which opteron to buy?

[DarkManX4lf]

I'm thinking to pick up a opteron 170 or a 175. Which cpu would be best for overclocking? Or maybe even a 180 ?

 

[MarcVenice]

why not a 165, you can probably get it to 3ghz, but theres no gaurantee that a 170 or 175 will do 3.2 or 3.4ghz. And if it is gonna replace the x2 3800+, I wouldn't even bother.

 

[DarkManX4lf]

Well I'm going to build a similar setup only thing is its going to have 2x512 kingston value ram, same mobo though, but isnt the higher multipliers better for stablility while pushing up the cpu fsb?

 

[Puffnstuff]

I wouldn't even both with it and move on to something that has a little upgrade life left to it. S939 mb's are scarce, I know I had to hunt one down for my parents last week. If you really want to build and there are any compusa's near you they're clearing them out and actually have a few s939 in stock. That is where I found the bfg nf4ultra mb I got my parents. I would really encourage you to move up to am2 or 775 for a new build.

 

[DarkManX4lf]

Originally posted by: Puffnstuff
I wouldn't even both with it and move on to something that has a little upgrade life left to it. S939 mb's are scarce, I know I had to hunt one down for my parents last week. If you really want to build and there are any compusa's near you they're clearing them out and actually have a few s939 in stock. That is where I found the bfg nf4ultra mb I got my parents. I would really encourage you to move up to am2 or 775 for a new build.

Well the thing is I already have a 939dual-sata2 mobo that is just collecting dust, and a pair of 512mb Kingston Value DDR400 ram, so instead of paying alot of money for a c2d or a am2 (buying new ram vid card, mobo etc) I thought i would just buya new processor, I have all the other components needed (case psu, hard drive...etc)

 

[Estrella]

Buy the 165 and do not waste your money on the higher numbered series if you are looking to overclock. They all overclock to about the same. Newegg was shipping w/e lot was the good OC'ing one last i checked

 

[Captante]

If the price difference is small it might be worth getting a 170 over a 165 because the 10 multiplier will make your life a little easier, but if its more then $20 don't bother & grab the 165.

 

[Noubourne]

165. The mobos do such high FSB that there is no need for the higher multi.

 

[DarkManX4lf]

Originally posted by: Noubourne
165. The mobos do such high FSB that there is no need for the higher multi.

but what if you have value ram ?

 

[wingless]

buy the highest Opteron you can afford if you're going to get one. Also be sure you have a good cooler.

I just got an Opty 185 with a Vigor MonsoonII Thermal Electric cooler. I have my 185 @ 2875mhz with a 250fsb and stock voltage without even installing the new cooler yet. I'm hoping to get 3200mhz out of it after the Monsoon gets installed. I also happen to have some Mushkin DDR500 2GB(2x1gb) hence the 250fsb for some good overclocking action. RAM that can handle high FSB is one of the keys to really good overclocking. You'll achieve higher overall performance if your RAM and FSB are synchronous.

I'm trying to keep my s939 alive until 2008 when all the new video cards and processor from both Intel and AMD will be out.

Let us know what you get and how well you do.

 

[Noubourne]

Originally posted by: DarkManX4lf

Originally posted by: Noubourne
165. The mobos do such high FSB that there is no need for the higher multi.

but what if you have value ram ?

Then use a divider.

It's a waste of money to buy a higher Opty, because almost all of them OC to the same speed, and there are no chipset limitations with Nforce 4 that make it more valuable to have a higher multi.

 

[Noubourne]

Originally posted by: wingless
You'll achieve higher overall performance if your RAM and FSB are synchronous.

No, you won't.

You'll be forced to spend a lot more money on RAM, more money on a CPU, and then you'll limit your OC by the speed that your RAM is capable of. It will double or triple the cost of your rig, and lower the performance by limiting the CPU OC.

 

[wingless]

Originally posted by: Noubourne

Originally posted by: DarkManX4lf

Originally posted by: Noubourne
165. The mobos do such high FSB that there is no need for the higher multi.

but what if you have value ram ?

Then use a divider.

