<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On Dec 11, 2006, at 11:09 AM, Greg Grotsky wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV><SPAN class="gmail_quote">On 12/11/06, <B class="gmail_sendername">Brian Wood</B> <<A href="mailto:beww@beww.org">beww@beww.org</A>> wrote:</SPAN> <BLOCKQUOTE class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">A discussion of overclocking belongs elsewhere in the main, but I<BR>suspect I am not alone in having a working SD system but wanting to <BR>look into HD for the future.<BR><BR>In that regard a discussion of CPUs is relevant, and I just wanted to<BR>point out that the Opteron series is often overlooked because they<BR>are "server" chips (whatever that means). <BR><BR>The results posted here by many folks about success or failure to<BR>playback HD well seem very inconsistent, I suspect because there are<BR>so many unreported variables such as what else is running, what<BR>window manager/desktop, what resolution, what if any de-interlacing, <BR>and many other factors.<BR><BR>But a lot of folks seem to *almost* be able to playback HD, and for<BR>them a mild OC (perhaps 10%) might make the difference between<BR>working well and not.</BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>For the record my 3200+ is not overclocked. I'm running as advertised and HD is no problem. I was thinking about the possiblity of running an Opteron, but like you eluded to, it's not clear what exactly is better for specfic applications: Opteron or Athlon64. </DIV> </DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Shouldn't that be "alluded to" ? I'm not trying to escape anything :-)</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>You have to look at the core type, as as well as the cache size. I also think that the Opterons don't support PowerNow, which might be important to somebody trying to build a quiet machine.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Most Opterons are Socket 940, to allow for multiple CPUs on one motherboard (it's more complex than that but you get the idea I hope). The 165 is described as a "single CPU solution", hence the 939-pin socket.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Most socket 940 mobos are designed for servers and thus have things like 64-bit PCI slots for RAID cards, SCSI controllers and sometimes very basic graphics (who needs fast graphics on a server?).</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>The 939-pin Opterons are sort of a mixed breed, but can be useful for some applications.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV></BODY></HTML>