opty 265 vs 165

[TankGuys]

Originally Posted by spyda05

The reason I wanted 2 chips was that when comparing price, 2 opty 265 chips is only like $200 more than an FX-60 and for 2 more cores I think its worth the $200 BUT only if it could hit 2.6Ghz.

I thought the 165 ans 265 were nearly identical chips so i figured 2.6Ghz is easy on a 165 so it should be on a 265 as well. You gotta admit 4 2.6Ghz AMD cores in a single system would be sweet! 10Ghz.... mmmm.....

SO, I think i'll just go with a 165, put it on water (maybe a chiller) and see what that does for me. any of them ever hit 3Ghz stable??

thanks for the replies!

Not altogether bad reasoning, but you're also forgetting the other, more expensive, parts required to get a dual 265 system up and running. A decent dual socket 940 board is $200+, and you'll have to use registered memory, which is also significantly more expensive. Plus, that memory doesn't run as fast as non-registered, so you'd lose some gaming performance there. All in all, I'd say go with a single 165. If you're that concerned about a max OC and you have the money, go with a 170 or 175 for the extra multis

[AruisDante]

200?? try 400 for the good dual socket 940 boards, even more for ones that have SLi capabilities. but yeah, 165 on chiller is a great idea... you'll hit 2.6 no problem unless you're really unlucky and get a complete dud, and 2.7-2.8 is not unreasonable at all.

[TempestV]

there are some dual940 boards out there that don't require registered ram (Abit WN2S). not sure how they do it, but it doesn't call for it. dual940 boards are not as likely to offer as much overclocking options as a 939 board. they are certainly getting better about that, and there are some that are very good, but they are not as common as 939 boards setup for good overclocking.

[AruisDante]

that's weird.... because i'm 99% sure that the HTT on the chip itself requires the registered RAM, the board itself doesn't care......

but i suppose it could be possible.

[Hairyraisin]

Any thoughts on this board good, bad, self-defeating? http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8we.html

[?noob?]

Originally Posted by Hairyraisin

Any thoughts on this board good, bad, self-defeating? http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8we.html

Good board for stabiliy

Self defeating for overclocking.

[tomb18]

“the thing is that socket 940 is completely different from socket 939. 940's can't use the sam RAM as 939... 940's have to use registered ECC RAM, which costs a lot more (like twice as much a lot more) and is slower. Also, i wouldn't think a 265 will OC the same at all because they have three HTT busses (one to comunicate between the two cores on the chip, one to comunicate with the MB and the rest of the system, and one to comunicate with the other processor), so their overclocking chariceristics are going to be completely different. Not to mention the power requirements for running 4 CPU cores (2 CPUs, two cores per CPU), and the heat that will generate. You can't just stick an XP-90 on each CPU, they won't fit, and they don't fit the socket either if i rmeber correctly. and a 265 costs like $300 more then a 165. Basically, it's a completely different chip, on a completely different setup. you can't really compare the two at all.”

I noticed that several people seem to be interested in dual socket Opteron systems. I have one. Just a little bit of info on the above. I’m not bashing but just want to let everyone know just what is available and what the facts are.

First of all, there are several boards on the market that support dual 940 pin Opterons that can use single core or dual core. (ASUS, TYAN, IWILL) These are not server boards either in that they support PCI –E 16 and do not have any PCI-X for example. There are boards that also support SLI which you do not usually need in a server! Most of these boards are based on the nVidia4 chipset.

I have an ASUS K8N-DL which has dual opteron and dual core support, PCI-Ex16 , has nvidia sata-2 raid as well as si sata raid, 10USB, realtec 8 channel audio(which server has this?) firewire etc etc… The board costs around $225.

These boards use registered ecc ram which contrary to the above is only slightly more expensive than standard (and absolutely required by 2xx and 8xx Opterons). For example I can get 2.5-3-2 1G DIMMS from Mushkin for $140 each and there are others that are even cheaper. Or 512Mg 2-2-2 dimms from Mushkin for $100

Is the ram slower? Well, one of the benefits of a dual cpu optereon is that each CPU has dedicated memory that can be shared between CPU’s. So for a standard, dual processor single core machine, there is a sustainable memory bandwidth of 12.8 GBytes/second vs 6.4 gb/s in a single cpu single or dual core 14x opteron (or FX60 for that matter). I don’t care how much you overclock your 14x opty’s they ain’t going to get close to the dual CPU system. Furthermore, Windows XPx64 and Server 2003, and Linux support NUMA in the operating system, allowing full use of this bandwidth.

As to overclocking, this board has been used to overclock 244 Opties (1.8gHz) to 2.4 regularly, and 2.2gHz 275’s to 2.6gHz with no problems.

On my system, I have 2 XP-90’s on the board no problem. They screw into the stock ASUS backplates.

So the most bang for the buck is with this system and 2 250’s (2.4 gHz overclocked to 2.8) (costing around $500 for the pair used) with 4 gig of memory.

This system will blow away any other system you can imagine for most things except systems which have dual core 285’s that are overclocked as well (2.4 gHz – at $2500 each)

As to the heat, well I have no problems with two case fans, 4 hard disks, an XFX 7800GT and an Antec 550 EPS12 power supply.

Check out some of the benchmarks comparing dual cpu opterons (single and dual core) vs other solutions such as dual core Pentiums and you’ll see that they speak for themselves. There’s a reason that all of the world’s supercomputers are now moving to the Opterons (Cray etc) as well as the heavyweight server suppliers such as sun.
And rumor has it that the Opterons will be dropping by 50% in cost this month..a rumor but we will see.
So the best bang for the buck? Buy a dual CPU opteron board now and add a single core or dual core to it now, or two cheaper overclocked single cores and save up for that second CPU (or dual core) later in the year.

As for gaming performance, maybe a little performance may be lost at the moment on x32 bit operating systems compared to ddr2 based systems but this is just a few frames per second certainly less that the difference of a 6800vs7800 board. But go to a true 64bit OS supporting NUMA and multithreaded apps and lookout.

If you are a real glutton, then buy the 4 CPU tyan board, a few 875’s and have 8 cores and a 25 gb memory bandwidth! ( only $1200, but no SLI . yet)

Check this out

http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q2/opteron-x75/index.x?pg=1

[dave_graham]

i've got a Supermicro H8DCE with dual 16x SLI lanes, dual processor, dual nic, etc. etc. and it's around 420.00..

there are minimal oc'ing options in the bios.

dave

[jmilch]

Originally Posted by sam375

Opteron 165: Skt939
Opteron 265: Skt940

Yup thats the major difference and yes they are compatible with (2) chips in essence 4 cores total.

[tomb18]

Hi Dave,

Yup it's the same on the Asus K8N-DL, you need to use ntune or clockgen. The bios has all you would need (base clock, memory dividers, cpu voltage, memory voltage) except a PCI lock...how could they forget this!

[dave_graham]

Originally Posted by tomb18

Hi Dave,

Yup it's the same on the Asus K8N-DL, you need to use ntune or clockgen. The bios has all you would need (base clock, memory dividers, cpu voltage, memory voltage) except a PCI lock...how could they forget this!

ah, but the SM board has a PCI lock....nifty.

dave