I'm thinking about splashing out on some new PC bits, mainly a processor, motherboard and gfx card, the computer will be from video editing, video encoding and on and off gaming, I'm just wondering if I'm better off going with an X2 4400 or an Opteron 170 and then overclock it, I already have 2gb of OCZ PC3200 ram so that should give me some room to overclock with hopefully. What would you suggest in my situation?

What motherboard would you guys also recommend for these chips, still a bit undecided about the gfx card but it'll either be a 7900gt or x1900

Ive got a 4400+, havent tried overclocking it, but a lot of them can do 2.6 easily, and some do 2.8.

As for gfx, not sure really for vid editing, but the x1900 would be my pick.

Well you can edit with any gfx card, gfx card will mainly be for the gaming side of things, tempted by the x1900 because I've got an x800 at the moment and it's really good.

edit/ although I think I heard the x1900 can be used for encoding, is that right?

The main difference is the 4400+ has a higher multiplier. So you can get higher speeds with a lower HTT. Which is good if you have cheap ram, but lower bandwidth. Of course the X2 will go to the higher HTT and lower multi of the opty. But the 170 has a reputation of clocking higher. I had an X2, it would only go to 2550 Mhz, dropped in a 170 and it went straight to 2750 MHz with less volts.

I have both.

My 4400 clocks to 2.65 stable but I can't get the 170 higher than 2.60 stable although the 170 will boot at 2.75 whereas the 4400 will not boot higher than 2.70 (both unstable).

Both are good chips but I find the 4400 that little bit quicker.

Stan

If you're going to buy from OC atm i'd go for X2 as the only 170's they have are the 0551's. I got one delivered on friday and was not exactly impressed especially as I'd been waiting 2 weeks for the order to be delivered and OC were advertising the opteron 170's as having E6 stepping at the time I bought

Mine will go into windows at 260 x 10 but it's not stable ( failed prime 95 at 4 hours - trying again at 255 x 10 atm

170 without a doubt but its luck of the draw I have a 0551 that does 2.8ghz on 1.36v primestable cooled with a zalman 9500 @7v silent.

Best chip I have ever owned.

Slighty OT for this thread

Easy does the 170 OC better at lower V core - I'm running mine at 1.4V atm so I'm wondering if that's too high as I'm not anywhere near state of the art knowledge these days on this sort of stuff

thanks in advance

Thanks for the replies, think I'll just see what's cheapest when I come to buy, probably won't be buying it for another month or so, depending on how my money goes.

Axil said:

Slighty OT for this thread

Easy does the 170 OC better at lower V core - I'm running mine at 1.4V atm so I'm wondering if that's too high as I'm not anywhere near state of the art knowledge these days on this sort of stuff

thanks in advance

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Tbh it all depends on the stepping.I had a another 170 before the one I own now and it needed 1.5v for 2.6ghz.

The one I have now did 2.7ghz on stock vcore and 2.8ghz on 1.36 v core.

so it depends on the chip.

Tbh it all depends on the stepping.I had a another 170 before the one I own now and it needed 1.5v for 2.6ghz.

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Thanks - well 2.55GHz was a hit - going for another attempt at 2.6 GHz hopefully with a little more vcore I'll hit it stable - Hitting 44 C on full load atm so should be ok there I think

Axil said:

Thanks - well 2.55GHz was a hit - going for another attempt at 2.6 GHz hopefully with a little more vcore I'll hit it stable - Hitting 44 C on full load atm so should be ok there I think

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yeah go for it 1.4v is fine.

Make sure you run two instances of prime for stablity.