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Ron Overdrive

Registered User

Join date: 10 Jul 2005

Posts: 1,002

05-08-2006 20:02

Well lady luck seems to be smiling on me this month because its my birthday in less then two weeks. I scored a free videocard upgrade (thank you lindex, all those who donated, and those money chairs who tolerated me sitting there for 16 hours a day) and now I've scored an awsome trade: my old GeForceFX 5500 for a Gigabyte nForce3 motherboard. Yeah yeah, I know.. its an nForce3 and not a newer nForce4, but all I need is a new cpu and some faster ram then I can reuse just about everything else I have already in the case. Now its a socket 939 so I looked up on newegg some parts, namely a new gig stick of ram (ddr400, still using ddr333 atm) and a new CPU. Now I don't have loads of money even though my bday is coming up next week so I was looking for a CPU for $200 or less and came up with 3 results:

Athlon 64 3000+
Athlon 64 3200+
Opteron 144

Now I know the 3200+ outperforms the 3000+ so really this is a choice between the Athlon 3200 and the Opteron 144, either is better then my Athlon XP 2600+. I've had problems locating a good comparasin between the two so I'm looking for any benchmarks and/or experiences that will help me decide between the two.

Athlon 64 3200+ (Venice core) specs:
64 bit Support: Yes
Hyper-Transport Support: Yes
L1 Cache: 64KB+64KB
L2 Cache: 512KB
Multi-Core: Single-Core
Multimedia Instruction: MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, 3DNOW! Professional
Operating Frequency: 2.0GHz

Opteron 144 (Venus core) specs:
64 bit Support: Yes
Hyper-Transport Support: Yes
L1 Cache: 64KB+64KB
L2 Cache: 1MB
Multi-Core: Single-Core
Multimedia Instruction: MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, 3DNOW! Professional
Operating Frequency: 1.8GHz

Now while the Opteron may be 200mhz slower, it has twice the L2 cache wich can a big difference.

Delta Nyak

Registered User

Join date: 9 Feb 2005

Posts: 123

Go sit on some more chairs . . .

05-09-2006 01:14

And hold out for an x2 3800, its REALLY worth it . . . . ($297 at newegg). I did, and its awesome, comfortably able to play four AVs at the same time (with 2GB of Ram) and, if affinity on both cores is set to 1, it never goes over 75% CPU utilization on either . .

Obviously, not many play that many AVs simultaneously, but its wonderfull for general use, especially if you have other apps open while in SL. Thus I find the addition of MS Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Skype, a few browsers, ftp client, Excel, etc fazeth the beast not.

The chip runs very happily at 2.4GHz/1.35V with stock cooling (giving one the aproximate equivalent of an x2 4600 in terms of performance). Lag becomes a problem you are usually the last to experience (all other aspects being equal). Many argue strongly that a single core does as well, since SL is a single threaded application. My real world experience tells me otherwise, as long as you have both cores enabled, the OS WILL share SL to the two cores. I have screen shots of the Task manager with and without SL running, and it is patently obvious that SL is shared across the cores.

I used to use a 64 3000 Venice core, clocked to 2.3GHz, (approximately equivalent to a 3500); no slouch whatsoever, but the system was laggy and slow by comparison with the Dual Core.

So, Dom yourself into the Delayed Gratification Mode, you will be glad you did.

CJ Carnot

Registered User

Join date: 23 Oct 2005

Posts: 433

Level 2 cache + overclocking

05-09-2006 02:47

AMD64's generally and Opterons in particular, overclock like there's no tomorrow. The performance of my 3700+ suggests the 1Mb level 2 cache is worth having, and I run it permenantly overclocked by 20% from the standard 2.2 to 2.6GHz.

_____________________

Ron Overdrive

Registered User

Join date: 10 Jul 2005

Posts: 1,002

05-09-2006 04:52

From: Delta Nyak

So, Dom yourself into the Delayed Gratification Mode, you will be glad you did.

As much as I'd love to I cant. Finacially I'd have to wait till after christmas to be able to afford it. Besides, I don't think I'd pair an X2 with an nForce3 mobo. Dunno why, but to me it just screams bottleneck. The Opteron 144 costs $172, the ram stick costs $95 ($80 after mail in rebate and has heat spreaders), and now I'm considering a new powersupply because my current one is like 3 years old now and I have no clue how much life it might have left it in. All together after shipping, tax, and mailin rebates I'm looking at $310 for everything. A bit over the $250 I can afford, but if I nix the psu it'll be just a little over.

Striker Wolfe

.

Join date: 11 Dec 2004

Posts: 355

05-09-2006 05:18

Man that is a hard choice, the Opteron will overclock better, but seeing as my old CPU was a 3200+ Venice I cant really say much against it, it served me well and was slightly faster than a 3200+ Clawhammer core with 1MB of cache. Either decision you make Ron I believe will be the right one lol. Good luck!

