See what a $99 Quad Core can do . . .

http://baartman.us/images/11_SL_Instances.doc

Opteron 135x ($79 at newegg), 4GB DDR2 800, Foxconn A7GM-S, 9400GT 512MB.

I am surprised that more enthusiasts have not discovered this CPU family, they work very well, typical load I have is 4 Fox instances (total of 9 tabs active), 2 Linux VMs and 4 SL instances at the same time, for an average CPU load of 50% at 40C with standard HSF. They overclock reasonably, (mine is the 1352, 2.1 MHZ, clocked to 2.3, like the 1356).

In my opinion there is no better value for money in Quads to be found.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819105212

Have you compared it to an Intel Core 2 Quad?

How does a single instance of the SL viewer perform on it?

problem with the Opteron is their really designed to be disposable servers, IE there is no upgrade path, where as the desktop models can be upgraded much more, so in the long run when you start dragging you will basically need a new system, where as I can just drop in last years badass chip for 49.99

Question 1 answer: The cheapest Core 2 Quad I can find at Newegg is $165 for the Q8200, with that much money I could buy another 135x, an HSF and a motherboard . . .

Other than for pure research, I see little point.

Question 2 answer: Just for you, I will test with a single SL instance (and my usual mix of Fox with 5 browsers/ 13 tabs showing)

Maximised: 8-11% CPU utilization, about equally shared across the cores; 1.07GB Page File usage. According to PC Wizard 2008, the cores are stabilized at 43C, and the ambient is 70C.

Minimized: 3-6% CPUU; Cores down to 29C.

From my viewpoint your motherboard determines the upgrade path, and with the A7GM-S I have, I believe there to be quite a bit of steam left in the AM2+ socket. Is it the best Motherboard? Probably not, but it works, along with various other Brands I have lying around. Will I graduate to AM3? Eventually, yes.

Right now, a Phenom x4 9650 costs $120 from Newegg, (I wouldn't touch the 9600). It is a 95W chip, while the 135x family is 75W; both families are Phenoms, just check with CPU-Z.

Your statement that there is a significant difference between the 135x and 9x50 families is questionable. They are both Phenom Cores and both fit into AM2+ sockets. Should you have insights that I am not aware of, please comment.

my bad, i thought they were still socket F's, since thats the only ones i can find

whats the fsb and ht clock on that thing

I have a dual core Intel system now. I'm curious about the potential of a quad core and am considering options. Since moving to an AMD system would require I buy a new motherboard anyway, there would be no savings.

By performance in SL, I mean what graphic level are you running, and what frame rate are you getting?

That age old addage "You get what you pay for" always comes to mind on things like this. I'll sit out the beta testing stage, thanks. I'm not against beta products at all but a quad core suddenly showing up on the map that is basically 1/2 price of the proven processors stirs my sketical mind just as suddenly.

Like those Netbooks that suddenly showed up........such a deal? Or waste of money? I vote the latter............even though they are cheap. Prices just don't drop over night without a comparable drop in quality.

Let me know in 6 months if that $100 was well spent.

From your statement I conclude that you are not in the US, and I am not sure what the distribution of the 135x family is, but check them out at newegg anyway. If you really would like one to play with, it could be arranged.

This table is an extract from Wikipedia, search Google using "Opteron List"

Opteron 1300-series "Budapest" (B3, 65 nm)

* All models support: MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4a, Enhanced 3DNow!, NX bit, AMD64, AMD-V (SVN & Rapid Virtualization Indexing)
* All models support up to Unbuffered PC2-6400 DDR2 SDRAM
* All models support single-processor configurations

Model Number Stepping Frequency L2-Cache L3-Cache HT Mult Voltage ACP TDP Socket Release Date Part Number(s)
Opteron 1352 B3 2100 MHz 4 × 0.5 MB 2 MB 2000 MHz 10.5x ? 75 W 95 W Socket AM2+ April 2008 OS1352WBJ4BGH
Opteron 1354 B3 2200 MHz 4 × 0.5 MB 2 MB 2000 MHz 11x ? 75 W 95 W Socket AM2+ April 2008 OS1354WBJ4BGH
Opteron 1356 B3 2300 MHz 4 × 0.5 MB 2 MB 2000 MHz 11.5x ? 75 W 95 W Socket AM2+ April 2008 OS1356WBJ4BGH

Firstly, get PCWizard 2008 and CPU-Z, if you don't have them already, and note exactly what your present configuration is. They can be found here:

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

Also do the Global Benchmark in PCW, and note those parameters, so you have a baseline to work from.

