by Ilya Gavrichenkov
02/12/2006 | 06:45 PM
We do not have tons of reviews devoted to server and workstation processors on our site. The reason is because these are very special CPUs, and they are hardly of that much interest to the majority of computer users and hardware enthusiasts. The thing is that these processors are relatively expensive and require use of specific platforms adapted primarily for server applications. Moreover, server processors very often boast some features, which will be of absolutely no use in regular desktop platforms. For example, multi-processor configurations support or additional L2 and L3 cache memory. So, AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon are overall very different solutions that can arouse well-deserved interest only from a smaller number of professionals, who deal with servers and high-performance workstations.
Nevertheless, there are exceptions to every rule. Here I am talking about an Opteron CPU model from AMD that turns out to be quite interesting for hardware enthusiasts these days. It is Opteron 165, which appears to be the today’s best-value dual-core CPU on AMD64 architecture. It is officially selling for less than $300, which means that it is even cheaper than the Athlon 64 X2 3800+, the youngest fellow in the desktop dual-core processor family from AMD. However, the price would certainly be not enough to attract so much attention to the server solution.
Another really important reason why we got so much interested in taking a closer look at Opteron 165 is the fact that it is very much different from the majority of Opteron CPUs from other families: Opteron 165 can work just fine in a regular desktop platform. Firstly, this processor is compatible with Socket 939 infrastructure, and secondly, it supports regular non-Registered DDR SDRAM. In other words, AMD Opteron 165 can be installed into regular Socket 939 mainboards without any incompatibility threats. From this standpoint AMD Opteron 165 doesn’t differ much from Athlon 64 X2. Moreover, if AMD didn’t want to push this processor into the Value server segment, it could have easily been known as Athlon 64 X2 3500+.
So, today we are going to take a closer look at the best-value dual-core Socket 939 processor from AMD. And this is exactly its main attraction: all other dual-core CPUs are still quite pricy these days, unfortunately. And this is especially true for AMD CPUs. Unfortunately, there is no solution in the Athlon 64 X2 processor family that would be priced below $300, while Intel if offering Pentium D processors in this price range. So, those users who did not have that much of a budget to spend, have been limited down to Intel platform only, when it came to dual-core solutions. Looks like Opteron 165 can resolve this situation. Moreover, we expect it to reveal some great overclockability, which may also make it a superior overclocker’s choice.
Although Opteron 165 is designed to work in Socket 939 systems and supports regular DDR SDRAM, you can still notice some features typical of a server processor. It is true that all dual-core Opteron processors feature 2MB of L2 cache memory (1MB per core). The 165 model is no exception, of course. This is one of the main features distinguishing our today’s hero from the Athlon 64 X2 with the lowest performance rating, which are based on a cut-down Manchester core for price-lowering purposes. Opteron 165 uses Toledo core, which is used only for top-end Athlon 64 X2 processors with the performance ratings 4400+, 4800+ and FX-60. As for the Opteron 165, it costs so little because of the lower working frequency, which is only 1.8GHz. In other words, this is today’s lowest frequency dual-core processors from AMD. Moreover, its cores work at the frequency of AMD Athlon 64 3000+, which seems to be ridiculously low for the “high-performance” server processor. However, the most important thing you should remember is that the major strength of the Opteron 165 processor is not in its frequency but in the dual-core architecture.
These are the official specs of the AMD Opteron 165 CPU:
Opteron 165 | |
Marking | OSA165DAA6CD |
Frequency | 1.8 GHz |
Packaging | 939-pin organic micro-PGA |
L2 cache | 2 x 1MB |
Memory controller | 128-bit, dual-channel |
Supported memory types | DDR400 SDRAM |
Hypertransport frequency | 1 GHz |
Core stepping | E6 |
Manufacturing technology | 90nm, SOI |
Transistors | 233.2 mln. |
Die size | 199sq.mm |
Typical heat dissipation | 110W |
Maximum package temperature | 49 – 65o C |
Vcore | 1.30 - 1.35V |
AMD64 support | Yes |
NX-bit support | Yes |
Cool’n’Quiet support | Yes |
Well, there is nothing special about these specs: we see a CPU based on a 90nm Toledo core (E6 revision) working at 1.8GHz core clock. The diagnostic CPU-Z utility reports the same thing:
The funny thing is that even the CPUID indicates that Opteron 165 and Athlon 64 X2 on Toledo core are relatives. So, we don’t have any concerns about the possible incompatibility of out today’s hero and contemporary Socket 939 mainboards.
