Whats the Near Term deal with Opterons and pricing?

[OatMan]

I am very confused with all the volitility in the AMD and Intel price war.

AMD seems to be EOLing all the 2x1MB CPUs except FX and one or two high end X2s on AM2.

I see everyone and their mother selling off their 939 DC cpus and wanted to get one now, but everyone is selling their Opty 165s and 170s at silly price premiums, so as an OCer with Top of the line equipment looking to stay with 939 for a while I was looking to get an Opty 165 for a second machine...

I figured that now would be a good time with impending price drops and switch to AM2, but Opty prices seem not to be budging.

What is the deal with Opteron 165s for 939? Are they EOL and no longer going to be available, or will there be a price drop???

I can't find much info and want some advice before I plop down $280 for an OEM 165.

Please help!
TIA

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Opteron prices are doing nothing but going up, they are great chips and worth their premium. I paid $505 for my 175

 

[sindows]

They're just overhyped, thats all. AFAIK, most 06 X2s are overclocking just as well...

 

[lopri]

Simple. AMD is EOL'ing 2 x 1MB L2 caches on X2 lin, and will not make many 1 x 2MB Opterons. That way they can keep the Opteron prices on high end, and can cut the prices on X2 end. Still I'd suggest to wait a little longer if you have already been so. Once Conroe arrives and becomes the real thing, there might be some decent dual-core Opteron deals cause I know some people are desperate to get rid of Opterons for the Conroes.

 

[OatMan]

Originally posted by: lopri
Once Conroe arrives and becomes the real thing, there might be some decent dual-core Opteron deals cause I know some people are desperate to get rid of Opterons for the Conroes.

Thats what I was thinking, but only a few weeks away I thought for sure I'd see more reasonable offers...

I thought I might have missed some reports, official or otherwise, but I guess I didn't.

I agree that to a degree the Opty's are a bit overhyped. The X2s do OC almost as well now, but that wasn't the case for a long while, hence the hype. But if I'm plunking down the dough to gamble an OC, then I'll pay a bit for the supposedly better Opty build and test QC and the bigger cache.

I'm just not interested in new memory/cpu/motherboard all at once which is what I'd have to do to go AM2 or Conroe. I have RAM and 939 MBs laying around...

Thanks for the responses.

 

[keldog7]

They've needed something to distinguish the Opty from the 2x1MB X2 for a while now. As it was, they were marketing virtually identical chips under two different strategies...a bit pricey, and confusing to the customer. I wouldn't be surprised if they marketed the new X2s as only available with 2x512 , and left the newer Opterons with 2x1MB.

...or maybe they are just trying to simplify their production lines? Ultimately, only AMD knows - maybe they're planning something to counter the new Intel chips (which are beating the pants off of the X2s/Optys, in case no-one is noticing)

-A

 

[coldpower27]

Originally posted by: keldog7
They've needed something to distinguish the Opty from the 2x1MB X2 for a while now. As it was, they were marketing virtually identical chips under two different strategies...a bit pricey, and confusing to the customer. I wouldn't be surprised if they marketed the new X2s as only available with 2x512 , and left the newer Opterons with 2x1MB.

...or maybe they are just trying to simplify their production lines? Ultimately, only AMD knows - maybe they're planning something to counter the new Intel chips (which are beating the pants off of the X2s/Optys, in case no-one is noticing)

-A

From the roadmaps we have seen now on Anandtech:

http://dailytech.com/Article.aspx?newsid=3170

It looks like 2x1MB will make a return but at 2.6GHZ and higher speed grades only, which will place it at around 500US per processor. They are just getting rid of 2x1MB on parts which have prices below 400US.