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!
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mlittl3 - Sunday, November 6, 2005 - link
The only thing I learned by reading these comments are how uninformative some anandtech readers are becoming.* didn't know about 1xx 939 opterons (news flash: 1xx opterons are also going to use the M2 socket which is 940 pin, no this is not the same as the current 940 pin and yes this is going to be the same socket for desktop cpus)
* didn't know how the HT links on opterons work...whoever asked about the opteron being faster because it has 3 HT links over athlon 64s giving 3x bandwidth should be banned from this forum
* didn't know how much L1 cache AMD cpus have...most likely the dude who read the 256K L1 cache somewhere was not smart enough to realize that this was total L1 cached between two cores (128K cache per core) which means dual-core opterons and dual-core athlon x2s have the exact same L1 cache. Wow 1+1=2.
Jarrod, Kristopher, Anand, someone please give an opteron refresher course before my brain shrivels up and dies. :) Thanks.
Madellga - Monday, November 7, 2005 - link
Thanks Einstein for the clarification.Unfortunately I posted my question without checking at AMD. The online store I looked at posted the L1 wrongly, my mistake was not to check it.
It is good to know that there are perfect human beings walking around us. You don't do mistakes, do you?
Madellga - Monday, November 7, 2005 - link
My post refers to mlittl3 , not to Kristopher's.KristopherKubicki - Monday, November 7, 2005 - link
Hehe OK - where to begin.These DENMARK Opterons are pretty much identical to the X2 4200+, but clocked at 1800MHz instead. They are pretty much identical to Toledo. Furthermore, this spin only has a single HT link. They used to put 3 on each Opteron/Athlon64, but only MP Opterons would ever use the additional links, so they are removed. There are some better diagrams of how the HT links work, but I can only find this one right now:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...">http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...
This chip is an Athlon 64 X2 3800+, but they call it an Opteron for whatever reason -- probably some marketing that is way over my head.
Usually the caches are written 128k + 128k or 2x128k, but sometimes not -- again probably some marketing that is even further over my head.
rgreen83 - Sunday, November 6, 2005 - link
You guys are using the wrong AMD pricing page, I would kinda expect you guys to be a little more up to date on these things. Heres the right one http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoo...">http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoo... notice pricing effective 10/31 not 9/28 like the one you guys linked to, and true to form it lists the 165 at $278.Madellga - Sunday, November 6, 2005 - link
Hey, you are all saying that the 165 is based on the Toledo, but I saw somewhere that the 165 has 128Kb L1 cache. The Toledo has 256Kb L1 cache.We all know that the 1024Kb L2 cache brings a little advantage (San Diego x Venice), but what about the L1 cache being smaller?
How important that is? Any benchmarks available?
I bought yesterday a X2 3800 Manchester (box not yet opened), know I wonder if I should return it and get a 165.
What is the big advantage of the 165 over the X2 3800? Can it overclock better?
The way I see now:
X2 3800 has L1 256Kb L2 512Kb (per core)
Multiplier 10x
165 has L1 128Kb 1024KB (per core)
Multiplier 9x
Price being similar, I would think the X2 would still be better for most of people (specially without a DFI board).
What I am missing here?
Please let me know, I would hate opening the X2 3800 and finding out that the 165 was the beast to get.
quasarsky - Sunday, November 6, 2005 - link
are you sure about this???Live - Sunday, November 6, 2005 - link
AMD Opteron™Product Data Sheet
64-Kbyte 2-Way Associative ECC-Protected
L1 Data Cache
– Two 64-bit operations per cycle, 3-cycle latency
• 64-Kbyte 2-Way Associative Parity-Protected
L1 Instruction Cache
– With advanced branch prediction
• 1024-Kbyte (1-Mbyte) 16-Way Associative
ECC-Protected L2 Cache
– Exclusive cache architecture—storage in addition
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white...">http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content...e/white_...
AMD Athlon? 64 X2
Dual-Core
Product Data Sheet
64-Kbyte 2-Way Associative ECC-Protected
L1 Data Caches
? Two 64-bit operations per cycle, 3-cycle latency
? 64-Kbyte 2-Way Associative Parity-Protected
L1 Instruction Caches
? With advanced branch prediction
? 16-Way Associative ECC-Protected
L2 Caches
? Exclusive cache architecture?storage in addition
to L1 caches
? Up to 1 Mbyte per L2 cache
to L1 caches
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white...">http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content...e/white_...
JarredWalton - Sunday, November 6, 2005 - link
L1 cache sizes for all K8 chips are 128K. From Sempron through Opteron they all have the same L1 and internal structure. Only the number of cores, extension like SSE3, and L2 cache sizes vary. There's a reason L1 cache sizes are smaller than L2 - it is very difficult to get a large cache with a latency as low as L1. (Actually, it's almost impossible.)Pete84 - Saturday, November 5, 2005 - link
You can use normal memory. It is just like a normal X2, except it is called an Opteron.The extra hypertransport links on Opterons are only on the MP variants.