Looking for Dual Sockets

[atocp]

Hi there,

Im looking to upgrade my computer (Not the rig in my signature):

Athlon 64 3500
Asus A8N-SLI Premium.
+ other stuff.

But im looking at building a new computer with Dual Core. Here's the question...
Am I better with
A) X2 4800 and a nice motherboard,
B) Opteron 175 Dual Core and nice new motherboard.
C) Either of these two and my old motherboard
D) Or "Stuff dual core, Let's go Dual Socket 940 with some Opterons!"

I know the old opteron s940 can go dual socket, and they have introduced s939 Opteron Dual core, but there doesn't seem to be dual socket 939 anywhere? Am I wrong?

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am looking for a kick-ass machine to help reduce the dreaded render times. Incidentally, I want to stick with AMD, Im loyal to them.

Cheers all,
Atocp

[casecutter]

Re: Looking for Dual Sockets

Dual socket motherboards have little to no overclocking abilities so if you only want to run stock speeds it is an option. Also, decent dual socket motherboards are expensive and so would a pair of Opterons. Your best choice is an Opteron 170 and a good motherboard. 175's are expensive and dodgy overclockers at best. Unless you plan on NO overclocking, the 170 is the best choice. Stick to ASUS boards if you are not an extreme user and get a DFI board if you desire a challenge. DFI boards overclock the best, but they are hard to get used to and set up properly.

[atocp]

Re: Looking for Dual Sockets

Thanks for that casecutter.


Just a couple of questions on that. If im sticking with single processor would i be better with Opteron 170 or X2 4400 at the same price? I would have thought X2? Might even stretch to a 4800 if i can find someone looking for a good kidney.

Are there any benifits over dual core as opposed to dual socket, I can get 2XOpteron 248 2.2ghz + Dual socket mobo,
Or
1X X24400 + mobo
for almost the same price?

Cheers again for the help, im starting to lean to one side rather than the other.(nothing to do with the computing choices, i've just had a few)

-atocp

[casecutter]

Re: Looking for Dual Sockets

You are most certainly better off with an Opteron 170 and a good motherboard. The new tech is coming out and you could go AM2 since you are doing a complete upgrade, or you could also consider * ack * Intel. Everything Intel is about to release looks very promising, but it will also be costly. Personally, I believe you should get a nice Opteron 170 and a really good S939 motherboard, say a DFI SLI-D or an ASUS A8R32-MVP. Even being last year's tech it will stll be plenty fast for years to come. The new to market stuff is sure to be full of bugs.

Dual Socket motherboards are meant for servers or high end CAD machines. THey also require more expensive ECC ram and are just not for normal use/overclocking. List what you plan on using your new rig for and then I could add my 2 cents to that.

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Looking for Dual Sockets

You are most certainly better off with an Opteron 170 and a good motherboard. The new tech is coming out and you could go AM2 since you are doing a complete upgrade, or you could also consider * ack * Intel. Everything Intel is about to release looks very promising, but it will also be costly. Personally, I believe you should get a nice Opteron 170 and a really good S939 motherboard, say a DFI SLI-D or an ASUS A8R32-MVP. Even being last year's tech it will stll be plenty fast for years to come. The new to market stuff is sure to be full of bugs.

Dual Socket motherboards are meant for servers or high end CAD machines. THey also require more expensive ECC ram and are just not for normal use/overclocking. List what you plan on using your new rig for and then I could add my 2 cents to that.

I wouldn't go last-gen AMD right now no matter what. Yonah already performs and overclocks better than anything on Socket 939, and Conroe and AM2 both provide much better upgradability for many reasons, primarily DDR2.

However, the computer in question essentially is a high-end workstation. He has 3D rendering in mind. However, a regular dual-core system will get the job done just fine, without adding the numerous expenses that come with trying to build for a server environment. For the record, it's not ECC that's expensive, but rather registered DIMM that are required and so drastically increase the cost of RAM in servers.

Anyway, my recommendations are as follows:
If you're willing to wait a while and go Intel, wait for Core 2 Duo (Conroe) to release.
If you're willing to wait like a day but not willing to go Intel, wait for AM2. Chances are that the overclockability of the release boards and processors will be comparable to socket 939. It will be more expensive, but at least you won't be building a brand new system with a non-upgradable board, CPU, and RAM.
If you're willing to go Intel but don't want to wait for Conroe, get a Core Duo T2400 and an AOpen i975Xa-YDG. This system has some room for upgrading and the overclocked performance is considerably better than anything on AMDs roadmap for the next few months will be (as well as all existing processors).

Of course, if you're not willing to overclock and just want to buy the best bang-for-buck system you can get, a socket 939 will do just fine. If you're unwilling to go Intel (which is silly, because Intel is winning) or wait, then socket 939 is also fine. But remember that the key disadvantage to socket 939 is that unlike the other 3 sockets, it has DDR and isn't getting any new processors. Core 2 Duo, AM2, and Core Duo all use DDR2 and all have CPUs on the roadmaps that won't be there/weren't there at launch.