AMD opetron vs Athlon64 vs ????

Dan Irwin wrote:
 > what's the difference between the athlon64 and the opetron?

They are pin incompatible, for one thing. 754 pins
vs 940.

Athlon64 has fewer HT channels, which among other things
eliminates its ability to be used in an MP system.

Athlon64 uses DDR. Opteron uses ECC DDR.


 >
 > is it worth upgrading from a 1.7 ghz with a 400mhz bus

A 2 GHz Opty or Athlon64 would be a *huge* improvement
in most tasks. Even a 1.4 GHz Opty 240 would be better
in most tasks if you are looking for a cheap way to start
building yourself a dualie.

 >
 > i was thinking of getting the "Tyan Thunder K8W" (pci-x is a must) is
 > this good?

I helped someone build his system using a Tyan S2885.
I am green with envy. It cost him a little over
$700 (Canadian) although I have heard the price has
come down about 20% since then. He had a hell of a
time finding a North American vendor - ended up having
someone buy it in a store in Taiwan for him and couriering
it to him in Canada.

He uses an 8-port PCI-X SATA RAID controller from 3Ware
rather than the integrated SATA controller. *FAST*.

 >
 > how out of date is that mobo?
 >
 > and lastly can i use it leaving one of the dual sockets empty?

Yes.

 >
 > p.s.
 >
 > i wasn't exactly sure which board to post this to, can somebody point
 > me to a better one? if they feel i'm in the wrong place

As someone else suggested, there is a Tyan motherboards group.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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