will this opteron 165 setup overclock to 2.4ghz?

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MrX8503

Diamond Member
Oct 23, 2005
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so my dad wants a new computer for the family. So i decided to give him my old one and buy a new one for myself. Since this is nearly the end for s939 this is about the cheapest things are gonna get. i shaved off about $300 or so by not going with DFI mobo, good ram, 485w requirement psu from dfi. So i was wondering if i made these sacrifices will i be able to at least reach 2.4ghz?

opteron 165 $328 from zzf

artic cooling freezer 64pro $35.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835185125

epox nforce4 ultra 105.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813123236

gskill value ram 2gb 148.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231039

evga 7800gt 256mb $285
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130256

FSP fortron source psu 450w $50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817104954

about $951 without shipping

one last thing whats the difference between this evga card and neweggs other evga card? they look the same.
 
bob4432

bob4432

Lifer
Sep 6, 2003
11,726
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in theory yes, but as you know, ymmv with o/c. i have seen 165s to 2.5GHz on stock V....other took 1.5V
 
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MrX8503

Diamond Member
Oct 23, 2005
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yeah i know what you mean. If i can reach 2.4ghz (4800+) performance i will be happy that i didnt have to spend $300 extra. So you think that memory would be ok? I heard there is no performance difference on a64's between cheap ram and expensive ram. I'm just worried about the ram being able to overclock with the cpu. or should i just get this instead?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231047

has heat spreaders.
 
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Tostada

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
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I'd say you've got just about a 100% chance of hitting 2.5 GHz with the stock heatsink, but you're absolutely not going to do it synchronously without good DDR500.

Personally, I think you're totally wasting money getting a $40 heatsink ($5 shipping) and $153 RAM. Have you seen the stock heatsinks on those Opterons? Forget the heatsink unless you're really concerned about trying to get a fan that's a tiny bit quieter.

I'd seriously consider getting the Mushkin XP DDR500 with the money you're saving on the heatsink. It can run an Opteron at 2.5 GHz with default timings and default voltage:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146397

GSkill has some DDR500 for $197, but it's not as good as the Mushkin, you have to manually set all the timings because it's got a problem being detected correctly.

Waiting for rebates sucks... that stuff should be back in stock at ZZF pretty soon for cheaper.

There's a performance difference between expensive and cheap RAM. It's just that the difference between running CL2 and CL3 is really small (and arguably the difference between 1T and 2T is even small). When you're running an Opteron at HTT278 to achieve 2.5 GHz, though, it's more significant. You're talking about the difference between DDR556 sync and DDR370 async with a 4/3 divider. That's an outright 50% hit to RAM bandwidth without considering the slight penalty for running async.

I'm not saying everything stresses your RAM bandwidth. Depending on what you do, it might not affect anything but some irrelevant benchmarks.

 
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Tostada

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Keep in mind the X2 3800 overclocks just as well, is cheaper, and it has a higher multiplier (so you get 2.5 GHz at DDR500 instead of DDR556). It has a worse heatsink than the Opteron, but it's still good enough. The extra cache on the Opteron only gives you a 1.0% to 1.5% boost.

I just got an X2 3800, the Mushkin XP DDR500, and a DFI Ultra-D. Just threw it together and set the HTT to 250 and it's doing 2.5 GHz DDR500 with all the timings stock. Haven't tried overclocking more than that.

The Opteron is better, but your RAM is really the weak link with these CPUs.
 
G

GamerExpress

Banned
Aug 28, 2005
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Well 2.4 should be obtainable, but you never know for sure. Sometimes it's the luck of the draw with each CPU, I know it's possible to get a bum processor that just flat out sucks when trying to overclock.
 
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Bobthelost

Diamond Member
Dec 1, 2005
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You'll get a nice overclock no matter what RAM you buy, obviously better/faster RAM is good, but it's not very economical. If you're building this PC for gaming then the money is best saved on RAM and spent on GPU.

You can overclock the CPU using budget RAM, you can use RAM dividers to leave it running at near stock speeds, but overclocking the RAM too is best.

E2A: I like the build, a very good budget concious system.
 
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Ike0069

Diamond Member
Apr 28, 2003
4,276
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Originally posted by: Tostada
The Opteron is better, but your RAM is really the weak link with these CPUs.
Click to expand...

Not with dividers.

I'm running 2.7GHz (from 2.0) with value RAM. Running at 150 Divider, so RAM is at 202 MHz.
 