Secondly, the newest Intel system I have is a P4, so I am not supremely knowledgeable about their newer offerings, but there are comparison charts on the web that can give one a pretty fair idea about what to expect.

With that said, One of my systems is an AMD Dual Core, with the following specs:

Gigabyte AMD 740 Chipset AM2+ Motherboard
AMD 64 x2 4850e CPU (2.5GHZ, 512KB L3)
2GB DDR2 800 Ram
Nvidia 8500GT 512MB Video Card
SATA3 Hard Disk

This unit will run up to 4 instances of SL with no sweat.

Running a single instance of SL yields a CPU Utilization of 28% at 38C
Frame rate on my island's most prim heavy area is around 30FPS

Same situation with the Quad: 11% at 33C, 45FPS (with an NV 9400 GT/512)

Btw, I run both systems at Graphics level High.

All in all, Your Intel Dual should be more than sufficient for most SL purposes, but, if you are questing for more power, that should certainly not be difficult to accomplish.

Again, run the Diagnostics I mentioned, and then we can look more definitively at what your options are.

I got the 1352 in december 2008 from Amazon for $120 as the boxed version.

I have played around with it in a few motherboards, and could not be happier from value/performance standpoint.

CPUs and RAM are not too affected by your addage, whereas motherboards, hard disks, video drives and video cards are, especially in my recent experience.

Something you might bear in mind is the factor of economic forces at work right now; AMD is fighting for its survival. Their last major blowup was with the early (B1, B2 stepping) Phenoms, Also Known as the TLB Issue. So, do not be enticed into buying the 9600 Phenom x4 that is available for $80-$90. There are newer much more capable Processors available, such as the Phenom Triple Core for 8450 for $72, or the Quad that I first mentioned, the Opteron 1356 for $99 . . .

I'll take piece of mind in this day of economic survival (talking about mine here). I'll spend the extra dime for something that has proven to me time over time to be a better investment of my money. I'm sorry AMD is having problems at the moment.......but, there is always a reason for those problems. AMD has been around for a long time now so it's not like an upstart company.........I'll point at Chrysler and GM vs Ford. Go glitzy and push it out too soon.....take your chances. Plod along, keep it basic, push your product out only when it's been properly tested and determined to work as advertised, and you own the market. Intel is my choice........and will remain so until AMD earns my trust.

P.S.
Yes, I've had a few bad experiences with AMD.......and none with Intel. Same with the vehicles I purchase.

Well, my experiences (PC specific) stretch back to the last new PC I bought, which was a PC XT from Radioshack with one of them incredible new fangled 10MB Hard Disks; Circa 1986.

That plus a 132 column Dot Matrix printer set me back almost $3,000. I have had experience with Intel and AMD over the years, and cannot say that either has disappointed me immeasurably.

The reason I have mostly AMD chips recently is that I feel they give very good value/performance figures of merit. Along with brands like Gigabyte, Western Digital, etc.

Asus, long a favoured brand, seems to be suffering a QC issue recently, even Foxconn gets better reliability ratings, on the sites I consult.

I am constantly building and upgrading systems for friends and family, so I get quite a reasonable exposure to the hairy end of inexpensive computing.

I recently bough a P4/2.60/400/512 for $28 to put in a friends' Intel 850MD motherboard PC; danged if the thing refuses to work. I tested the chip on an i845PE MB, and it works just fine. The 850MD with its latest Bios (P24) is supposed to work with this chip. So far, nothing I have tried can convince it to cooperate.

A recent news item caught my eye, maybe these folks are on to something:

"Nepal fixes Boeing 757 with goat sacrifice
Hindu sky god duly remedies electrical fault"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/05/goat_sacrifice/

I wonder what his hourly rate is, sans the goats . . .