Well, AMD Opteron 165 didn’t have any surprises up its sleeve neither from the technological, nor from the architectural standpoints. As for the marketing, the official AMD’s price-list suggests that Opteron 165 should be selling for $278. It is $23 less than the current price of the Athlon 64 X2 3800+. As a result, from the pricing prospective, Opteron 165 cannot be competing with Pentium D 920, which is currently selling for $241. However, it is considerably better value than Pentium D 930, which is positioned at $316 a piece. So, if we regard Opteron 165 as a desktop product, we will now be able to see what target group it is aimed at relative to what the competition offers. Even though it is the today’s slowest dual-core processor from AMD, the manufacturer positions it slightly higher than the slowest dual-core processor from Intel. So, keeping this fact in mind, let’s check out the performance of our today’s baby.
We will compare the performance of AMD Opteron 165 as a desktop platform against that of other relatively affordable dual-core solutions. So, today’s race will include the following participants: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ and Intel Pentium D 920 and Pentium D 930. I would like to stress that Pentium D 920 and Pentium D 930 are the new solutions from the microprocessor giant that are based on the 65nm Presler core and differ from their predecessors by larger L2 cache memory, which has been increased to 4MB (2MB per core).
During our test session we assembled a few systems with the following hardware components:
The BIOS Setup of the mainboards was adjusted for maximum performance.
First of all we decided to test the performance of our Opteron 165 using widely spread synthetic benchmarks.
PCMark05 test shows that Opteron is not only falling behind Athlon 64 X2 3800+, but also lags behind Pentium D 920. However, I wouldn’t be very much concerned with the results obtained in this benchmark, especially for the CPU test.
The PCMark05 is undoubtedly optimized for NetBurst architecture.
The new 3DMark06 test checking the system performance in contemporary gaming tasks places Opteron 165 slightly lower than the slowest dual-core Intel processor – Pentium D 920. This obviously results from the processor subtest scores.
Although if we recall the positioning from the price point for view, the performance of Opteron 165 processor should lie somewhere between the results of Pentium D 920 and Pentium D 930. And it is obviously not the case in 3DMark06. Our Opteron 165 yields a little bit to Pentium D 920. Of course, it is the low clock frequency that is to blame here, which can not even be compensated by larger L2 cache: Opteron 165 falls by about 7% lower frequency than Athlon 64 X2 3800+, while the difference in their clock frequency is 10%.
CPUs with K8 architecture cope much better with computational tasks than their competitors. According to the results obtained in ScienceMark 2.0, the performance of Opteron 165 exceeds the speed of a more expensive Pentium D 930 processor.
We tested the general performance in office and digital content creation applications with the help of SYSMark 2004 SE benchmarking suite, which also uses multi-threading very actively.
The value AMD Opteron 165 performs up to its price-point during digital content creation. It is 5% faster than Pentium D 920 and 3% slower than the higher-speed and more expensive Pentium D 930.
You may feel quite skeptical about the results obtained in office applications. Pentium D 920 works faster in these applications than Opteron 165.
During Video encoding into mpeg4 format with the DivX 6.1 codec Opteron 165 works almost as fast as Pentium D 920. I would like to point out that larger L2 cache doesn’t have any influence on the performance during video encoding. The performance difference between Opteron 165 and Athlon 64 X2 3800+ makes almost 10% in this case, which corresponds to the clock frequency difference between these two processors.
During video encoding into the new H.264 format in Apple Quicktime 7 we revealed that dual-core AMD processors are generally faster than the competitors. Opteron 165 outperforms Pentium D 930 even though it is still 10% behind the Athlon 64 X2 3800+.
The performance of Opteron 165 during sound files encoding into mp3 format corresponds to its price-point positioning. The CPU falls behind Pentium D 930, but outperforms Pentium D 920.
The results obtained in Adobe Photoshop are quite logical. Opteron 165 works up to its price point in this application, but not more than that. Its performance level lies between Pentium D 920 and 930.
The situation turns out a bit worse in Adobe Premiere for our today’s hero. Here Opteron 165 slows down to the level of Pentium D 920.
During work in viewports, Opteron 165 outperforms slower dual-core Intel processors. Moreover, we see that in this case larger L2 cache of the Opteron processor allows it to nearly catch up with Athlon 64 X2 3800+ working at 200MHz lower frequency but featuring twice as small L2 cache.
During final rendering cache memory size doesn’t really affect the performance. As a result Opteron 165 processor yields significantly to Athlon 64 X2 3800+, so that it even levels out with Pentium D 920.
The gaming applications are very sensitive to the size of L2 cache. The results indicate this clearly. The performance difference between Athlon 64 X2 3800+ and Opteron 165 is not so big despite the 200MHz frequency difference. And in F.E.A.R. the Opteron 165 CPU working at slower frequency even outperforms its counterpart. This is one of the reasons why Opteron 165 gets even ahead of its competitor. Another reason for that is the general adaptation of the K8 architecture for the 3D gaming applications. It manages to easily defeat dual-core Intel Pentium D 920 and 930 processors from the same price range.
