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Yet another "What To Buy" Thread! Opteron vs. San Diego

G

gnomepunk

Senior member
Venice in my sig has gone belly up. RMA my mobo thinking that was the issue, but my comp still won't boot with the new mobo. POST's with a "CPU running in safe mode. Please reset CPU frequency in BIOS." error message. I got it OEM about 6 months ago so no dice on the RMA. CPU warranties suck.

So far I've narrowed it down to these two chips.
Athlon64 3700+ San Diego $233
or
Opteron 170 $402

I'm looking to buy one of these chips on Monday. I consider myself an experienced overclocker and have had good luck with all my AMD chips minus the Venice. I do play alot of games and when I'm working on my main computer at home I do alot of multitasking as well, so I can somewhat justify the dual-core opty. But at almost half the price, the san diego would oc nicely and keep me happy til I pull the dual-core trigger sometime next year. I'm hoping to add a 7800GT next month, but obviously the opty will put a larger hole in my (married) wallet. I've got a copy of XPx64 through my college's volume license agreement that I'm thinking about loading, but I've still got my copy of XP Pro I could reinstall as well. Where is the best bang for the buck? I think I almost have my wife convinced to let me get the 170, but that might knock the 7800GT off the christmas list. 🙁

Edit: This chip will live in the Ultra-D. Also, which one will easily hit 250fsb so I can take advantage of my PC4000-VX. I've gotten this board to 295 with the venice, but the memory stops at around 255.
 
The Opteron is a good CPU but you need the 7800GT more I guess.

Go with the San Diego. And buy a BOXED one, the warranty is 3 years.
OEM CPUs depends on the store policy. Boxed you deal directly with AMD.
 
If you can afford it, the 170 would pwn.

But really, if the primary use is gamimg, check out the Opteron 146 & grab that 7800GT 🙂
 
The way my wife sees it is if I get the chip I "want" then I won't "want" a new one any time soon. I'm leaning more toward the 170, but I know I could be very happy with the Sandy or the 146.

Damn, Usually I know exactly what I want, but I'm a little stuck this time.
 
Got too much stuff on the HD to reformat. Besides it still won't go into the BIOS w/ the HD unplugged.

After the "CPU running in safe mode. Please reset CPU frequency in BIOS." error message it says "Press F1 to continue, DEL to enter CMOS." If I hit F1 the screen goes black and my LCD says "Video Mode not supported." If I hit DEL it goes to a black screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left corner. I've been over at DFI-Street trying to figure out if its the mobo, but after the RMA I still get the same error message.

I really want to get the 170, but it's going to be a hard sell. You guys think the 939 single core Opterons are better than a Sandy?
 
Dang that is a nice price, but I really don't want to buy another OEM proc. I'm probably going to go with the San Diego or a 144/146. I'll go dual-core when I have a chance to save and get the parts that I really want.
 
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