Non SLI Gaming Rig

[kalniel]

Yep - people are mostly agreeing and we're just giving out useful additional information

i mean isnt the question really: get a slow chip to OC or get a fairly fast chip to run at stock for the same price as thats the only difference?

My answer would be go for the slowest/cheapest cheap that isn't going to bottle neck *this* generation of graphics cards at stock.

All the X2's will OC enough to remove the bottleneck for next generation of cards most likely. To get something with the possibility (and it's still just that) of an even higher overclock, just for the purposes of gaming (ie, removing a bottleneck for a graphics card) many generations in the future and SLI, is something you'd have to go with an opteron for, however buying for some point in the future is never as cost effective as considering the near term.

While there was a point where you could get a very slightly slower opteron for the same price as an X2, that's changed now, so I'm still of the belief an X2 3800 would be the better way to go (if you had to have dual core - to be honest best price/performance for this and next couple of generations of games will still be best served by single core chips )

[Smokey21]

3800+ and a X1900XTX. All there is to say really. Or you could go for a 7950.

[rainbow]

check out the bargain forum for he 64 4000,great cpu.and get the gx2 forget dual core

[-ChEM-]

but there isnt any difference between parts except cache and binning

so theres no reason to say that a 4800+ OCed by 200mhz is better in any way than an opteron 165 OCed by 800mhz (thats the same speed in case youre trying to remember the stocks) because its "stretched" less because they were both built in exactly the same way and their fate decided after they were made

i dont argue that you shouldnt be wary of something that has been downbinned as the primary reason is that downbinned parts are generally tested to come up worst, even if you can argue its purely ecominical in the case of the low-end chips, or for server reliability in the case of the opterons and obviously if there are miracle chips hidden, theyll be mixed with the worst of the lot if you dont know specifically how to find them (unless they can make those into 754s perhaps)

but it does SEEM that if anything opterons are more like FX cores than X2 cores and there are obvious reasons for amd deciding to keep good cores for the opteron range

if that is true which i believe it is in many cases given the stats, when you compare an opteron 165 and a 4800+, the stock speed of the chips becomes totally irrelevant and its just two chips running at 2.6ghz at say 1.375V... the percentages you worked out are calculated from a number that means nothing (if this is true)

obviously in the end no one except amd can say how our chips really ended up the way they did so i dont disagree with what you say, but.... i agree more with myself, or something

ive had bad rigs before that would seem stable in general use at maybe 50% OC but in practice it would always fail prime until it went down to under 10% OC but that was only because i had a crap motherboard that was speced to 200fsb but really had to be forced to get there, everyone with an NF7-S or DFI and my chip had it running stable and if youre only referring to your experience with the system in your sig the asrock board is an obvious culprit for the same kind of thing (but at least thats a budget board, my epox was supposed to be good)

edit: yeah i forgot about the locked multi but all good boards should do 280mhz htt anyway, more like 310mhz so its only important if you buy a crap board which i wouldnt recommend even without OCing

[MSIC]

Yeah absolutely, but it's exactly the mutiplier locks that cause my issues.
If you take 2 chips, one running at 1800Mhz on a 200 fsb (or whatever term AMD likes to use) and one running at 2400Mhz on a 200 fsb, then make them both run at 2600Mhz, the chips themselves may be equally stable, but the fsb speeds will be completely different and therefore be stressing the system in different ways.
If we could unlock the multipliers all would be good.

And yes, I agree that my ASRock is to blame.

[rad]

Good, thats settled then.
Back to the subject, go for the 7950 gx2.

[303]

It's interesting that nobody has said anything about intel, would it be worth waiting for their new chips to flood the market whilst keeping an on the AM2 prices?

[-ChEM-]

word is 46% off some AMD prices the day after conroe comes out, so even if you dont go for intel its still worth waiting for

we still have to see how well theyll overclock and how many intel can produce but it seems to be positive on both counts

also unless you want to play in high res i would probably go for a 7900gtx or x1900xtx rather than the gx2 as its slower than those two cards until you really start pushing it

[rad]

I think the gtx is not good value, because you can overclock the gt to near gtx speeds.
Thats why I propose the gx2, which is significantly better for not much extra cost (ie here in Australia the gx2 costs less than 10% more than the gtx)

[Metroid]

The best thing is wait for Conroe and get a intel 590 board witha 2048 MB.