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TrevorCook

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Opteron 165 Vs. Athlon 2x 3800+

Any benchmark charts/opinions on which is better? Opteron 165 or Athlon 2x 3800+? Not really an overclocker. I guess I'll think about it a little down the road, when this isn't giving me what I need. But for the time being whitch will give me what I need? Right now I'm mostly a general user, but I would like to play newer games (Oblivion, FEAR, ect.) with ease and stability. Also right now I can actually get the Opteron for ~$25 lower the the 3800.
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Gary Case
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... the benchmark results Visual3DMaya posted in his last link clearly show what I said above => the extra cache helps enough that the Opteron beat the Athlon in almost every test.

... there's a reason Cray uses Opteron's in their latest supercomputer :-)  :-)
Didn't you ask this same question here? https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/21820031/Opteron-165-or-Athlon-2x-3800.html

There's a benchmark included in that thread http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q1/opteron-165-180/index.x?pg=1, which shows that the 3800+ has an edge over the 165.  The 165 is capable of much higher overclocking, though.
Your previous question is pretty similar -- although it focused more on the different Opteron cores.   I don't agree with the answer to the other question (there is a substantial gain with doubling the L2 cache), but you seem to be focused on the Denmark core anyhow, so the result's the same.

I'm not an overclocker, but the Opteron's are, as I noted above, a "more industrial" design than the Athlons; and consequently they're much more "overclockable" -- should you ever decide to do that.   As Callandor noted in your last question, "... the low-end Opterons are phenomenal performers for the price.  A friend has an Opteron 148 that goes up to 2.75GHz, so it seems an achievable goal."

You're not looking at what I'd call a "low-end" Opteron here, but I think the focus of Callandor's statement still holds true:  they're excellent values.
I must come back and be more precise.
Opty 165 falls about 5-10% behind the Athlon 64 X2 3800+, the youngest processor in the corresponding family, in most applications (except the games), as says here among athers http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/print/opteron-165.html
I would prefer Opty 165, maybe i'll look for an Opty 170 too.
Games became annoying going slowly while some applications demand it otherwise you can't see what's going on.