Crowning a new Champ; AMD's Opteron 165
by Tuan Nguyen on November 5, 2005 2:20 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
AMD announced back in August that it would be shipping its new dual-core Opteron series of processors and the public has been eagerly awaiting on a few of them since then. Just two weeks ago however, our channel sources confirmed that the Opteron 165, a dual-core socket 939 processor had indeed started shipping.
AMD's Opteron processors are aimed squarely at the server and workstation market and thus come with extra features such as larger caches which help speed up repetitive processes. Up until recently however, processors from both AMD and Intel with large amounts of cache (1MB and up) demanded a hefty price premium and most retailers did not carry them. If you wanted an Opteron processor, you would tend to have to search online or be queued in a waiting list. Today however, the channel pricing for the Opteron 165 seems to have changed, which puts this processor right in the realm of affordability for many people.
The Opteron 165 is a 1.8GHz processor with a 1000MHz bus speed. Its appeal however, isn't that it's a dual-core Opteron, but rather its current set price -- less than $300. Originally, AMD has priced the Opteron 165 at $417 in lots of 1000. You can find AMD's current lot pricing on their processor pricing page. Update: Thanks rgreen83. The newest price sheet is here.
Today however, our channel sources tell us you can find the Opteron 165's for less than $300 - as our price engine further confirms [RTPE: Opteron 165], $299 right now at Monarch. The 2.0GHz Manchester X2 3800+ generally only costs about $20-$30 more, but the additional 200MHz core clock sacrifices half the cache found on the Opteron 165. Don't forget either, the Opterons are known for their general overclockablity, so going with one of these new low cost behemoths and then overclocking in excess of 2.6GHz on air with the stock HSF is an easy possibility!
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
26 Comments
View All Comments
quasarsky - Saturday, November 5, 2005 - link
isn't it true athlon 64 chips only use one hypertransport link? opteron's use 3? so this chip would have more bandwidth than a athlon64?Jep4444 - Sunday, November 6, 2005 - link
depends on which Opteron model, a 1xx series only has one HT link, a 2xx series has two linksi'm not sure the exact amount of links on an 8xx but it might be 3 HT links
JarredWalton - Sunday, November 6, 2005 - link
Each link serves a purpose. One link goes to the Northbridge/chipset (always). The second and third links go to additional CPU sockets. Basically, unless you're running a dual or quad socket motherboard, additional HT links won't ever be used.quasarsky - Saturday, November 5, 2005 - link
what i meant was non ecc memory :-Dquasarsky - Saturday, November 5, 2005 - link
i can use ddr 1 unbuffered memory? low latency stuff too? :-D.johnsonx - Saturday, November 5, 2005 - link
What's with NewEgg asking $475 for these things? Usually when I bother to check up on NewEgg's pricing, I find I'm wasting my time. About the only time I actually get any better pricing than NewEgg is with a real distributor like Ingram Micro, and even then it's rare to get any meaningful savings... sometimes ZipZoomFly is a little better on a few items as well.But $475 vs. $299?
Anton74 - Thursday, November 10, 2005 - link
Just to follow up, I noticed today that newegg dropped the price to $289 for the OEM version, and $359 for the retail version. However, they're both out of stock with an ETA of 11/11 (tomorrow as of the date of this post).Anton74 - Saturday, November 5, 2005 - link
As I recall, newegg was also rather high at first with the X2 3800+, but only for a short while. I suspect this one too will come down sooner rather than later - they can't expect to sell very many with that much of a differential.I'll think about putting one on my wishlist until then. :)
Furen - Saturday, November 5, 2005 - link
Mwave has it for $305, here's the link:http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=...">http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=...
SynthDude2001 - Saturday, November 5, 2005 - link
I've wanted one of these things ever since I first heard about it a few months ago. (Well, the lower-end single-core 939 Opterons caught my eye then too, since the 165 was very expensive at the time.)With any luck I'll have one of these by the month's end...