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Bobthelost

Diamond Member
Dec 1, 2005
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The differences between a 3800X2 and 165 aren't all that great.

For gaming i'd go with the 165 where the added cache will boost performance

For number crunching i'd go 3800X2 where the cache is rather irrelevant in real terms.
 
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Tostada

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Originally posted by: Ike0069
Originally posted by: Tostada
The Opteron is better, but your RAM is really the weak link with these CPUs.
Click to expand...

Not with dividers.

I'm running 2.7GHz (from 2.0) with value RAM. Running at 150 Divider, so RAM is at 202 MHz.
Click to expand...

It's 1.8 default, right?

Most people don't hit 2.7 on those. Most I've seen don't get past 2.5 on stock voltage.

But if you can hit 2.7, that'd be great to have cheap RAM and a 150 divider. But how many boards allow 150? Usually it's just 100,133,166,200.

 
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Tostada

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Originally posted by: Bobthelost
The differences between a 3800X2 and 165 aren't all that great.

For gaming i'd go with the 165 where the added cache will boost performance

For number crunching i'd go 3800X2 where the cache is rather irrelevant in real terms.
Click to expand...

If you want to see the difference of the Opteron core (1MBx2) and the X2 3800 core (512Kx2), look at benchmarks between the X2 4600 and the X2 4800. They're both 2.4 GHz, but the 4800 has 1MBx2 cache.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/11/21/the_mother_of_all_cpu_charts_2005/

You'll see that they perform pretty closely in gaming. The extra cache gives you:

Wolfenstein 3D: 1.5% faster
Quake III: 2.1% faster
Doom III 1280x1024: 0.6% faster
Doom III 1024x768: 2.2% faster
UT2004: 4.7% faster
FarCry: 3.0% faster
3DMark05 graphic: 0.1% faster
3DMark05 CPU: 2.0% faster

The UT2004 performance difference is getting significant, but it's still not going to make the difference in cache a big concern for a gamer. You have to look at the whole situation. If getting the X2 means not running a divider, that's going to make a biggere difference than the cache.

Also, if you're talking about gaming, simply having another $33.50 to spend on your video card is going to make more difference than the cache.

Obviously the Opteron is a little better, and its heatsink is better, but you have to look closely at how the multiplier affects the specific rig you're looking at.
 
PingSpike

PingSpike

Lifer
Feb 25, 2004
21,758
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Originally posted by: Bobthelost
You'll get a nice overclock no matter what RAM you buy, obviously better/faster RAM is good, but it's not very economical. If you're building this PC for gaming then the money is best saved on RAM and spent on GPU.

You can overclock the CPU using budget RAM, you can use RAM dividers to leave it running at near stock speeds, but overclocking the RAM too is best.

E2A: I like the build, a very good budget concious system.
Click to expand...

Yeah its a pretty big waste of money, dollar to performance wise, to buy high end ram. It stinks that more boards don't have more divider options in the bios, but you can often use the "inbetween" ones with the A64 tweaker tool. I ended up getting my corsair value ram up to 221 at 2.7v and stock timings so I didn't end up needing it.
 
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Bobthelost

Diamond Member
Dec 1, 2005
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But dropping from 150 to 133 won't be a killer either, it might even be possible to run the RAM @ 166 instead which would be even better.

Too may variables to say "this is best in all cases".
 
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Tostada

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Originally posted by: PingSpike
Yeah its a pretty big waste of money, dollar to performance wise, to buy high end ram. It stinks that more boards don't have more divider options in the bios, but you can often use the "inbetween" ones with the A64 tweaker tool. I ended up getting my corsair value ram up to 221 at 2.7v and stock timings so I didn't end up needing it.
Click to expand...

I usually get Corsair ValueSlect myself, but it's not some huge waste of money to get better stuff.

If you're talking about 2GB kits, it's $150 for that insanely cheap DDR400 G.Skill "we don't even have a lifetime warranty" RAM, and it's $200 for the inredibly good DDR500 Mushkin. That doesn't seem like such a big waste of money to me.

Then again, I guess that's why the Mushkin XP price keeps going up and it's out of stock everywhere.
 
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MrX8503

Diamond Member
Oct 23, 2005
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thanx for the help everyone, i didnt think i would get this many replies. so i guess i'm going with the x2 then. And i would be able to use the stock hsf on this?

