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Thread: Why are Opterons better for servers than dual cores?

  1. #1
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    Why are Opterons better for servers than dual cores?

    I thought that now, with dual core desktop CPUs from AMD (and intel), that Opterons would be worse...

    The whole point of an opteron is to have 2 of them on a motherboard... but a single dual core CPU is faster than dual CPUs b/c it does not have to communicate through the much slower system bus.

    so why are opterons still better for servers?

    Thx

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    Laird Of The Glen jimborae's Avatar
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    Er I dont know the answer to this but you appear to be forgetting about dual core Opterons; the 165 and above.

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    Opterons are designed to use HyperTransport links to communicate in multiple CPU configurations using Direct Connect Architecture.
    & iirc you can have 8 on a board

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    Okay, but then if you only had 1 CPU for your server, why would you go with an dual core Opteron over an X2?

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    larger cache and imo it's of better quality not that an x2 is bad of course.

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    Quote Originally Posted by latrosicarius
    Okay, but then if you only had 1 CPU for your server, why would you go with an dual core Opteron over an X2?
    also are we talking 940 Opterons or 939 Opterons?

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    Quote Originally Posted by BUFF
    also are we talking 940 Opterons or 939 Opterons?
    Don't think it matters?

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    Firstly You can only find PCI-X on server motherboards.

    Secondly And for some mission-critical servers, data integrity is the most important thing. You don't want to be using non-ECC memory in a bank server (oh, does it matter if bill gate's bank account missing 2^29 dollars because one of the bit was reporting the wrong value?)

    Thirdly, in some case you need a lot of memory, i.e. 8GB or above, you can't get >4GB on Athlon 64 motherboards, but on server motherboard you could use 32GB (Registered). Even if you don't, the 8 DIMM design allows more flexibility.

    Finally, Dual core was previously not available, therefore to get multi-processor, you have to dual (Intel HT doesn't really count as multi-processor). Now you could use 2 Dual Core processors to get 4xCores on a dual board
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    As indeed I have on our Exchange server which utilises 2x270s. Fast? I think so...

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    So, basically.... Opterons are higher quality than X2? I'm not talking about RAM... I use 2GB of PC3200 DDR400 ECC, Registered RAM on my server.

    Opterons on the 939 socket aren't even out yet, are they? Anyway, it doesn't matter... I'm just talking about why are opterons better from a architectural/general standpoint... not, which is the latest bleeding edge release on the desktop/server markets that keeps steeling the performance title from the other. ty

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    Laird Of The Glen jimborae's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by latrosicarius
    ..........
    Opterons on the 939 socket aren't even out yet, are they?

    mate where have you been for the last 10 months or so.

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    Quote Originally Posted by arthurleung
    you can't get >4GB on Athlon 64 motherboards,
    Abit AN8 32X supports 8Gb (obviously only with an OS that does as well)

    Quote Originally Posted by latrosicarius
    Opterons on the 939 socket aren't even out yet, are they?
    you obviously didn't notice my sig ...

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    Okay, well, I don't keep up with the opteron market, but the question remains? Why is one theoreticaally better for server applications, and the other better for games? Considering we can now have dual cores in both lines. (I'm only talkin about 1cpu here)

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    In most games a single core, higher clocked Athlon64 will outperform a dual-core Athlon64.

    It gets complicated with 939 Opterons because to all intents & purposes they are Athlon64s as they are based on the same cores.

    940 Opterons are better for servers especially in multiple CPU configurations (because afaik you can't have multi-CPU 939's at least I've never seen a board) & because of their memory support.

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    Ok i think we are getting off topic, i think what is mean is say you had two single core CPUs skt 939 @ 2.2GHz, both having 1meg of cache, one was an A64 and one was a opteron would the opteron be better?

    Obviously opterons 940 has some advanced features (eg ecc reg ram) and so they are needed in some situations.
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    IIRC, both 939 & 940 Opterons can run with ECC memory. In addition, the Opterons reportedly go through additional testing, so they are supposed to be more reliable.

    I guess the 939 1-way Opterons will make sense for a small server for a small business.

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