> I can't seem to find any single core Opterons these days - minimum I can find is 2 core, and that's for AM2 sockets (and can only saturate DDR2 ram? Am I mistaken?) > That is because they have not made these in 4 years. > Should I restrict my selection to AM3 Opterons (http://products.amd.com/en-us/opteroncpuresult.aspx?f1=Quad-Core+AMD+Opteron%E2%84%A2&f2=&f3=Yes&f4=&f5=512&f6=AM3&f7=C2&f8=45nm+SOI&f9=75+W&f10=2200&f11=4&;)? > > Assuming so, would something like an Opteron 1389 (http://products.amd.com/en-us/OpteronCPUDetail.aspx?id=563&f1=Quad-Core+AMD+Opteron%E2%84%A2&f2=&f3=Yes&f4=&f5=512&f6=AM3&f7=C2&f8=45nm+SOI&f9=75+W&f10=2200&f11=4&;) (2.9ghz, 4-core, AM3) be ideal then? > > Or were you suggesting something more like this: > AMD Phenom II X4 Black (http://products.amd.com/en-us/DesktopCPUDetail.aspx?id=714&f1=&f2=&f3=&f4=&f5=&f6=&f7=&f8=&f9=&f10=&f11=&f12=) > or > AMD Phenom II X6 Black (http://products.amd.com/en-us/DesktopCPUDetail.aspx?id=726&f1=&f2=&f3=&f4=&f5=&f6=&f7=&f8=&f9=&f10=&f11=&f12=) > The answer depends on how much money you want to spend and what type performance you want. Also remember that a $125 i3 processor would be faster than all of the above in most games that do not utilize more than 4 cores. Remember i series processors have a significant IPC advantage over AM3 and below so you basically need to subtract 800 MHz from the AMD chip to find the equivalent Intel i series processor. The IPC advantage is even more with SB (Sandy Bridge) but because of the motherboard/flaw and recall you will have to wait for that. John
