dual opterons for gaming?

[One_Hertz]

A friend of mine got two 2.2gig opterons and hes planning to game on those and according to him thats like a 4.4ghz a64 :rolleyes: . I would beat him with my 3ghz venice gaming wise, in any game thats out right now, right?

[Ugly n Grey]

That's perfectly correct..... Optys are for stable long term use and have their benefits. But for gaming you will crush him all other things being equal (video, HD etc....)

[drcrawn]

I don't think any games currently would make use of his dual optys, so then you just have a mhz battle, 2.2ghz v. 3.0ghz.

Opterons are the same as their s939 A64 variants though, they perform identically. So really neither one is "better" it all comes down to raw ghz. You win at 3ghz, by a mile. :cool:

[kiwi]

If it was same Ghz then opterons would benefit of additional cache size vs Venice. Otherwise overclocked Venice is faster.

[lutjens]

A higher clocked single core chip is faster in gaming, but dual Opterons have added benefits, rather than just clock speed

For example, who wins if you each loaded up a dedicated game server of the game, loaded it up a bit and then joined the game?;)

[Holst]

His system will still be plenty fast enough.. although your 3gig will be quicker.

[trance565]

his system will definantly make a better non dedicated server than urs xD

[One_Hertz]

Ok great just clearning that up his arguing was starting to get to me :rolleyes:

[total_assault]

just like the new x2s he can run d2ol in the background and still game no probelm ;)

[Vandi423]

Dual Opterons are SMP - Symmetric Multiprocessing

Dual 2.2GHz does not equal 4.4GHz.

Your 3Ghz Venice should own his Dual 2.2Ghz in gaming. Most games are not multithreaded and would therefore only use 1 processor. The extra processor sure helps in multitasking though. I think that it would take a couple of 2.6GHz Opterons to beat your 3GHz Venice in a multithreaded application.

Also remember that the ECC Registered Memory required by Opterons would increase latency.

[i found nemo]

venice is 512 kb and opterons are 1mb right??? if he upped his to 2.8ghz on 1 core he'd own you in gaming, just because that cache helps so much or even 2.9ghz

[joe2004]

There are no general conclusions here! If the game is written for multithreading then dual Opteron will kill any single chip processor, no matter what. It all depends how optimized the game is itself.
There are some software applications/games written with multithreading and there are some that are not.

Dual 2.2GHz does not equal 4.4GHz.

In general not but it all depends on the program itself. Dual Opteron 248 has the ability to perform as 4.4 GHz single chip. The only question is whether the program (game) itself is optimized to use that ability. There is usually some overhead in the program that prevents it to use perfect scaling in multithreading even when it is written that way.

[Ugly n Grey]

There are no general conclusions here! If the game is written for multithreading then dual Opteron will kill any single chip processor, no matter what. It all depends how optimized the game is itself.
There are some software applications/games written with multithreading and there are some that are not.


In general not but it all depends on the program itself. Dual Opteron 248 has the ability to perform as 4.4 GHz single chip. The only question is whether the program (game) itself is optimized to use that ability. There is usually some overhead in the program that prevents it to use perfect scaling in multithreading even when it is written that way.

There is no perfect scaling in multi proc systems and no code written that scales 1:1 with each processor added. None, and I mean on any platform. Act like a single chip? first I ever heard of it. Tell me how, I have 26 of them here it would be nice if I could make them do that...kind of a holiday prank if you will. The OS kernel notes multi cores, the apps takes that info from the OS. The apps could care less what the layout of the multi threading capability is.

In any case, my x2 4200 at 2.7 is whaling the tar out of any of my dual Opterons on multithreaded apps just on pure Mhz. But when you start going 4way or 8way (4 875's in my case) then things pull out of reach fast. But none of them scale even close to 100 per cent. I wish.

[saratoga]

You can get 1:1 or even better then 1:1 scaling:

Superlinear speedup - the effect of a N processor machine completing a task more than N times faster than a machine with a single processor similar to that in the multiprocessor has at times been a controversial issue (and lead to much benchmarking) but can be brought about by such effects as the multiprocessor machine having not just N times the processing power but also N times cache and memory thus flattening the cache-memory-disk hierarchy, more efficient use of memory by the individual processors due to partitioning of the problem and a number of other effects. Similar boosted efficiency claims are sometimes aired for the use of a cluster of cheap computers as a replacement of a large multiprocessor, but again the actual results depend much on the problem at hand and the ability to partition the problem in a way that is conductive to clustering.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_computing

Uncommon, but it does occur in some problems. Games are not one of them though. You'll be lucky to get a 30% speedup once the coming generation of multithreaded games become available.

[joe2004]

...

[joe2004]

Your X2 4200 is actually acting like a dual chip. It uses multithreading with the similar benefit a dual CPU would use. Not the same hardware-wise but pretty darn close.

Of course there is no perfect scaling since as I said there is always some overhead in program itself. It isn't possible to perfectly time the threads and of course even opening multiple threads itself is an overhead. But dual processors/multicore processors are a big gain over single core processors.

[Ugly n Grey]

oh hell yeah, I've run dual core systems since Compaq first stuck two p133's together on the same circuit board... I've always been convinced. Now with the MHZ sort of hitting a wall with current technology, multi core is what everyone will be doing to raise performance... I love it. My favourtie junk software all multi threaded, kind of like getting an extra chicken McNugget in your happy meal. Even VIA has a multi core strategy............

As to my x2 acting like a two chips, well it is, if there was NUMA on this board and it supported ECC RAM and RAM over 4Gigs, I'd toss the Opty's out the door. But I don't really see that happening for consumer grade chips. I can only dream :)

[joe2004]

My X2 3800 is coming after Aug 12, I cannot wait and in that regard I share your enthusiams. :clap:
If only I would have more money to spend I would already have X2. ;)

[Vandi423]

In general not but it all depends on the program itself. Dual Opteron 248 has the ability to perform as 4.4 GHz single chip. The only question is whether the program (game) itself is optimized to use that ability. There is usually some overhead in the program that prevents it to use perfect scaling in multithreading even when it is written that way.


SMP - I suggest that you look that up.

Under the current platform a pair of 2.2GHz Opterons will NEVER beat a single theoretical 4.0GHz Opteron. PERIOD. :fact:

[i found nemo]

What About Cache????????????????

[kiwi]

What About Cache????????????????

As for L2 cache could be something like this
1MB xxx Mhz = 512KB xxx + 100 to 200Mhz

[Ugly n Grey]

As for L2 cache could be something like this
1MB xxx Mhz = 512KB xxx + 100 to 200Mhz

Yep yep more or less. In some stuff cache makes no difference at all.............. My Venny outperforms an at stock fx-55 in every bench around but hey it's running at 2.7 Ghz. You'd kind of expect it to. Isn't that the whole point of this forum, buy the best OCing chip you can crank it up as far as you can?

[i found nemo]

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=61161

trust me i been through that