Opteron Dual Core 265 Vs 248

I need a new 2D CAD workstation (ArtiosCAD) on a tight budget. Some
SolidWorks, Photoshop, Illustrator as well.

The Tyan Tiger S2877 motherboard with dual CPU looks interesting with maybe
a lower end Quadro video card (FX1400).

What's the difference in performance between the Opteron 1.8GHz dual core
265 and the Opteron 2.2GHz single core 248? I think most of my programs are
multi-threaded.

For 2 CPUs, the 248 will be about $200 cheaper.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

"Freddy" wrote...
I need a new 2D CAD workstation (ArtiosCAD) on a tight budget. Some SolidWorks,
Photoshop, Illustrator as well.

The Tyan Tiger S2877 motherboard with dual CPU looks interesting with maybe a
lower end Quadro video card (FX1400).

What's the difference in performance between the Opteron 1.8GHz dual core 265
and the Opteron 2.2GHz single core 248? I think most of my programs are
multi-threaded.

For 2 CPUs, the 248 will be about $200 cheaper.

A pair of 248s will likely be faster than a single 265. The chief difference
here is clock speed.

A pair of 248s will likely be faster than a single 265. The chief
difference here is clock speed.

Sorry, my question is how must faster is a pair of 248s (2.2GHz single core)
vs. a pair of 265s (1.8GHz dual core), using ArtiosCAD, SolidWorks,
Photoshop and Illustrator?

On Mon, 29 May 2006 14:59:18 -0400, Freddy wrote:

A pair of 248s will likely be faster than a single 265. The chief
difference here is clock speed.

Sorry, my question is how must faster is a pair of 248s (2.2GHz single core)
vs. a pair of 265s (1.8GHz dual core), using ArtiosCAD, SolidWorks,
Photoshop and Illustrator?

How much RAM do you want?. If you only want a total of two cores and you
don't want more than 8G of RAM then your best choice is a new socket AM2
X2 4400+. The 4400+ has two cores running at 2.2GHz with 1M of cache each,
the same as the Opterons. There are 2G DDR2 DIMMs shipping now so it's
possible to put 8G on an AM2 (the obsolete as of last week 939s are
limited to 4G because they use DDR not DDR2). If you need more than 8G
then the Opteron is the best choice, you can put 16G on most dual Opterons
(make sure that the motherboard has 4 DIMM sockets per CPU chip, not all
do). An AM2 A64 system is much cheaper than an Opteron 2xx system, the
only reason to go with a 2xx Opteron is if you want a total of 4 cores and
more than 8G of RAM.

Anyone thinking about a new system should wait a month. Intel is releasing
Woodcrest (a server chip) in mid June and Conroe (a desktop chip) a few
weeks after that. Early benchmarks are showing the new Intel chips to be
faster then AMD's. In two or three weeks we will all know for sure.

"Freddy" wrote...
A pair of 248s will likely be faster than a single 265. The chief difference
here is clock speed.

Sorry, my question is how must faster is a pair of 248s (2.2GHz single core)
vs. a pair of 265s (1.8GHz dual core), using ArtiosCAD, SolidWorks, Photoshop
and Illustrator?

I believe that for "light duty" the pair of 248s is likely to be faster, mainly
because the 22% increase clock speed will be more important than the added
available cores. For Photoshop and other SMP-aware, multi-threaded tasks, the 4
available cores will likely be faster for larger tasks, when the work can be
divided among all 4 available cores. However, I'm not sure what the point of
diminishing returns is...

Another consideration is available RAM. I think 2 GB will be the minimum for
either setup, and 3-4 GB may be useful at times. Whether Windows can make use
of 3 GB is yet another discussion for those who are more familiar. I am aware
of the 2GB "per process" limit, but less familiar with the reality of using 4 GB
or more with XP Pro.