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CPU choice

CPU choice
Ron Overdrive Registered User Join date: 10 Jul 2005 Posts: 1,002	05-08-2006 20:02 Well lady luck seems to be smiling on me this month because its my birthday in less then two weeks. I scored a free videocard upgrade (thank you lindex, all those who donated, and those money chairs who tolerated me sitting there for 16 hours a day) and now I've scored an awsome trade: my old GeForceFX 5500 for a Gigabyte nForce3 motherboard. Yeah yeah, I know.. its an nForce3 and not a newer nForce4, but all I need is a new cpu and some faster ram then I can reuse just about everything else I have already in the case. Now its a socket 939 so I looked up on newegg some parts, namely a new gig stick of ram (ddr400, still using ddr333 atm) and a new CPU. Now I don't have loads of money even though my bday is coming up next week so I was looking for a CPU for $200 or less and came up with 3 results: Athlon 64 3000+ Athlon 64 3200+ Opteron 144 Now I know the 3200+ outperforms the 3000+ so really this is a choice between the Athlon 3200 and the Opteron 144, either is better then my Athlon XP 2600+. I've had problems locating a good comparasin between the two so I'm looking for any benchmarks and/or experiences that will help me decide between the two. Athlon 64 3200+ (Venice core) specs: 64 bit Support: Yes Hyper-Transport Support: Yes L1 Cache: 64KB+64KB L2 Cache: 512KB Multi-Core: Single-Core Multimedia Instruction: MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, 3DNOW! Professional Operating Frequency: 2.0GHz Opteron 144 (Venus core) specs: 64 bit Support: Yes Hyper-Transport Support: Yes L1 Cache: 64KB+64KB L2 Cache: 1MB Multi-Core: Single-Core Multimedia Instruction: MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, 3DNOW! Professional Operating Frequency: 1.8GHz Now while the Opteron may be 200mhz slower, it has twice the L2 cache wich can a big difference.
Delta Nyak Registered User Join date: 9 Feb 2005 Posts: 123	Go sit on some more chairs . . . 05-09-2006 01:14 And hold out for an x2 3800, its REALLY worth it . . . . ($297 at newegg). I did, and its awesome, comfortably able to play four AVs at the same time (with 2GB of Ram) and, if affinity on both cores is set to 1, it never goes over 75% CPU utilization on either . . Obviously, not many play that many AVs simultaneously, but its wonderfull for general use, especially if you have other apps open while in SL. Thus I find the addition of MS Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Skype, a few browsers, ftp client, Excel, etc fazeth the beast not. The chip runs very happily at 2.4GHz/1.35V with stock cooling (giving one the aproximate equivalent of an x2 4600 in terms of performance). Lag becomes a problem you are usually the last to experience (all other aspects being equal). Many argue strongly that a single core does as well, since SL is a single threaded application. My real world experience tells me otherwise, as long as you have both cores enabled, the OS WILL share SL to the two cores. I have screen shots of the Task manager with and without SL running, and it is patently obvious that SL is shared across the cores. I used to use a 64 3000 Venice core, clocked to 2.3GHz, (approximately equivalent to a 3500); no slouch whatsoever, but the system was laggy and slow by comparison with the Dual Core. So, Dom yourself into the Delayed Gratification Mode, you will be glad you did.
CJ Carnot Registered User Join date: 23 Oct 2005 Posts: 433	Level 2 cache + overclocking 05-09-2006 02:47 AMD64's generally and Opterons in particular, overclock like there's no tomorrow. The performance of my 3700+ suggests the 1Mb level 2 cache is worth having, and I run it permenantly overclocked by 20% from the standard 2.2 to 2.6GHz. _____________________
Ron Overdrive Registered User Join date: 10 Jul 2005 Posts: 1,002	05-09-2006 04:52 From: Delta Nyak So, Dom yourself into the Delayed Gratification Mode, you will be glad you did. As much as I'd love to I cant. Finacially I'd have to wait till after christmas to be able to afford it. Besides, I don't think I'd pair an X2 with an nForce3 mobo. Dunno why, but to me it just screams bottleneck. The Opteron 144 costs $172, the ram stick costs $95 ($80 after mail in rebate and has heat spreaders), and now I'm considering a new powersupply because my current one is like 3 years old now and I have no clue how much life it might have left it in. All together after shipping, tax, and mailin rebates I'm looking at $310 for everything. A bit over the $250 I can afford, but if I nix the psu it'll be just a little over.
Striker Wolfe . Join date: 11 Dec 2004 Posts: 355	05-09-2006 05:18 Man that is a hard choice, the Opteron will overclock better, but seeing as my old CPU was a 3200+ Venice I cant really say much against it, it served me well and was slightly faster than a 3200+ Clawhammer core with 1MB of cache. Either decision you make Ron I believe will be the right one lol. Good luck!