dual opteron worth it's price?
 

I'm looking for a new powerful workstation to replace my slightly underpowered 2ghz amd xp rig. I need (native) sata, gigabit lan and preferably 4 dimms.

I mainly use it to program, but I don't want to buy a seperate pc for the occasional gaming.

Should I go for a cheap s754 rig:

Motherboad:
Abit K8V Pro, K8T800 Pro powered.
S-ata, gigabit lan, only 2 dimms, s754.


Processor:
A64 2800+, 1.8Ghz, clawhammer, 512kb l2.

Total price: 261 euro

...or is a dual opteron worth it's price?

MSI K8 Master dual opteron s940 K8T800 powered.
S-ATA raid, 4 DDR333/400 DIMMs (ECC not required), gigabit lan, firewire, usb2, ...
=> 195 euro


Processor(s):
:cheer:
2* Opteron 242 (1.6Ghz) s940 boxed.
1MB l2, 166fsb, 1.6Ghz.
=> 2*227 euro

Total price: 650 euro.

Opinions? Should the lack of PCI-X hold me from buying a long term investment like the Opteron?

why do you want a KT800 Pro mobo? :p

go with the "cheap s754 rig"

triple price of Opteron won't translate into triple performance, not even double...

I prefer K8T800 Pro above NF3 250GB because:
1) 4 sata ports instead of 2 is to no benefit for me, as I use another pc as fileserver.
2) integrated firewall is not really necessary, because I run linux and already am behind a firewall
3) software control tools are no benefit either, as they are windows only
4) nforce2 chipset have proven to be not very reliable over time, in contrary to ktxxx chipsets. I had 3 kt266 boards, al which survived heavy overclocking for a long time. I have had 6 nf2 boards, of which 5 (!!) died. 2 of them only had a malfunctioning bios, but it's hard to repair nonetheless. This doesn't mean their nf3 chipset sucks, but still...
5) they cost +- 20 euro more

Is abit planning to release a nf3 250gb motherboard? The bios of their KV8 motherboard is nothing but amazing!

Nope, not at this point in time http://www.madshrimps.be/forums/show...highlight=abit

Seems like they have their doubts too. :)

still go with the S754 rig though, KT800 Pro or nForce3, I only opt for the nForce3 for the storage facilities, the more connections , the better, hooking up 8x200gb drives to the mobo becomes a reality ;)

how many of them were crappy epox boards? :)

3.

Epox KT266A boards where excellent though, my brother has his running for more than a year at 190fsb no problems at all.

the Epox nForce3 board offers best overclocking possibilities according to Anandtech.

I have 2 Epox 8RDA+. Both are still working fine.

Then again, if you are expecting it to do 1GHz FSB, that's not the boards problem. Both mine are doing 200 fsb all the time.