New opteron advice- urgent!

[Over Clocker]

Hey guys,

I have the choice between 2 cpus:

1) a opteron 144 (CAB2E0546) which is tested upto 2.95ghz on air at 1.52volts

OR

2) Opteron 146 (CABYE0540) which is not guarenteed to get any speed but is from what I understand a good stepping.

Which CPU would be the better choice?

Cheers

 

[Soul Rider]

From previous posts and general browsing of the forums (but no personal experience) that stepping of 146 has produced some good results, but as always you can never guarantee an overclock.

Personally I would take the 146 and go for it, but there is always that element of chance that it may not make it.

It depends how important the overclock is. If you have to get a high overclock, take the 144, if your willing to gamble on the possibility of a higher overclock, get the 146.

I won't tell you what to do because don't want to be held responsible...

 

[Over Clocker]

Does the higher multiplier of the 146 make it easier or better for overclocking?

The cpu will be paired with a DFI NF4 Ultra-D board and some mushkin PC4000 ram.

 

[Soul Rider]

This tread is a good source of information on the 146 and includes your stepping..

146 Cabye steppings

***EDIT***

It is generally considered better to have a 10x multiplier, as it gives you more options. Opterons are Multi unlocked down, so you can decrease. 3ghz OC's on air are not unheard of on the cabye 146's

 

[man_from_uncle]

What you've got there is a fairly simple choice. Go for the 144 that will get nearly 3ghz, but almost certainly not an inch further because of the low multi, or take a chance with the 146 which may not have such a great core, but won't be held back by the x9.

Personally i'd for the 144. If you've got a motherboard that can hold a stable FSB of 320-330 then you're going to get a very meaty overclock guaranteed. The 146 might go a bit higher and you won't need such a decent motherboard, but it's not a certainty by any stretch and it's unlikely to do even 50mhz more on air no matter how lucky you get. So if you've got a decent mobo then stick with the 144.

NB: I am actually using the same stepping 144 and they are mustard. I'm limited by cooling to about 2.7-2.8ghz, but if i am not playing games i can get it stable at 2.89. After that the mobo is the bottleneck as it's limited to 1.55v core and 322 is the highest HTT that's stable. I've got no reason to think that the CPU won't go a fair bit further.

 

[farooqm]

The Cabye0540 have been excellent and from what i've seen there are very few that have not reached at least 2.9Ghz with very little voltage, also there have been quite a few that have reached 3Ghz and over.

I would go for the 146.... but I would say that as I've already got 2 with that stepping Cabye0540 FPAW/FPMW.

The FPAW does 3Ghz in an ASUS A8n board.
The FPMW does 2.85Ghz with 1.45v(max) in an Asrock 939Dual. Not done the voltmod, but sure will do 3ghz with a little more volts.

 

[geeza]

the new 0602 146 steppings are quite good. i have one and have ordered another for my dad instead of a venice 3200 (the opteron was just £20 more with a decent cooler)