If we do not take into account the gaming tests, we will be able to say with all certainty that the performance of the Opteron 165 processor corresponds to its cost. This is a pretty normal situation, but nothing extraordinary. I wouldn’t call these results a significant argument in favor of this CPU. However, we can change this impression by the overclocking results easily. If Opteron 165 demonstrates pretty decent overclocking potential (at least not worse than Athlon 64 X2 3800+ would have), it can win the enthusiasts’ hearts due to its large L2 cache, which may be very important in 3D games.
Therefore, we couldn’t disregard the tests of the CPU’s overclocking potential here. During our overclocking tests we were primarily interested in the results one could obtain without involving any specific cooling systems. Therefore, we only use a standard AVC Z7U7414001 air cooler. Other than that the system configuration we used during overclocking remained the same, as during the Opteron 165 performance tests. We measured the stability of the overclocked Opteron 165 with the S&M and Prime95 utilities.
I would like to point out that AMD limits the clock frequency multiplier of its Opteron processors from the top. It means that we will only be able to overclock Opteron 165 by raising the clock generator frequency. It is important that you have a high-quality mainboard at your disposal, because it should be able to work stably at high clock generator frequencies, as the nominal clock multiplier of our CPU equals 9x. For example, the DFI LANParty UT NF4 SLI-DR Expert mainboard based on NVIDIA nForce4 SLI chipset proves very reliable at 300MHz clock generator frequency (if the clock frequency multiplier is set at 3x to form the HyperTransport frequency. Therefore, in this case it suits perfectly well.
So, first of all we decided to find out the frequency our Opteron 165 will work at without any additional Vcore increase. The processor potential proved very attractive even in this case. Without any additional efforts (except the lowering of the HyperTransport clock frequency multiplier and increasing of the memory frequency divider) we managed to get our CPU work stably at 280MHz clock generator frequency. In other words, the CPU proved stable and working at 9x280MHz=2520MHz clock frequency withoutany additional Vcore increase.
This is a very nice result I should say. The Toledo based CPU working at 2.5GHz frequency is something to be really proud of. However, we didn’t feel like we could stop at this point. We decided to overclock our Opteron 165 CPU even higher by raising its Vcore from 1.325V to 1.45V. In this case the clock generator frequency when the system remained stable rose by another 11MHz and reached 291MHz. In other words, our CPU could work stably at 9x291MHz=2622MHz with hgiher Vcore.
So, thanks to the new clock frequency and the Toledo core used for our Opteron 165 processor we could overclock our CPU by about 1.5 times. In other words, this processor is a great choice for any overclocker. On the one hand, it costs not that much, and on the other hand, it can be easily overclocked to the frequency of the top dual-core AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 processor.
By the way, Athlon 64 X2 3800+ processors based on Manchester core can boast pretty much the same overclocking potential. On average, they overclock to 2.6-2.7GHz frequency. And it means that Opteron 165 would be a better buy than Athlon 64 X2 3800+ if we take into account the overclocking potential. Firstly, it is slightly cheaper, and secondly, it features a larger L2 cache that ensures higher performance.
Well, it’s high time we summed things up. First of all I would like to stress that Opteron processors proved highly suitable for desktop Socket 939 platforms. By the way, Opteron 165 is not the only 1xx model AMD offers at this time. There are a few more models with dual- and single-core architecture. However, from the pricing standpoint, Opteron 165 is the most interesting product of all at this time.
The thing is that AMD Opteron 165 is the best value dual-core AMD processor for Socket 939 platforms. However, the performance of this processor in traditional desktop applications is not as higher as we would expect it to be, according to our tests. The main reason for that is its relatively low clock frequency of 1.8GHz. Even large 2MB L2 cache cannot make up for it. This CPU falls about 5-10% behind the Athlon 64 X2 3800+, the youngest processor in the corresponding family, in most applications (except the games). As a result, the performance of our Opteron 165 processor gets very precisely described by its price: it is positioned between the Pentium D 920 and Pentium D 930.
The situation changes in games, because many games are very sensitive to large L2 cache. In other words, Opteron 165 appears a pretty decent choice for the latest gaming titles that can now take advantage of the dual-core architecture.
However, I am pretty sure that overclockers are going to love this processor. Our experiments showed that this Toledo based processor can be overclocked by about 1.5 times. Thanks to that you can have it running at frequencies close to 2.6GHz. In other words, Opteron 165 can deliver the performance of Athlon 64 FX-60 processor to enthusiasts for only $278.