Single core OR Dual core Opteron?

[chadder]

Hey guys, as you can tell, I'm brand-spanking new on this forum. I asked this over at tomshardware forums, but only one guy really helped me out.

Ok, I'm on a relatively tight budget right now, but my old motherboard, memory, and cpu has gone kaput on me and I am in need of new suff. Here is what I am thinkin on getting:

ASRock 939Dual (for my x800xt AIW i just bought a month ago)
2gigs G.SKill DDR500 or 1gig OCZ Platinum PC4800
Opteron 146 or 165

Now here's the catch. If i get the 165, I wont be able to afford the 2 gigs of memory (which I want). So I can get either the 165 with 1gig, or the 146 and 2 gigs...IM SO TORN!!! (I am fully aware of the overclocking possibilities of both)

Please give me a reason to your suggestions.

Thanks!

 

[dguy6789]

I would get the 165 and 1Gb of ram because you can always upgrade later. With a 146 and 2GB of ram, if you ever wanted to get a 165, you would have to worry about what to do with your old 146.

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

165 and 1x1GB

Easier to upgrade in the future that way.

 

[Bobthelost]

165 and 2gb of BUDGET RAM.

 

[JonnyBlaze]

Welcome to the forums.


I would also go with the 165. Chances are dual core will offer more benifit to you over 2 gigs of ram anyways.

 

[vanvock]

Hello & Welcome, It really depends on what you are going to do with the system. I got the 146 because I don't do much multi-tasking, if you get 1 stick ram you won't have dual channel. If it's a gaming rig I would probably go for the 146 & 2gigs because it may be a while before the dual core helps out there but the ram will be good now, again depending on what games you play.

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: Bobthelost
165 and 2gb of BUDGET RAM.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

 

[Sqube]

Originally posted by: Bobthelost
165 and 2gb of BUDGET RAM.

Co-sign.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Yeah, you don't need premium RAM at all. Get the 165 and 2x1GB value RAM.

 

[bob4432]

what do you use the machine for?

 

[JDrake]

Originally posted by: Sqube

Originally posted by: Bobthelost
165 and 2gb of BUDGET RAM.

Co-sign.

Tangent.

 

[MegaRoll]

Originally posted by: joedrake

Originally posted by: Sqube

Originally posted by: Bobthelost
165 and 2gb of BUDGET RAM.

Co-sign.

Tangent.

Sine

 

[chadder]

I use it for a little bit of DVD encoding, but mostly gaming.

Probably 98% game machine.

I'm leaning towards the 146 and 2 gigs, I'll see what i can do with budget memory and the 165. I hear the 165's as of late have had some problems from the toms' forums. Will having budget memory affect an overclock on the 165? I was looking at that memory 'cause it is only about $40-50 more expensive than budget stuff. I also was taking into consideration overclocking with memory at 1:1 with the processor. I've been using my XP too long; I dont know much about overclocking a64's.

(possibility)
With socket AM2 comming out, I was looking at using the 146 for a while, then upgrading to a dual core AM2 chip once prices settle down a little bit (and clock speeds increase)

 

[vanvock]

I think the 939's will be kickin' for a while yet so I'm not worried about the AM2, I'll wait for the F when they do a real upgrade. There is a lot of good info here on OC'ing AMD's & using value RAM. You can use a memory divider to help get a good OC.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Originally posted by: MegaRoll

Originally posted by: joedrake

Originally posted by: Sqube

Originally posted by: Bobthelost
165 and 2gb of BUDGET RAM.

Cosine

Tangent.

Sine

Fixed. Oh, and
Cotangent
Cosine
Cosecant.

There.

To the OP: Athlon 64s/Opterons aren't very bandwidth hungry, so there's not going to be much of a performance difference between super-expensive premium RAM and value RAM. You can run a memory divider when overclocking, and all will be well. 2x1GB of value RAM should only cost about $140.

 

[ShadowBlade]

Why does everyone insist on buying the fastest RAM they can find? Unless you plan on overclocking to the point where a quality phase change cooler would be needed, DDR500 is about as high as most AMD users would need.

Just get DDR400 Value RAM and an Opteron 165

 

[dguy6789]

There is no performance difference between a 1GB stick of pc3200 that costs $70 and another that costs $250+. All the expensive ram is for, is for suckers and uninformed buyers. Buying super expensive "low latency high performance ram" is like buying a geforce fx5200 with 256 or 512MB of memory and thinking it will be faster than a 128MB one.