AMD Opteron ...

[Zenoth]

Since the past two months or so, I've seen many posts of suggestions for AMD Opteron processors.

Well, the information I was certain to know, was about the available models of the Opterons, from my local store's web-site.

And the thing I immediately noticed, was their price, on the Dual-Core side, starting at $785.99 U.S, for the 1.8 Ghz model, namely the Opteron 265.

I was shocked by such a price, and asked to myself "those must operate differently, or have some sort of new architecture better for specific things that I'm simply not aware of, or they are new models made to surpass the X2 series this soon ?". And other questions.

I haven't had the time to follow the CPU market since the X2 3800+ was released, and it's been some time already.

Now I'm asking here ... what are Opterons ? To me, at the moment, seing all those topics about how good Opterons are, and I know almost nothing about those. They simply came out of the big blue.

Are they simply better than Athlons ? Even single Core Athlon 64s ? Are they good for gaming ? Are those Opterons the new "hot stuff" of the recent months that was already there before but suddenly revealed itself to the gamers and other PC users as efficient processors ?

The last thing I know about Opterons, is they are Socket 940, so I tell myself they are different in terms of architecture. But are they actually better ? Better in multitasking, better in gaming, better in encoding/decoding ... are they just ... ya know, better overall ? Or are they simply good over-clockers and nothing more ?

If I had a choice between an Opteron 265, and an X2 4400+, which one should I get for gaming mostly (and also multitasking) ?

Yes I know I have many questions, but, man ... when I learned today my cousin got an Opteron (he had Intel products for the past five years), I told myself that something must be worth it somewhere. And I must know what is it, or what are those advantages everyone pretty much seems to see.

The main reason behind this thread was partially mentioned earlier. I had a serious, and un-lucky accident with my X2 4400+ (bent pins doomed its performance rating overall, and there was no way going back), so a friend offered me his aging Clawhammer 3500+ until I get a new one. So now I tell myself "wait ... maybe those Opteron is the new way to go, ask them, and you'll know if you're still better with an X2 again".

So, thanks for your time, and help.

 

[davegraham]

first off, you're missing the entire point by looking at 2xx series opterons. 2xx series opterons are positioned for file servers, and higher end workstations and are able to be used in 2p boards. they are also dual core capable (26x and up) so, theoretically, you could utilize them in a 2p/4 core board. that being said, the 1xx series is the line that most closely lines up with the x2 series. the 14x/15x processors are single core while the 16x/17x/18x lines are all dual core. The 2xx series is s940, the 1xx series is available in s939 (and s940, but that's rarely talked about).

dave

 

[Zenoth]

Ok, thanks for clarifying that up.

Then, the basics of my main question remains, with the change of model numbers.

Are Opteron 16x/17x/18x Dual-Core processors better than the Athlon X2 series overall ?

 

[theMan]

well, they are basically the same, but people here really like them because they overclock like crazy. people are gettin unbelievable overclocks with these. they used to be cheeper than the X2's but AMD decided to stop selling them because people were getting too good overclocks so, now they are rare and expensive.

 

[Nocturnal]

As far as overclocking and a better memory controller, yes.

 

[Zenoth]

Alright. Thanks guys.

Then I'll stay with X2s.

 

[Achilles17]

Even the lower-end opterons have 1mb of L2 cache per core, wheras some of the X2s have only 512kb per core. Just something to look out for.