Athlon64 vs. Opteron

[willlangford]

Hey,
Im looking to upgrade my main rig...well im going to build a new rig and im looking at making it a 64bit rig. waht is better and socket is the better way to go?

thanks,

~William

[OC Detective]

kinda depends what you want it for - if its for gaming go A64. If you are going to be doing multiple applications at the same time you may want to consider Opteron.

[Molester]

wait for the nforce 3 250(it'll have agp/pci locks), and i'd suggest the A64 3400+ right now, as it has the 1024k L2, and is unlocked, and the most badass, highest possible speed(PC10000 would be nice, lol)

[willlangford]

well i do some gaming but im kind of too busy for that. i play here and there but mostly i do multiple appz..ripping dvds...coding for websites..flash and photoshop. so i do a lot of diff stuff. so probably opteron would be better.

i am going to wait for the nforce3 250 b.c i wont have the money till then still trying to get rid of current exess hardware. will the 250 be single and dual procs?

thanks,

~William

[OC Detective]

It will be for both single and dual procs.

[Richard]

One of the drawbacks to Opteron is that it doesn't have support for DDR PC 3200. It is locked at PC 2700.

You'll note that there are socket 940 motherboards that exclaim PC 3200 support, but that is for the Opteron that isn't an Opteron. The FX-5x line. Currently, being the FX-51.

That is the differentiating factor between the FX and the Opteron. The ability to run at a higher memory speed.

Another reason to look toward the Athlon64 instead of the Opteron is the requirement for registered or registered + ECC memory.

The Athlon64 has no such requirement. Unbuffered DDR is fine for it.

There are a couple of benefits to unbuffered RAM for a desktop machine. #1, is reduced memory latency. #2, is reduced cost.

"Richard, I'd like to learn more about registered vs unbuffered RAM"?

Go to Crucial's website and read for yourself!

About registered RAM- These are all brief FAQs

http://www.crucial.com/kb/answer.asp?qid=3669
http://www.crucial.com/kb/answer.asp?qid=3682
http://www.crucial.com/kb/answer.asp?qid=3727

About ECC RAM- Once again, brief FAQ.
http://www.crucial.com/kb/answer.asp?qid=3744

Finally, consider the price of all this. The Opteron is designed as a server solution. Therefore, the CPUs, motherboards, and RAM will all cost more. (Not always a lot more, but more nonetheless.) The benefit for a home user is negligible at best. The need for more expensive components is only appreciated by those that have a specific requirement for these features.

So what you end up with is a more expensive, less performance oriented system. The performance in the server market comes with scalability. And Opteron certainly has a lot of that. Something you likely do not need.

[I.M.O.G.]

I know this is an old thread, but thanks for answering my questions Richard. That explanation of Opterons makes a lot of sense to me.

[willlangford]

thanks for all the info! does anyone have some info on the nf3 250?

thanks

~William

[I.M.O.G.]

Dunno, you'd have better luck getting fresh answers if you started a new thread for it... Or just searched maybe because I know I've seen some discussion on it lately.

[Gautam]

PCI/AGP locks and support for a 1 GHz Hypertransport bus. Better yet, the big boys(Abit, Asus, DFI) will be jumping on this chipset, so we should see very very nice overclockability with the nF3 250's release.

[I.M.O.G.]

ETA Gautum?

I have read various reports but I've had a hard time finding the most recent/reliable.

[xcelerator]

just wait until the other sockets come out...i herd they might have a bit more gain

[willlangford]

what sockets will the nf3 250 be for? and does anyone have a link to some info on it.

and most of all when should we see newegg start shipping them?

thanks,

~William

[I.M.O.G.]

754 and 939 supposedly... Last I heard, as I understood it, we likely wouldn't be seeing them until late April or May.

Obviously I'm not sure on that but when I was googling and bouncing around links for info that was the conclusion I came to. Take that for what its worth, different places will tell you different things.

[Gautam]

Originally posted by IMOG
ETA Gautum?

I have read various reports but I've had a hard time finding the most recent/reliable.

Real soon.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mainboards/display/20040310080730.html

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31110

Still iffy, but they most likely should be out before April.

Edit: Whoops, quoted myself...lol

[I.M.O.G.]

Woohoo, thanks guatam. :)

[Captain Newbie]

There is a projected shortage of Socket 939 Athlon64 processors this year...according to the Inquirer, only ten thousand CPU's are being made for this socket.

[willlangford]

hm...thanks for the info. i hope they are out soon im looking to upgrade..

thanks,

~William