push you closer to 2.5

Maybe on the applications you use a dual would be faster though hopefully someone will let you know.

Of course you could always invest extra money in a 74 gig raptor or something by saving on the extra opteron since 1 already costs $309. So you could have A64 3400+ and 74 gig raptor for the price of just 2 opterons
 
In most cases you will be better off going with the single fast P4 when building on a limited budget. The P4 will always be fast no matter the application, the slower clocked dual during typical usage will sometimes be faster, but usually not. When you take cost into consideration, it swings pretty far in the single CPU route.

A single P4 3.4GHz is about $225 cheaper than dual Opteron 242's. Lowend barebones dual motherboards are on average about $100 more than mid level single CPU boards, which brings the difference up to $325. Then you have to factor in the additional cost for registered memory, possibly the need for a 24pin ATX PS, maybe a larger case to accomodate a full ATX board and you'll see the extra costs really starting to mount. The difference in cost between the cheapest 9800XT at Newegg and the proposed $500 NVidia 6800U is only $91. Which means you can upgrade to a much faster video card and still have $250 or so left over for more memory, or a DVD writer, or SCSI storage, or whatever else.

With all the upgrades you can afford by going with the single CPU, the system will be vastly faster in almost everything except some cases where heavy extended CPU applications which are SMP aware are run. And even then a 3.4GHz 800MHz P4 isn't going to get drubbed by a dual 2.8Ghz 533MHz Xeon or dual Opteron 242.

If you have $1500+ to build a system, I'd say go all out and get the dual, but when you are limited to under $1000, the highend single is almost always the better choice.
 
If money's not a huge question, wait for socket 939's to come out. Dual Opteron goodness + AGP graphics + non-registered memory. The best of all worlds 🙂.
 
registered memory is just hella more expensive than regular memory. If I remember correctly, the dual Opteron's are significantly cheaper than the Xeons. For that you can get almost the same performance.. your call as always but I'm always looking at things from a price perspective.
 
Originally posted by: TheBoyBlunder
If money's not a huge question, wait for socket 939's to come out. Dual Opteron goodness + AGP graphics + non-registered memory. The best of all worlds 🙂.
Click to expand...

Except Opterons remain on the Socket 940 platform.
 
Originally posted by: TerryMathews
Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
What's bad about registered memory?
Click to expand...

Registered is more expensive and introduces an extra CAS latency vs. unregistered.
Click to expand...

There has to be some kind of benefit, or it wouldn't be used. Just like ECC over crappy memory.
 
Registered memory contains a register which delays data transfers by one clock cycle to ensure data integrity. It was originally designed to help with large capacity DIMMs (using 32 chip or more), but is now standard in all capacities in most server boards, including all Opteron boards. So not only is it more expensive, it's slower than unregistered DIMMs which home user systems use.
 
In Windows, dual Xeons.
But Windows 64 will come out eventually...and Opterons are very speedy. If you need responsiveness, they'll do great, but not for computational power.
Opterons are awesome, but Windows isn't NUMA-aware, so they have to go back and forth between each other's memory too often, hurting them (though they still do great in windows for web server stuff).
In Linux they'll beat the Xeons easily.
 
if you were to wait the narcona's (sp?) are coming from intel 800 fsb and 64 bit
since the xeon's are 533 that will give a nice boost

but then again it comes down to budget and availability etc...
 
Here ya go:

Asus PC-DL Dual Xeon Board - $203


2 x 2.4 (533) Xeons - $478


2 x 512mb Mushkin pc3200 - $202


For $883, it's a bit more than the $800 you wanted to spend, but the latest revision of the PC-DL, rev. 1.05, has a working AGP/PCI lock. There is a monster thread over at 2cpu.com here devoted entirely to the PC-DL and how to overclock it. Getting the 2.4's up to 3ghz is pretty common nowadays, and a setup like that would give a dual Opt. 242 system a run for its money. One of the guys at 2cpu.com is putting together a site devoted to overclocking the PC-DL here, which is nice because the PC-DL thread is at 183 pages long now, and that is a bit much to wade through.

Anyway, this is the route I would suggest you go, for the amount you wanted to spend. Of course, if you don't want to overclock, then the dual Opteron is a nice choice as well.


