Dual Opteron 2354 - Still capable?

[Beren]

Hi, I am considering buying a cheap PC to get back into some light gaming and came across an option that I have absolutely no clue about...

It's a Dual Opteron 2354 on a Tyan motherboard... with 12GB RAM and a GTX 670

I was considering getting something old but capable like a 2500k but this seems like an awesome alternative.

The thing is I know absolutely nothing about twin CPU systems - or Opterons in general.

Any advice on what would be a comparable system would be great.

 

[darket]

I was considering getting something old but capable like a 2500k but this seems like an awesome alternative.

It would be a dire alternative. A 2500k (especially overclocked) would destroy the opteron in gaming, and adding a second would have no benift.

The opteron was designed mainly for floating point calculations , and whilst it would be fun to play with a dual cpu setup and run a few benches for giggles i really wouldn't want to game on one.

 

[Beren]

Thanks, that is exactly the bucket of ice water I needed to hear before I got carried away.

It was just a really intriguing auction... bearing in mind I am in New Zealand so extremely limited on options.

 

[Nasher]

For gaming it's best to just keep it simple. Games just don't make use of that kind of setup.

 

[Cyanide]

2500k will smash a dual Opteron system. The Opterons are server chips designed to run lots of low intensity threads (hence being dual chips) and will be woeful in games.

Dual Opteron - http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Opteron+2354&id=2031&cpuCount=2

2500k - http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-2500K+@+3.30GHz&id=804