So the real question is cosair value select vs. mushkin xp. coasair with dividers or mushkin xp at stock. Whats the liklihood that i wont be able to overclock well with value ram? I read someone saying that some boards may not have 150 dividers. DOes the epox nf4 mobo have sufficient amount of options for dividers?

Thanx zebo for the mwave suggestion. If i can use stock hsf and go with a x2 instead i would be saving around $65 and maybe that savings would justify mushkin xp. Or towards a better vid card, but i would like to budget as much as i can meaning i'm leaning towards value ram unless it doesnt mesh well with overclocking.

EDIT: remember 2.4ghz would make me happy. 2.7ghz is something i'm not worried about but if i can reach that great.
 
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Tostada

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
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I've never heard of anybody having any problems with an X2 3800 at 2.5 GHz using the stock heatsink and stock voltage. If you're going to try for much past that, you might have to turn the voltage up, and it would be nice to have the better Opteron heatsink or get a nice big Zalman or something.

You seem to have a pretty good handle on things. You just need to decide what your priorities are. For example, if you get the X2 3800 and DDR500 RAM, you're pretty much going to throw it together, set the HTT to 250 and be done with it. CPU at 2.5 GHz and RAM at 500. Maybe push it up a little more and see how hot it gets at 2.6 with a little more voltage.

The Opteron would basically be more fun just to tweak, if that's your thing. The price really comes out pretty close if you compare an Opteron 165 with DDR400 to an X2 3800 with DDR500, and if you can get it stable at 2.7 with the 150 (3/4) divider so the RAM's at DDR400 like Ike0069 said he's doing, that's a really good setup, too.

If you're going to be practical, there's nothing wrong with getting the X2 3800 and value RAM. Even if your board doesn't support the 150 divider, it'll have the 166 (5/6) divider. So if you set HTT to 250 and set the divider to 166, you'll be running the CPU at 2.5 GHz and the RAM at DDR417, which isn't going to be a problem. Decent stuff like Corsair or Kingston value RAM isn't going to complain.

If you look at AT's memory test, keeping the CPU at 2.4 GHz and changing memory speed:
http://anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2676&p=12

You'll see that the difference between DDR400 and DDR500 or 533 is about a 2.5%-3.0% improvement. That's no big deal, but it's a little more of an improvement that you get out of the extra cache in the Opteron. They don't do any asynchronous tests, though. It'd be nice to see what the extra penalty is for running a divider.
 
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MrX8503

Diamond Member
Oct 23, 2005
4,529
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thankyou everyone for the help and suggestions. once my tax return comes back i will be getting this new system. I think this is my final build.

x2 3800 + epox ultra nf4 mobo = mwave 394.07
cosair value ram 2gb (2x 1gb) = newegg 162.80
evga 7800gt 256mb = newegg 289.89
fotron 450w psu = newegg 56.98

total with shipping is $903.74

one last question, should i buy ram heat spreaders? Also which brand of 7800 gt's should i look at?
 
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Tostada

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
1,789
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Fortrons seriously aren't that special unless you get the Blue Storm. As much as the Blue Storms look like they're just painted versions of the cheaper ones, they're not. I mean, they're decent, as decent as cheap Antecs, but for $13 less the XClio 450W is a little better.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817189003

Although I guess it is out of stock right now. I just think I'd rather have the Blue Storm 400W than the regular 450W.

You should be fine without heat spreaders. If you want them, it's usually a better deal to just get RAM that comes with them. For example, Patriot makes decent stuff with a big blue heat spreader that's $2 less than the Corsair.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820220079

There's nothing wrong with getting the XFX GF 7800GT. It's got a $20 rebate. And the box is interesting. :)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150108
 
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Tostada

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Originally posted by: Zebo
Can;t swing a couple xtra for these?
Twinx2048-3200c2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145574


maybe save with this PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817182008

I run the 550... 450 is great too check reviews
Click to expand...

Come on, now. Why would you recommend that he get that memory? It's a good deal, but if he's going to spend more on RAM, he'd get a lot more benefit out of running DDR500 synchronous than running DDR400 CL2 asynchronous.

And I'm pretty impressed with the reviews on that PSU. I never would've thought something that said "Rosewill Value Series" could be anything but crap, but it's not ATX 2.0 and it doesn't have a PCI-E connector. It's a little old-school for a guy overclocking an X2 with a 7800GT, dontcha think?
 
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