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Planning a build for college, dual of course

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ryanmartini

Member
Joined
Oct 1, 2004
Location
douglasville ga
welli am majoring in computer science, and want some power. but it has to be able to play games. probably be doing alot of programming, because im taking extra courses in it. to me the xeons are just smp p4's... so what about the opterons ? should i wait for dual cores this year? or would intel be better?

agian i want a smp computer NOT a single.

plus all this tech stuff to my parents and family = more money for me to build it =p

im aiming towards opterons, but that damn pc 2700 registered problem really bites my ***. is intel going to pull a rabit out of the hat i should wait for ?


thanks,

-Ryan
 
You essentially have three options if you want a powerful dual rig.

1) Dual XPs modded to MPs. The slowest option, relatively cheap, doesnt *need* registered RAM unless you want to use more than two sticks. However its outdated, RAM bandwidth and 33MHz-PCI bandwidth arent great. Only real plus is that its cheap.

2) Dual Xeons. Probably more affordable than Opterons, boards like the PCDL and its successor dont need registered RAM, the Xeons perform well but AFAIK dont they share the same FSB? Someone can maybe clear that up. They have hyperthreading (in the Prestonia and Nocona cores, but NOT in the Willamette based Foster Xeons) which will aid with multitasking. RAM bandwidth will rape that of a dual XP/MP system from AMD.

3) Dual Opterons. More expensive than MPs or Xeons, but need registered RAM, the boards and CPUs are really expensive.

I would say the Xeons are probably the best price/peformance ratio. Get a couple cheaper 400MHz FSB Xeons and overclock them, which I beleive is the Xeon overclocking option - they will often happily do 133MHz which means they reach over 3GHz.
 
With the Xeons, you have a few options there. You could pick up some cheap 1.6LV Xeons off Ebay or something, and overclock those up to around 2.8ghz or so. I've seen a few people do this.

I myself, picked up some 2.4ghz 533fsb chips, and did the moosemod (jumper change to run at 800fsb) and i'm clocked at 3.3ghz now, 221*15.

Or, you could pick up some Noconas and run those instead, but it'll cost you slightly more than a Prestonia setup and generate more heat.

If your going with the xeon setup, I would pick up a PC-DL or a NCCH-DL.

http://www.datamine.tk for more info on Xeons.
 
As was mentioned, the NCCH-DL supports unregistered PC-3200 and 64-bit Noconas. If registered RAM is out of the question for you, then so are the Opterons.
 
I'd say go the 1.6 LV route....I paid 300 for my CPU's, wind tunnels and PC-DL....15 for the converter (I had a antec true 550 ATX12V, and you need the 20-24pin and 4-8pin adapters), I used the same old PC3200 valueram from my old setup and I love this!

If your into programming and keeping this rig for a while (2-3 years) I'd recommend getting the NCCH-DL with some nocona's with EMT64 for for windows and linux 64bit, which is probably the wave of the future for programming I would imagine.

The otperons can't OC very well because the boards aren't supporting good features for OCing. They also expensive...for the most part my dual setup in the sig hangs with 244's for sure and depending on apps the 246's (I think you can only really OC about 5-10% at most with the optos). So unless your gonna be going high end opto the xeons are a much better price/performance choice.

*side note* if your programming and stuff dual monitors are perty useful too, might want to look into that if you haven't already :)
 
interesting..

yeah the xeons look pretty descent to me. so would say 3ghz xeons be close in performance to opteron 240's?

to me here is how it stands.

Xeon: high clockspeed, uses NB setup, yet faster ram.

Opteron: low clock speed, integrated memory controller, slower registered ram.

So would the Xeons be close in performance? to me it seems that they would. Can anyone elaborate on the shared FSB? Does it slow things down?

Thanks
 
The opterons would stomp them in the memory dept. Registered PC3200 ram is not so slow at an effective 1600mhz fsb. Xeons are still great bang for buck though.
 
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This is somwhat off topic but still relevant. When you buy a case make sure it has tabs on it so that you can lock the case and chain / bolt it to large furnitrue.

You might laugh but theft is a serious issue in college. If you dont lock your PC up you might wind up the victim. Ive had thiings stolen from my PC and it aint fun
 
I am with Sentential on this..I don't care where you go too school it is a problem. I got to know all of the guys on my end of the hall in the dorm so we al keep our doors unlooked and open most of the time if we were there...well some of us noticed small things starting too disappear...well one day I found the guy in my room unhooking my computer(without turning it off too boot) needless too say he went to the hospital with a broken arm...I don't tolarate theift very well :-(
 
lol ill do that =p i did get a laugh out of the chain thing tho. Is the nforce 4 coming out with an ability to give opterons faster ram ? This seems to me itd help performance alot more.

agreed if someone was in my room steeling ****, oh no.. Somehow someway his *** would go DOWN.
 
I must agree...getting back on topic...that Xeons are going to be your bang for the buck, but that opties are the best all around proc.
 
well this isnt going to be some cheap pc either. i dont mind it costing a few bones. ill put together two builds and you guys can tell me what you think.

peace out
 
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