Gaming on an opteron

[ToiletDuck]

Ok I know the opteron is just an athlon64 with more cache. but as we've seen from the Intel extreme edition a jump in cache can make a good difference. I'm going to get myself a new setup and was wondering how the benchmarks of a opteron at 1.4 and 1.6ghz are. I was thinking of going dual again but if I did I'd just do it with the 240s since they are an arm and a leg cheaper. They only run at 1.4ghz but i figure they can do some crunching and I should be able to up them a little. And since I can put faster ram then what i'm running now along with an agp 8x board i'm hoping that my 9700pro would run faster in one of them then in my current setup. any comments?
Duck

[Quailane]

You don't want an opteron for gaming. It is the same l2 cache as the 64's except for the 3000+. You would be better off with an athlon xp at 3200+ (2.2Ghz) than two opterons at 1.6Ghz for games. You should get an A64 3000+, only 512k of l2 cache, but it is only a few percentage points less, clock fo clock. Overclock that to 2.2Ghz and you'll be Much happier than with an athlon xp or dual opterons.

[bulk88]

If your strictly gameing look for another platform, oteron isn't for you. But if you run video editing/conversion, rendaring, folding, multitasking, like running multiple programs at the same time, have alot of programs running minimized in the background, multiple windows open of the same program, then it is worth to get a dual processing machine. Also you might have problems finding a Opteron Board with AGP, just to let you know.

[ToiletDuck]

as you can see from my sig i've been using a dual system for some time and really like it. I'm just wondering if I will higher benchmarks gaming on dual 1.4ghz opteron with faster memory and 8x agp then I do on my current system running at dual 1.67 with 4xagp and slower memory

[snvpa]

yeah youll have higher benchmarks and much better real world performance but like said before with games an a 64 3000 rig would smoke the opterons.

[ToiletDuck]

i love the duals though. I really do. I just can't live on a single! It's nice going to lans and hosting a dedicated game on one processor and playing on the other :)

[Gautam]

The Opteron is a great choice for gaming, as long as you don't expect the breathtaking benchmark results that the A64's are achieving. If your current dually is keeping you happy, dual Opterons will keep you even happier.

On a slight tangent, could you post some 3DMark scores with your current rig?

[ToiletDuck]

Here ya go man.

System Configuration


General Information
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP

DirectX Version 9.0

Mobo Manufacturer MICRO-STAR INTERNATIONAL CO., LTD

Mobo Model MS-6501

AGP Rates (Current/Available) 4x / 1x, 2x, 4x

CPU AMD Athlon(tm) XP/MP/4 1800 MHz

FSB 144 MHz

Memory 1024 MB



Display Information
Graphics Chipset ATI RADEON 9700 PRO

Driver Name RADEON 9700/9500 SERIES

Driver Version 6.14.01.6255

Driver Status Unknown

Video Memory 128 MB

Core Clock 324 MHz

Memory Clock 311 MHz



Sound Information
Sound Adapter Driver Name Creative SB Extigy

Sound Adapter Driver Version



Benchmark Settings
Program Version 3DMark03 Revision 1 Build 3

Resolution 1024x768@32 bit

Texture Filtering Optimal

Pixel Processing / Antialiasing None

Post Processing false

Vertex Shaders Optimal



Main Test Results
3DMark Score 4232 3DMarks

CPU Score 399.0 CPUMarks



Detailed Test Results


Game Tests
GT1 - Wings of Fury 123.5 fps

GT2 - Battle of Proxycon 30.5 fps

GT3 - Troll's Lair 24.6 fps

GT4 - Mother Nature 27.1 fps



CPU Tests
CPU Test 1 41.0 fps

CPU Test 2 7.7 fps



Feature Tests
Fill Rate (Single-Texturing) 1493.5 MTexels/s

Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing) 2266.6 MTexels/s

Vertex Shader 14.9 fps

Pixel Shader 2.0 41.1 fps

Ragtroll 19.8 fps



Sound Tests
No sounds 23.5 fps

24 sounds 17.6 fps

60 sounds Not Supported

[Gautam]

That's a very solid score; only a couple behind what a single would make.

