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AMD Upgrade, need some ideas


Bobo Balinski

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Guest Blooz1

I've also had similar results with my 3800+ X2, it also runs at 2.5Ghz at stock voltage. It's presently idling at 32C with the stock 4-pipe cooler. (Local ambient temp about 84F)

 

It's a great bargain chip!

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My son is going off to college (1st year Purdue engineering) in a couple of days. He says he needs the upgrade because of all of the heavy CAD work he'll be doing. Am I a sucker or what???

 

Next he'll say that he needs a quad CPU ;)

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My goodness, GREAT commentary.

 

I know that he was using Inventor at high school, but he'll know better in a couple of weeks as to what CAD sw he will be dabbling with.

 

Fairly loud chorus above for the 3800+.

 

Here are the current prices at Newegg:

- X2 3800+ 2.0ghz $64

- X2 4200+ 2.2ghz $80

- Opteron 175 2.2ghz $140

- Opteron 180 2.4ghz $165

- Opteron 185 2.6ghz $235

 

:confused:

 

How would you spend my money??

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Guest navinjohnson

The X2 3800 is the best deal there. Especially with the other gear you have in that setup. Keep it on stock voltages and overclock it to 2.5ish. That should be more than enough to get him through 4 years of college.

 

Just curious... what field of engineering is he entering? I am going into my sophomore year of mechanical engineering at Iowa State University.

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Navinjohnson,

 

Purdue does not require the freshmen to pick an Engineering major the first year, and they are exposed to all of the majors so that he will be better prepared to choose. With that said, he is strongly leaning towards a ME, and possibly also an EE.

 

How was your first year at Iowa?

 

One last question on the CPU's:

 

What is the difference between a dual core Opteron and X2 Athalon, given the same ghz? Does the Opteron have any particular advantage over the Athalon?

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The opteron has double the cache. But you really won't notice a big enough difference to care. The Opterons also have a record of being better OCers. But if this is for school and gonna have important data on it I wouldn't recommend OCing anyways.

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+1 on 3800 how can you go wrong at that price? I the 3800 they are selling recently have overcloked as well if not better than the higher priced ones.

 

 

 

 

 

If you overclock and validate it using the OC database it is safer than stock.

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