What CPU to get

[burney]

I need a CPU. I will be using my PC for some development and some casual gaming such as counter strike, Unreal Tournament, Call of duty.
not a hardcore gamer
what should i get single core AMD opteron or dual core opteron..
I am looking for someting cheap which i can OC crazy

 

[essasin]

Get an opteron 144. They are cheap and oc very well.

 

[burney]

its 1.8 ghz i guess if i get good ram I can OC it to 2.5?

 

[KoolDrew]

Originally posted by: burney
its 1.8 ghz i guess if i get good ram I can OC it to 2.5?

You don't need good RAM at all, just stick with value RAM. Also, average is around 2.7GHz from what I have seen.

 

[burney]

corsair value ram should be good enough?

 

[buzzsaw13]

Monarch has an OEM opteron 144 for about $130, theyre great overclockers.

 

[kmmatney]

You don't need expensive RAM, as you just set a memory divider to run the RAM at stock speed, while using a higher front side bus. For instance, I'm running my RAM at its stock speed of 200 MHz, even though my overclock is over 50%. The memory divider is almost like being able to change the multiplier of the cpu. You do want a motherboard with some overclocking abilities, but again, you don't need anything special, just the memory divider which most motherboards have, and the ability for a 300 MHz FSB.

At 1.8 GHz, you set the memory diver to run the memory at 133 MHz, while the front side bus runs at 200 MHz. You then set the FSB at 300 MHz which overclocks the cpu and memory by 50%, giving you 200 MHz memory (stock speed) and a 2.4 GHz cpu. You can probably bump up the FSB to 312 MHz to get to 2.5 GHz. With 1 MB of cache, that would be an awesome cpu for the money.

 

[strummer]

Originally posted by: burney
I need a CPU. I will be using my PC for some development and some casual gaming such as counter strike, Unreal Tournament, Call of duty.
not a hardcore gamer
what should i get single core AMD opteron or dual core opteron..
I am looking for someting cheap which i can OC crazy

That 144 is really at a sweet price point. In the last two months I have assembled 4 builds - two with Opteron 146's, one with a 3500 Venice and one with a 3700 Venice. They are all good, but I would say definitely go with some kind of Opteron and OC it. OC'ing it is easy and you really are going to get the most value there.

 

[burney]

currently i have a Gigabyte GA-K8NSC nforce3 motherboard. I am amd64 3200+, i am running stable at 2.4 ghz on a 3 yr old pc 2700 ram...(had to underclock the ram)
so i get a opteron 144 and a pair of valur ram should I able to get some performance gain...
getting a opteron 144 should not be a problem as it is very cheap and I can sell my current 3200+.. and I think value ram should cost around $70 for 1 gig kit..

 

[svsnow]

is your 3200 a 754?
well why not just get soem better ram and oc your current cpu

 

[KoolDrew]

corsair value ram should be good enough?

Yes, it will work fine with a divider. You may even get lucky and get ones with UCCC chips. I did and mine can get up to 258MHz @ 2.5-3-3-8. It can go a little higher with looser timings, but it doesn't get much farther. That's a fantastic overclock for such cheap RAM. Of course, YMMV and you may not even be able to get a couple MHz over stock. This still won't be a problem when using a memory divider though.

You then set the FSB at 300 MHz which overclocks the cpu and memory by 50%, giving you 200 MHz memory (stock speed) and a 2.4 GHz cpu.

The stock muliplier on the Opteron 144 is 9x, giving you 2.7GHz/ Bumping the HTT up to 312 would give you 2808MHz. I know you can runa lower multiplier and in many cases running a lower multiplier and higher HTT may be the best option to try to keep both CPU and memory at the max. I was just pointing that out so the OP doesn't think he needs a 350 HTT just to reach 2.8GHz. Which he would need with an 8x multiplier.

so i get a opteron 144 and a pair of valur ram should I able to get some performance gain...

The Opteron 144 should overclock higher. However, how high of an HTT are you able to attain with that motherboard. If it is a crappy overclocker it may be best to either buy a new one or get an Opteron 146 for the 10x multiplier.

well why not just get soem better ram and oc your current cpu

Because it wouldn't help any.

 

[burney]

i have a 3200+ E3 stepping... let me try OC this, i will be getting RAM soon.i have a Gigabyte GA-K8NSC nforce3 .. do not know how well this mobo OCs