For comparison:

MSI dual Opteron board - $206 - Probably the best budget dual Opteron board w/AGP


2 x Opteron 242 OEM - $614 You can save $20/CPU by buying OEM vs. retail if you go with the MSI mobo, because it comes bundled with its own, proprietary HSF's. Because of the placement of the sockets on the MSI board, you cannot use the retail Opteron HSF's.


2 x 512mb OCZ pc3200 Registered/ECC - $299 Opterons require registered/ECC memory, which is going to cost more than your normal pc3200 RAM. The reason I chose the OCZ instead of the Mushkin is because it is quality memory, plus it runs about $20 less than the 2 x 512mb Mushkin ECC memory at Newegg.


Here is a link to what I've found to be the best review showing how different SMP systems match up, including the Opteron 242's and lower to higher-end Xeons. Fleshing out the Opteron 242 system will be a little more expensive, but it will be a nice system with future upgradeability to a 64-bit OS. However, if you don't mind overclocking, the Xeon platform can give you killer performance at a lower cost, and should still last you quite a while.




 
Originally posted by: Wolfsraider
if you were to wait the narcona's (sp?) are coming from intel 800 fsb and 64 bit
since the xeon's are 533 that will give a nice boost

but then again it comes down to budget and availability etc...
Click to expand...

People are going to buy that?
 
alrighty. thanks for all the feedback.......

first, i know SMP doesnt equal 100% more performance in most situations... but when doing more than thing (burning a cd and playing a game, or working in quark and photoshop simulatneously) it really does spped up the over all experience of using your computer... my dual P3 800mhz system im on now hold's its own against 2.0+ Ghz systems that i've used.

opterons are staying on the 940 socket... but i think i read that they will not require registered memory soon (but it may be worth the extra $80 to me anyway).... what is supposed to happen is that the cpu prices will drop in may (from what i've read).

at the moment, i can get better performance, as you pointed out, out of xeon's for my $800+ (i have at least $1400 total to spend, but i want SATA raid and a couple other perks yet)... but i am thinking that opterons are more future proof. eventually there will be a numa aware, 64-bit windows OS and i'll be 5by5 for it. so i am still leaning towards opteron for this idea of future-proofness... and i really want to stick w/ SMP... if only for bragging rights 🙂

now.... apart from having to pay for registered ram.... what other features to i lose of have to pay extra for by going the opteron route....

and who wants to convince me to give up SMP or go for the Xeons? 😛

thanks again... and keep 'em comin!
 
It would be nice to get dual 246's. I know they are more, but maybe one now, and one later ?? Even one of those are killer. When you add the second, you are in heaven ! I don't know if Opterons's overclock.....
 
If you are wanting to go with Opterons because of future NUMA-awareness stuff, you will have to spend a bit more on your motherboard. The two main budget dual-Opteron boards w/AGP, the MSI K8T Master2 - FAR and the Tyan Tiger K8W, both of which run just a little over $200, will not do. IIRC, to take advantage of NUMA-aware programs, each CPU socket must have its own dedicated set of memory banks, so that both CPU's are not having to share one memory bank. And for something like that, you have to move up your budget for something like the Tyan Thunder K8W which, while being much more feature-rich than the two budget Opteron boards, also costs about 2x as much and will require a large case because the board itself is an Extended-ATX board.
 
Originally posted by: Mloot
If you are wanting to go with Opterons because of future NUMA-awareness stuff, you will have to spend a bit more on your motherboard. The two main budget dual-Opteron boards w/AGP, the MSI K8T Master2 - FAR and the Tyan Tiger K8W, both of which run just a little over $200, will not do. IIRC, to take advantage of NUMA-aware programs, each CPU socket must have its own dedicated set of memory banks, so that both CPU's are not having to share one memory bank. And for something like that, you have to move up your budget for something like the Tyan Thunder K8W which, while being much more feature-rich than the two budget Opteron boards, also costs about 2x as much and will require a large case because the board itself is an Extended-ATX board.
Click to expand...
...so in the end, unless you're getting at least 2GHz Opterons, Xeons are better for a windows desktop (at least until '06, probably)
 
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