[faraz]

I'm running 2 x opteron 275s in a sff box (ZMAXdp). In an overnight LW render with all 4 cores at 100% most of the time, both CPUs are <40C. Whats all the talk about AMD being hot, maybe this does this not apply to the Opterons?

[iandavis]

I opted for Athlon, and I use Pentium at work (840D) and at home (P4). After researching benchmarks and price it seemed that the entry level Athlon X2 was faster then almost all of the Dual Core P4s.

Check Blanos.com for lightwave benchmarks... that will help put things in perspective.

[faraz]

I built my dual opteron 275 with 2Gb Twinx corsair ram and gefore 6600 for about £1350 - bought 90% of components off EBay

[psanitra]

I will go for dualcore X2 3800

3800+ is 350Euro + 100euro for good board...,

[-Adrian]

Read the posts above, it's not about the "MegaHurtz"

btw, don't go to Tom's Hardware for comparison, they have a bad reputation among computer users for a reason.

[iandavis]

Luna,

The Athlon X2 3800+ is what I bought for about the same price as aP4/3ghz. Benchmarks I have seen with multithreaded apps (insert Maxwell, Lightwave, Max, etc) are TWICE AS FAST as the P4... or thereabouts..

in effect you get much more rendering power for the money. Keep in mind though, due to NL's somewhat backwards licensing policy you are using TWO CPUs with an X2 not one like with the P4. You would get more punch with two P4 machines... but not by a whole lot, plus the X2 generates about the same amount of heat as a standard Athlon and sucks about the same amount of power.

IMHO the dualcore athlons are the best bang for the $ out there, much faster then the dual core P4s. I'm seeing render benchmarks with LW and Max with a 3800 only slightly slower then a dual Xeon setup... which aside from really peeving the guy who spent $10,000 on his system means... well.. it's a damn fast... where a P4 is great for Apps which are NOT multithreaded, like iTunes and MS word... the Athlon X2s are the perfect choice for software capable of utilizing dual core CPUs... like maxwell!

[Mihai]

luna, could you please make a little effort and do some research yourself? Many people gave you links in this thread, look there! You'll have all the answers you need.

You have the whole internet at your disposal if you want to find the price of a new P4 vs a X2 3800 in your area.

Even more benchmarks:
http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q3/at ... dex.x?pg=1

[sacslacker]

Opterons run much cooler. I'm about to buy a dual Opteron 270 box so I don't know first hand but I'm using an Athelon box now and I would choose AMD hands down, no questions asked. I also own a dual Xeon. Again, I'd choose AMD hands down, no questions asked at this point.