As for AGP 8x, won't make any difference. The cache gives a small boost in some benchies, but the short pipeline used in AMD's makes the performance difference in cache sizes a lot smaller than with Intels. This isn't an issue anyways, since you can't run A64's in SMP.

From what I've seen, an Opteron 144 is more than a match for even a 2.5GHz Athlon XP, but even a 140/240 should do nearly as well. If you're getting a new setup, it would be a great choice.

[Shade00]

You'd have to go with the 24x series to run in dual. Opteron 244s (the 1.8ghz chips) should be as fast as the Athlon 64 3000+. They're nowhere near as cheap as the 240s, though. The 240s would give you performance about equal to a P4 2.6C.

[ToiletDuck]

I've been looking around at benchmarks that show a 242 beating a 3.2ghz p4 hands down. So i imagine that a 240 that's only 13% slower should still put up a good fight. And I don't know about overclocking yet. If I could get a the 1.4ghz up to 1.6 that would be very nice indeed!

[MRip]

Opteron 1xx is virtually the same processor as the FX. I've seen 24k-25k 3DMark runs with overclocked 146s. That was on the stock heatsink. I would have gotten one instead of my A64 if the price was right. I think the 144s are binned with the 146s, so oc's should be similar.

[ToiletDuck]

yea but i'm wanting to go dual. Unless the opteron's have something special that allow it to act kinda like pentiums with their HT technology. I like being able to max out one cpu while doing things on the other.

[Quailane]

Don't go cheap if you are going dual. Buy the 1.6Ghz opterons at least, and overclock them to 1.8. If you got the 2Ghz opterons, they would overclock to 2.2Ghz at least, and that would be dual athlon FX's. With two opterons at 1.6Ghz, it will undoubtedly be better than your current rig, but it wouldn't be better enough to justify the extreme cost. To get your moneys worth get two opterons and overclock them to 1.8Ghz, where you will be much happier.

[ToiletDuck]

The price jump from a 1.4 t a 1.6 is crazy. For only 200mhz more. I'd be paying 58 cents a megahertz. That's a lot when yu think about it. Especially with two of them. That's $232 for only 400mhz more total which comes to about 14% more. Thats about a 20% jump in pricece for only a 14% gain "IF" both processors are utilized 100%. However only what like 80% boost from a second?

********EDIT********
Just check on the CPU database and someone has an opteron 240 running at 1855!!!! Not bad!:D
*********EDIT*******
Also is windows 2003 server a 64bit OS or are they still waiting on the 64bit version to come out? I've heard of 64bit xp but haven't seen it for sale yet.

[ToiletDuck]

On the MSI board it says this...

• For Single AMD® Athlon-64 FX 51 series, it will support Registered Memory up to DDR 400
• For Single or Dual AMD® Opteron Series, it will support Registered Memory up to DDR 333

Does the opteron chip on notice 333mhz? I thought it was the same as the FX chip.

[Cyrix_2k]

I was uder the impression that the CPU really doesn't affect gaming performance that much. I figure as long as you have a CPU that doesn't choke a high-end video card, you're fine for gaming as the video card does most of the work. I also hear that fast hard-drives are important too.

So, I say go with the dually. Much smoother task-switching :D

BTW, getting ready to build a dually myself, except I'm going with dual T-birds. Just want to fool around with SMP.

[ToiletDuck]

Right now I'm worried about the whole ram issue. Why can the board only take 333mhz ram and not the 400mhz ram with dual opterons.

[AL Romero]

cant it take the ddr400 but run it as ddr333? cuz that what one of my mobos does. it doesnt read 400 but runs the 400 as 333. thats what i get for buying a biostar :)

[ToiletDuck]

So how's the overclocking on it then? Can you up it any with that?
Duck

[Quailane]

Hard drives don't affect in-game performance on bit. It only affects loading the game, as happens with all programs you load from the hard drive.

The ram will work fine at 200Mhz regardless of the cpu. If you want to overclock those 1.4's go for a gig of some good pc3700 ram. See if you can run them at
7 x 230 fsb.

[9mmCensor]

Was there not a planned dually Opteron board from nVidia, which was supposed to be a great gaming board, with all the dual goodness?

I dont see how a Barton at 3200 speeds could come close to a dual Opteron in a Multithreaded game either.

