amd 64 vs amd opteron

[Taxation]

I am building a new rig after i get my next pay check, so i will be building it soon.
I have the rest of the system thought out but i was just wondering what would be better for gaming.
an opteron146 939skt
or
an amd 64 3500

I will be overclocking with a 120mm fan/rad waterchill water cooling 1200lph

[DoCtOr_oCtOr]

You will get more bang per buck with a 64 ... Opterons can overclock like a madman but as they will only work with registered memory I personally would't fork out the extra money...

[Coops]

Opteron is built for the Server Market and was not designed with gaming in mind. You would be better off with the Athlon64 CPU

[Taxation]

thanks for the reply

i am now thinking of getting a A64 X2 3800, and i will be overclocking it with water cooling.

[Taxation]

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/229/1/

it performs like a bee hatch

[Nox]

Get a socket 939 opteron, they use regular DDR memory and run on regular s939 boards, and run at a lower voltage than the equivalent non opteron s939 chips (1.36 vs 1.4<something>)

They do overclock like madmen, mine is a 146 (2.00Ghz) and is running at 2.85Ghz very happily - doesn't like 2.9 though unfortunately.

Downside is Novatech don't sell s939 opterons.

Yes, Opterons were desinged for servers, but they make superb gaming chips - look at the FX-60. That omes from the same (SSOI probably) wafers as the DC Opterons. The above comment regarding needing registered memory is referring to the s940 opteron.

Nox

[Taxation]

thanks for that, but ive already ordered my X2 3800

[Nox]

and what a great chip it is! Advised it for a friend two weeks ago, from Novatech - he is over the moon with it!

Nox

[Taxation]

when it comes PIB, procesor in box, is the thermal compound alrady on the hs/f, or do i have to buy some, cos it has arrived, now waiting for the mobo, and i need to know if it has thermal compound already applied

[gwendes]

Installed my 3200+ 64bit with a ThermalTake Sonic Tower (passive heatsink) last night and purely increasing the FSB I had it happily running and benchmarking at 2.6Ghz. Very happy, rock solid CPU.

[Nox]

Retail Athlons have a 'thermal pad' allready applied to the heatsink. Its good for one use, and well, it does its job. If you are wanting to overclock, and want every last drop of performance you won't be using the stock heatsink/fan anyway, but you would certainly be wanting some have decent thermal paste - arctic silver springs to mind, just don't get the stuff that also acts as glue!!!



Nox

[Taxation]

aslong as there is some on there for the mean time, wont start overclocking until i get water cooling tbh

[gwendes]

Retail Athlons have a 'thermal pad' allready applied to the heatsink. Its good for one use, and well, it does its job. If you are wanting to overclock, and want every last drop of performance you won't be using the stock heatsink/fan anyway, but you would certainly be wanting some have decent thermal paste - arctic silver springs to mind, just don't get the stuff that also acts as glue!!!


Stock hsf are good for one use :p

You don't like the white glue?

[Nox]

Stock hsf are good for one use :p



lol

and re-white glue? don't think i've ever used pva in a computer, but there is a first time for anything I guess!

Nox

[Coops]

Artic Silver epox based thermal paste might not be a good idea if you ever intended to remove your heat sink again

[Nox]

Thats assuming you don't want to take the cpu out at the same time :D

Which reminds me, recently took a HSF out of a friends medion computer he bought about 2 years ago, cpu was attached to the heatsink, and WOULD NOT BUDGE!!! the amount of pressure applied was ridiculous and in the end, put the latch 'down' and gently forced it back into place... i was holding my breath to say the least.

And before you ask about how often I do this - I used to work in your returns dept :p

Nox

[Taxation]

if people read the instructions properly then that wouldnt happen

[Nox]

happens a lot under certain circumstances, nothing to do with instructions - after a while the paste 'dries out', unsuprisingly considering these computers are running 24hrs a day, and basically bonds the things. We are talking years though, so rarely seen at home. At work, take an heat sink off a pc & unless its a new pc, you will probably take the cpu with it. Would say its about 30-40% on any computer over 4 years old.

Nox

[Taxation]

thats a b*st*rd

[Nox]

its all experience :) certainly saved my mates computer 2 weeks ago, had he taken to a shop, they would have probably tried to remove the CPU from the heatsink, most likely cracking the edge - we are talking two thumbs trying to slide it off, and absolutely NO movement at all, next step would of been a lever... so would of been a new cpu, oh they haven't been made for over a year, so you need a new mobo and ram too...

As it stands, it was delicately put back in, and I prayed it would boot... and it did.

Nox

[Taxation]

what processor was it , a AMD thunderbird :shock:

[Nox]

Some dodgy old intel thing :D think it was socket 423, definately was 400Mhz FSB though, so not even the 533's would of gone in properly - may of been able to wedge a celeryon in there I guess.

Nox

[007al]

you dont need water cooling for overclocking,unless youre going for some ridiculous record.To do that,every bit of hardware would have to be top notch to keep up with it.
If you want to overclock to get more for your money,then a 3200 64 is the one to go for.I had one and took it to 2.6 and it still ran pretty cool.
My Opteron 146 runs at 2.8 at the moment and still only reaches 41 degrees under load.
Opterons are sever chips,but theyre also top end 64`s with lowered clock speed ,so they can run cooler for long periods of time.Its just a shame that the price rocketed when people found out about them,as £100 for a 146(price i paid) is saving around £600 on an FX chip.

[Nox]

you dont need water cooling for overclocking

oh good grief no :) I went that route so I could have some peace and quiet too, which with my current psu is still a way off...

Nox

[Taxation]

i want some watercooling because i want a quiet system and my X" 3800 runs a bit on the hot side which is making the onboard mobo probe hot, my cpu is going at 2.1ghz (too scared for more) and is at 45 degrees

[Luc]

Opteron is built for the Server Market and was not designed with gaming in mind. You would be better off with the Athlon64 cpu ('http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/products/a561x1y0z1p0s0n0m0')

Correct.

[Daedalus]

Thats assuming you don't want to take the*cpu ('http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/products/a561x1y0z1p0s0n0m0') out at the same time :D

Which reminds me, recently took a HSF out of a friends medion computer he bought about 2 years ago, cpu was attached to the heatsink, and WOULD NOT BUDGE!!! the amount of pressure applied was ridiculous and in the end, put the latch 'down' and gently forced it back into place... i was holding my breath to say the least.

And before you ask about how often I do this - I used to work in your returns dept :p

Nox

I disassembled my Zalman heatsink and CPU yesterday and they came apart as sweet as a nut after more than 2 years of use. The Arctic Silver 5 compound could have been put on yesterday. I was well chuffed. :) It had slightly congealed in a few spots where it had oozed out of the cpu/heatsink mating but it cleaned up easily enough.

[Nox]

The benefits of decent thermal paste :)

Nox

[GMW]

my opinion,
opterons r best if you want to put more than one in your system or OC it under watercooling, other wise use a athlon 64 dual core, they work beter in a normal invironment, mine overclocks to 3.0ghz

[Taxation]

i want to get my hands on an opty 180, but they are far too expensive, maybe a 170 will be more feasable