It's a waste of money to buy a higher Opty, because almost all of them OC to the same speed, and there are no chipset limitations with Nforce 4 that make it more valuable to have a higher multi.

Having a higher Opty makes OC'ing easier. Your 165 has like a 9x multiplier. My 185 has a 13x multiplier. I don't have to screw with my FSB a lot to get clocks out of it like you do. Playing with the FSB and getting your ram and fsb out of sync increases latency enough to notice if you're serious (I admit I have a problem) about performance differences. Having a higher Opty like a 175 makes it a lot easier to overclock without having to mess around with the FSB too much.

Of course if you don't care then just be sure you have an NF4 board because these bitches go to 300+ FSB like nothing!!

BTW Noubourne, good call on the Seasonic M12 700watt PSU! It does a pretty good job with these AMP hungry DFI boards.

 

[DarkManX4lf]

With the asrock 939dual-sata2 board I can go past 300fsb, but I'm just worried about the ram I'm going to use (kingston value ram)

 

[BlueWeasel]

Originally posted by: DarkManX4lf
With the asrock 939dual-sata2 board I can go past 300fsb, but I'm just worried about the ram I'm going to use (kingston value ram)

Just use the 133 divider then. At 300 FSB, the RAM will be running at stock, and even if you go as high as 315Mzh, the RAM will still be running at only ~210Mhz. Even the Kingston VR should be able to take that with a bump in voltage.

 

[hydroponik]

If you have a NF4 mobo, stick with the cheaper 165s imo. Not worth it to spend so much money on dated tech, where the cheaper chip will perform the same with a little extra tweaking.

 

[DarkManX4lf]

Whats with the the opteron prices though? The AMD site says that the 165 is supposed to be $95 and the 180 is supposed to be $168, but no one is selling at those prices.

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: wingless
Having a higher Opty makes OC'ing easier. Your 165 has like a 9x multiplier. My 185 has a 13x multiplier. I don't have to screw with my FSB a lot to get clocks out of it like you do. Playing with the FSB and getting your ram and fsb out of sync increases latency enough to notice if you're serious (I admit I have a problem) about performance differences. Having a higher Opty like a 175 makes it a lot easier to overclock without having to mess around with the FSB too much.

While having the higher multiplier may make OCing easier (because of the extra options available to you), there is no such thing as "ram and fsb out of sync" on this platform. For A64-based architectures, memory speed is actually a divider of the full CPU speed (see Memory tab in CPU-z) and so there is no inherent penalty from using a apparent memory divider in BIOS, because even the so-called 1:1 setting is actually a divider.

Because the actual divider is always an integer, the resulting memory speeds may be lower than the standard ratios of 5:6, 2:3 etc, but there's definitely no "increase[d] latency" as a direct result of using the various dividers.

 

[f4phantom2500]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819103588


http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819103586

beyond those two, the price increases are ridiculous; $156 for the 175 and it just goes up from there. Either of those will probably get you at least close to 3GHz.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: DarkManX4lf
With the asrock 939dual-sata2 board I can go past 300fsb, but I'm just worried about the ram I'm going to use (kingston value ram)

That's amazing. My ASRock Dual-Sata2 only goes to 275FSB. I had to invest in a DFI Infinity NF4 board off of Ebay for my Opty 165, because it needs more than 300FSB to reach its full potential. For that reason alone, I wish I had gone with an Opty 170. I could have used a cheaper mobo then.

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
That's amazing. My ASRock Dual-Sata2 only goes to 275FSB. I had to invest in a DFI Infinity NF4 board off of Ebay for my Opty 165, because it needs more than 300FSB to reach its full potential. For that reason alone, I wish I had gone with an Opty 170. I could have used a cheaper mobo then.

The older BIOS versions on the Dual-SATA2 refused to boot at HTT>275, but the later BIOS updates remove this limit. 3GHz is quite possible with the lower DC Opterons on this board (10x300 or 9x333) provided you use the right dividers: currently using 325HTT to max out my Ballistix at 266MHz.

 

[Cybercraig]

+1! The 170's rule. $115.00 shipped at the Egg now.