Intel has had a horrible track record from the P2's to within the last few years

Like GM they were making shoddy products for premium prices, unlike GM they had to get their act together, and after nearly 3 full generations of having their hinds handed to them in a basket on the consumer market they did and its been neck and neck since then

i seriously dont know what this horrible life scaring event of yours is, but it could have happened with any brand of any machine

for all you know it could have been your inexperience setting a bios setting wrong

Not a BIOS setup problem.......unless one can burn an AMD chip up without overclosking it in the BIOS. It did not scare me in the least......taught me that saving about 50 bucks wound up costing that 50, the cost of the CPU, plus the 150 I should have spent in the first place. Lesson learned.........no one has to bash me in the head with a hammer twice to get my attention.

Never had a problemw with Intel. It's a preferrence........ain't no one but Intel and/or AMD is going to change that.

What was the configuration that blew up so badly?

Blew up so bad? It did not blow up at all............it just fried. It fried in less than 3 months after being installed on the motherboard. The CPU was installed correctly, with the proper heat sink paste, oversized CPU fan, and default clock speed (900 megs if I remember correctly). Nothing spectacular............just poof. All done.

AMD tech support did offer a replacement but it was too late for me. I was trying to save a few bucks and went with AMD..........but, I was soured already. Went Intel where I've never had a problem (and haven't yet either). It's a simple preferrence..........nothing more. I don't dis AMD. But I don't use them either. I don't recomment them but won't tell anyone not to use them........to each their own.

Is my opinion really so out of line that it merits further discussion? I stated my thoughs on the subject of this thread.....and some of my reasoning. Why do I have to defend my personal thoughts?

I am always interested in the details of a problem, not necessarily the emotions that may accompany it.

You say it was a 900MHz CPU? Sounds like a Socket A or Slot A Thunderbird or Palomino Core.

Do not feel any compunction to reply, it is simply a matter of technical curiosity to me.

For example, I have had some spectacular failures with socket 939 motherboards, so I tend to avoid Asrock, Epox (now dead), Abit etc. The two 939 CPUs I have have each survived quite a few motherboard/power supply failures, and continue to soldier on. One thing I noticed too is that 939 motherboards sometimes have a problem accepting Dual Channel Ram configurations, strange problem, that.

As regards Hard Disks I favour Western Digital, their reliability seems better than any other major brand. I have had unacceptable failures with Seagate, Maxtor, Hitachi/IBM, etc

Video Card manufacturers I have found to be almost universally less reliable recently; I have lost XFX, EVGA (when your $297 7800 GT starts playing up, you take real notice!), whom I considered to be reputable in the past.

Power supplies are another bugbear, the recent ones seem particularly poorly designed. Apparently buying a $20 400 Watt PSU is somewhat of a risky venture these days.

Just this weekend I did an upgrade for a friend, replacing his Intel 850DMV MB, P4/1.8/400/256, IDE HD, 1 MB RDRAM setup with a Foxconn A76ML-K MB, AMD 4050e Dual Core, 2GB DDR2/800, WD SATA3 setup costing around $175. PCWizard Global Benchmark rated the old setup at 1600, and the new one at 3600; quite an acceptable improvement for the money spent, I thought. Also, the MB would support any CPU from an AM2 Single core to a Phenom II Quad. It will be interesting to monitor the reliability of this setup. On an aside, the embedded Video on this MB proves to be very acceptable for SL use, not spectacular, of course, but able to yield 28 fps at my island's most prim heavy area with a Graphics setting of medium.

It sounds like your problem wasn't that you skimped on the processor. It's likely you skimped on the heatsink (and probably not enough ambient case cooling as well). AMD procs are well known for putting out tremendous amounts of heat - have been like this since the first-generation Athlons. They are awesome processors, but you have to make sure they are adequately cooled.

Oh, and don't skimp on the thermal paste, either.

The AMD Duals that I have been using lately are 45W devices (4050e and 4850e), quite impressive, as is my 1352 Opteron Quad, all of 75 Watt.

Best Intel Quad I can find is the Yorkfield Q8200S at 65 Watt . . . but it costs $244, just think how many $99 1356 Opterons I can buy with that, lol.

Time and more evidence will dictate when I might give AMD another shot. For a few Mhz more clock speed and a big increase in core temps is just not a trade off I'm willing to endure. Sure I can purchase a couple (maybe three) CPU's to offset the cost difference...but, hey, it's about reliability for me. I just do not look forward to having a computer I put together down for a while while I go out and buy another CPU to replace that one that just burned up.......not when I can have one that might run a few Mhz slower but quite a bit cooler...........and last for a tremendously longer time.