[ToiletDuck]

Quailane isn't pc2700 333mhz ram? If the board calls for 333mhz ram and I can put 400mhz. Do you even think it could take pc3700?

[AL Romero]

did anybody read my question? :D

[ToiletDuck]

yes :) but I'm not sure. My current board does that Romero with pc2700ram in a pc2100 board. I only imagine. It would just slow it down some.

[ToiletDuck]

Any idea if you can still use unregistered ram on that MSI kt800 board? It says no but so did my k7d board and I could use the first two slots without registered ram.
Duck

[Quailane]

I think you HAVE to use registered ram with socket 940. If you want to overclock your board you will have to get pc3500 or pc3700, at least to run fsb in sync with ram, which would be best. Any board can use ram rated at higher speeds than it is supposed to use, but not run them that high. Just see how fast people have been able to pump up the fsb on those dual opteron boards and then get ram that is rated for that speed or slightly higher. If that registered ram is too expensive or not available, just buy lower rated ram and run it slower than the fsb. The opteron 240 does run off of a native 200Mhz bus speed doesn't it?

[ToiletDuck]

Well it's all ordered and should be here next week. I'll post some benchmarks of it all. Any idea on what kind of power I will need to run it. I have a good 420watt psu here. Cost $90 so it wasn't one of those $20 ones. Use to run dual 2200+ XP's on it.
Duck

[Quailane]

Can you list the specifics of what you ordered?

See if it runs barebones ok. A crappy low wattage vidcard, no cd drive, just main hard drive. You might be able to get away with the psu. If you overclock it and have multiple drives with a high end video card, you will be asking for trouble with 420 watts.

[ToiletDuck]

FYI with the dual 1.4ghz opteron 240's and everything else the same my score on 3dmark 2003 went from 4232 on a system with athlon 2100XP+ to 5567 with the opteron. Not bad for loosing about 300mhz :D

*******EDIT*****
of course i got the ram for the board too.

[Gautam]

Awesome! Nice to see you bit the bullet. But, 3DMark01 is lot more meaningful for overall system performance. 03 is pretty much strictly a video card benchmark. You would've seen a far larger difference in 01. Now how about some overclocking? ;)

[ToiletDuck]

I might bump her up to 1.6ghz but I'm content with what i have right now and don't want to burn em up! :D

[Gautam]

Can you give some more details on what you ordered? (Mobo, memory...) And can you run some other benchmarks, like 3DMark01 and SiSoft Sandra? And does it support DDR400?

[ToiletDuck]

i'm running 4 sticks on pc3200 at 400mhz in dual channel ddr. The board is the MSI K8T Master... K8T800 chipset.

[ToiletDuck]

well I just installed sandra and ran some test. I think something is wrong with the software. I'm going to look for newer versions. I'll also run code creatures. Basically after running all the test my dual opterons would get their @ss handed to them by my old dual 2000+ XP system in just about every catagory when from just playing games and encoding a few clips I can tell that's not right.
Duck

[ToiletDuck]

Yea something isn't accurate. It shows a celeron 1.7ghz beating it on several test like the CPU Multi-Media benchmark. I've owned a celeron and i'll never go back.

[Nick Burns]

I wish I had the money to decide if a dual Opteron is right for me. I would love to fold 24/7 on a dual Opteron system.

[Xtc4u]

Trust me Sandra is a POS when benching an Opteron system. According to Sandra my Overclocked 2100s completely whoop my Opterons but RL my opterons beat it. I've got issues with benchmarks right now so I can't give you any as a comparison. They are nice though. That's for sure. Just wish my radeon would work on my opteron rig.

[ToiletDuck]

your radeon doesn't? Mine runs like a champ. What's wrong with it?

[Gautam]

Sandra should show your system handing @ss to everything else... The latest version is 2004.

[ToiletDuck]

You know I've actually heard though that 3dmark01 doesn't make effective use of my 9700pro. That a nvidia 4200 could run score higher just because you can overclock them so much.

[ToiletDuck]

on 3dmark01 I got a 15177. On a different note I was looking for the highest and it looks like someone has a Athlon 51 FX clocked at a little over 3ghz :o