AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ 2.40GHz Retail V.S. Dual Co

[JohnBrowning]

Ok so I am looking at two dual core CPU's from AMD one is the 64X2 at 2.4GHZ and the other is an Opteron at the same speed. Now the L1 Cache is about the same on them but the Opteron has double the L2 cache. They both are Socket AM2 so that is not an issue. The 64X2 Athlon is about $40 less. I am not a hard core gamer. I do sometimes game but not often. I usualy use my computer for crusieng the internet,watching movies and for work wich is internet heavy! I have a spare XP lying around collecting dust so it time to build something with it. I already have a Athlon 64X2 laptop running XP and an AMD Athlon single core running XP-Pro and a core 2 Duo Intell Acer running Vista Premium Home so it is not like I am brand loyal. The Acer was just too good of a deal to pass up I usualy build all my own desk tops!

 

[XS650]

I just looked into that briefly a couple of weeks ago and didn't find a definant answer.

My impression is that the Opteron is made from higher quality silicon and has some other differences to make it more durable for heavy duty commercial use.

I got a low power consumption Athlon 64X2 2.5Ghz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103255&Tpk=4850e
because I liked the 45 Watt power rating.

 

[JohnBrowning]

Right now I looking a a Dual core Opterom at 2.4Mgh $109, a Duel core 64X2 AMD at 2.4GHz $60 and an Intell Pentium D Dual core at 3.4Ghz $99. The 64X2 Atholon is a retail version so it comes with a cooler and fan inthe box.

I am leaning towards the 64X2 Atholn for price point but on that same note if the other two offer signifacant performance edge I will consider them! I just want to best bang for my buck. I tend to 8 years or more out my PC's so I will be stuck with what ever I build for a while!LOL

 

[JohnBrowning]

Well I ended up going with an AMD Athlon 64X2 4800+ for $57.99 and free shipping. It is a 2.5Ghz ual core so it should do just about anything I want to do. I poured over gameing sites and Cad sights and such and determined that it was buy far the best bang for the buck. I found out that going with a faster model from AMD and Intell did not make much difference in performance. In the end things like cad,3D gameing and grapphic intensive work was impacted more buy the number of Video cards you where running. n fact the number of cards had a greater impact then even the speed of the individual cards or the memory on each card etc.....

I have a spare copy on Xp-Home I recently bought for another project but did not use. So this machine will be running 4 GB of DDR II ram and XP. I am going to toss in a decent Video card and a Blue Ray burner. I think I am going to build a multimedia machine.

I think I am going to hook it up to a nice dual band wireless N router and stream video to my TV on 5Ghz N!!!

oh and just so people Know my Roxio 9.5 would not work on my New Vista machine. It works great on my XP laptop but not on my Vista Desk Top.

 

[ProStreetCamaro]

I run an Opteron 165 dual core and have been for 2 years now. I have mine over clocked at 2.8 on stock volts but it will do 3.0 if I up the voltage a hair. AMD is way behind the ball now. Intel has them bagging for mercy. The Core 2 chips are much faster than anything AMD has to offer currently. My CPU even at 3.0 is a huge bottleneck for my 8800GTX video card.

 

[JohnBrowning]

This true but look at the price differences! You can get a quad core 5000 and a killer SLI/Crossfire board for less then $400. Their is not a game made that you can not play at full frame rates with that if you a good video card or two or thrreeee. Seriously I can toss two 8600GT cards and 4GB of 1066 DDR2 in a case with my New to me 2.5Ghz dual core AMD 4800+ and play any game on the market right now at full frame rates and all the setting maxed out. So what is the point of spending more just for bragging rights. Do not get me wrong AMD need to catch up just to hang on to market share and keep their stock and board of directors happy etc..... The way I see it they could easily keep lowering their prices and just flood the market with their CPU's. In fact if they really wanted to go after workstation and servers it would not be hard for them to do that if they really wanted to. They would just need one or two really good server boards that where rock steady and durable and one processor that they wanted to produce the [censored] out of like mad. Price them so that you could get three or four of them for the price of an intell server or work station until you had the market flooded. Then slowly start raiseing the price once you had the market in your in control.

If you can not be the fastest offer the best value in town and make sure you give lots of value added. If you can make a good product at a low price point that is durable adn does everything the customer needs it to do that will beat the best product on the market almost everytime! Compare Toyota to Bently or Rolls Royce. Who has more market share? How has the highest Quallty of materials? Toyota kicks their butts in market share and in profitts even though their products definately are not in the same league as the other two!

 

[JohnBrowning]

I was so happy when my CPU arrived to today I almost skiped up the drive way like a little school girl! Now I just need my Mobo and all the rest of the couputer. I just tossed two couputers away two because the wife was complaining about them takeing up space etc... I did not know I was going to start another project. I could have used the case's and power supplies at the very least.

I am seriously leaning towards a Biostar TForce board or ASROCK's WiFi board. Both are solid cap bords with boatload of goodies and future proof. Both will handle quad core so if I want to upgrade latter I can. Both are SLI,SLI hybrid or crossfire ready. Although one of them is only SLI Hybrid ready if you use Vista. I still have an unused copy of XP Home sitting in the basement wich is why I started this project.