I've never had an Intel fail on me..........they just get old and obsolete. 3 to 5 years is something I can handle. 3 months is a little quick for me.

You know Milla, looking back over this thread, you could actually buy a 1356 Opteron (2.3MHz/2MBL2/2MBL3/75W $99 + $8.00 for a suitable HSF, free shipping) and a motherboard (Foxconn A76ML-K $59.00, -$10.00 MIR) for the cost of the cheapest Intel Quad (Q8200/2.33MHz/4MBL2 = $164)

I'm pretty sure your DDR2 Ram would work on the Foxconn board! Not that I recommend you do this, I am just showing you its possible to go cheaper Quad with AMD, right at this moment, from newegg. The S&H on the MB still brings it in at parity, or pretty close to it.

I just got one of these little motherboards, and it seems very stable. Even the embedded video is good enough for SL. I generally overclock about 10% without any appreciable temp rise or problems with the standard HSF.

Another interesting comparison is PCWizards Global Benchmark. on this MB, with 2GB DDR2 800 and an AMD x2 4050e, using a SATA3 drive and the embedded graphics, I get about 3,600. With the Quad 1352 and 4GB DDR2 800, I get about 30,000. Almost an order of magnitude improvement!

Shiver me electrons matey, thats a hell of an improvement!

One could also try one of the AMD Triples, such as the Phenom 8450 - $72 for the box, and I bet you'd get at least 10,000 on the above mentioned benchmark . . Also, the Phenom based Duals, like the 7750, at $59, are good value . . .
Of course Intel has nothing really comparable in that price range either, lol

Just to give a point of reference here: Back toward the end of 2001, I built a gaming-class computer built around an Asus Socket "A" mainboard, a Radeon 8500, and an AMD AthlonXP 1500 processor. This box has long since been retired from its gaming duties, but is still chugging along quite nicely as a fileserver and SQL database running on Ubuntu Linux (8.04 server edition). I also have a box I built in 2005 around a PCChips Socket "A" board and an AMD Sempron 2600 (basically a rebadged AthlonXP), running Edubuntu, for the kids. Despite the fact I would never trust the PCChips board for anything beyond the kids' entertainment, I have never had any trouble with the AMD processors.

I also have an AMD Athlon64-based laptop I bought in 2005, and another desktop box I built in 2007, also around an Athlon64 processor - neither of which have given me any problems so far.

I do have an Intel-based system. It is a laptop I bought last year, based around a Core 2 Duo T5550. This laptop fried once on me, though in all fairness, I believe it was the NVidia 8600M-GS GPU that actually kicked the bucket and had nothing to do with the CPU itself.

Experiences sure vary don't they Katheryne? It would seem you are much more expert in this area than me......I simply build for myself (or for very close friends). I'm not necessarily trying to put together the best system out there at the time I'm building a computer. All I'm wanting to do is put together a good, powerful system that can survive a couple years more than the off the shelf systems being tauted as "the system to have". I've been pretty successful in the close to 10 years since my first build.......all my builds have lasted more than 3 years before becoming "obsolete". My main goal on any computer is upgradability............so when a new "must have" is introduced I stand of a chance of being able to have that "must have".

As I said before........I do not dis AMD. I simply prefer Intel. I don't not look at the price as much as I look at what I consider value (vs that cost). I am not an AMD hater.....just an Intel fan. Is that so bad?

Of course I believe I can accomplish my goal at a reasonable price..............so far I"ve able to do that.

The last intel i bought ( a pentium D) the board fried then when i got a new board the chip went up in less than a day

so in this case spending more didnt mean a single thing, it was actually a bit more maddening since it was more expensive "better" junk that sucked a month out of my life

do i HATE intel, no

do i almost go out of my way to show my displeasure every single chance it comes up, no,

do i use intel, no but i just happen to think amd provides the bigger bang for the buck

shit happens, if i boycotted every chip manufacture that has had a product fail on me id still be using a MOS 6502

and yea you can set the voltage going to a cpu in most bios's so yea it is possible to fry a chip with bios and not overclock it