[geeks] fastest AMD socket 939 and 940 processors

[Shannon Hendrix]

On Mar 11, 2009, at 21:40 , Phil Stracchino wrote:

> Shannon Hendrix wrote:
>> I opened the machine and I was wrong: it's also a 939.  I could have
>> sworn it was socket 940.
>>
>> Good thing I looked first... :)
>>
>> Looks like the Opteron 185 is the best, but a 170 can run as fast  
>> with
>> overclocking and they are the same CPU anyway.
>>
>> In other words: I have to upgrade the one with a 170 already in it,  
>> it
>> is maxxed out now.
>>
>> The other one, I'll search for a cheap 170 to give it its last  
>> upgrade.
>
> ...Why?  Give it the 170 from the other.  ;)

Well, I could do that when I upgrade mine I guess.  But I'm not sure  
when I'll be doing that and wanted to upgrade the other one soon.

But yeah, that would work out if I did my own machine too.

>> My own machine is also a socket 939 with an Opteron 170.   
>> Surprisingly
>> I still play games on it, even the new Empire Total War.  It was a
>> really fast machine when I first made it.
>
> babylon5 was really fast when first built, and remained so through
> several successive upgrades.  It's still pretty decently fast, but not
> "competitive" any more.  vorlon was for the most part "really fast"  
> when
> first built (Athlon64 3000+, PCI-E, SATA, 3GB RAM, nVidia 6600 card),
> but the state of the art has moved a long way in four years.

My machine has an Opteron 170 running at 2.5GHz (nothing but clock  
increase, no cooling or voltage changes needed), 3GB of RAM, and an  
nVidia 8800GT/9800GT.

I can run things like Oblivion, Empire Total War, Crysis, and things  
like that with reasonable good looks.

ETW though... the campaign turns have far more computer controlled  
nations than earlier games, and it really eats CPU when your turn  
ends.  Plus, the really nice graphics also eat CPU and GPU like no  
tomorrow.

But, since I can play them, it's hard to justify the upgrade right  
now.  All the other work it does, mostly UNIX stuff and FreeBSD  
testing, has no need for more speed.

>> I have been thinking of building a new Wintendo, but there are so  
>> many
>> choices now, all far faster than what I have, I've not really  
>> gotten a
>> handle on it yet.
>
> Heh.  First time I've heard that term ("Wintendo").  I like it.
>
> In this household, Windows is essentially GameOS for all but a tiny
> handful of legacy Windows applications.

Some Windows software is pretty nice, and I get a ton of it free when  
I buy hardware or find other deals, while the Mac I have to buy  
everything I want, and usually at higher prices.

Exception: Mac shareware is far higher quality and competitively priced.


-- 
"Where some they sell their dreams for small desires."