You lost me buddy... Opteron is the one that is not a consumer desktop machine, that's the AMD server 940 line. All 939s models and 740 pins are desktop machines. Buy the processor anywhere you want online that has the cheapest prices, and buy the respective motherboard and powersupply. I don't get how you say AMD64 is not a consumer desktop machine, it is. And it's not a server or workstation although it outperforms it's predicessor dual Opteron 940's by itself... (that being the AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 to be exact) If you want benchmarks I can give you about ten or so of indipendent companies for more of your own comparison on all the specs of the Opteron's and FX-53. All the AMD 64 processors are consumer desktop machines, from 64 3000+ to 3800+, and the FX models both 51 and 53. Where you heard they aren't consumer desktop models, I dunno but that's wrong. Not being sarcastic or anything, just saying they are consumor products and not for servers or workstatoins. In fact, the 939 pin FX-53 has the pins situated specifically that even if you wanted to you couldn't fit it into the 940 slot server/workstation motherboards... (there is a 940 pin model though too, just incase you have to have it, but the 939s is for PC desktops only). The AMD 64 FX-53 single handedly delivers continual blows to even the Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition at 3.4GHz. By my own calculations of tests done and turned into percentages, the FX-53 wins roughy 66%-70% of all benchmark tests against the P4 EE done by indipendent companies that I've found online. You can do it too if you're interested and haven't yet... I'd like to see AMD take the place of IBM in making processors for the new Apple computers of the future, that would be interesting. Especially since they do have the worlds fastest processor now. The architectural design of the FX-53 chip is outstanding. The core speed doubles it's own MHz just due to having a second channel line of communication with the memory... A totally new future of processors from here on out for every personal computer, multi-channel memory! All you CPU geeks probly already know that... An AMD/Apple computer would be a good way for Apple to catch up with the competition again IMO. Too bad even if they did decide to do that (most unlikely anyway) it wouldn't be in time for those new iMacs this September.
And just so you know Dmann, the idea of 64-bit processing isn't something new this past year or two, and it wasn't invented by IBM. Yeah, IBM made the G5 64-bit processor and it was sold in G5 PowerPC's ONE MONTH before the AMD64's were the market... I don't see how that gives the G5 an edge if that's what you were getting at? Remember all the contraversy over those initial Veritest G5 performace benchmarks? One reason is because of the benchmarks that came out a short time later of the AMD64's... First on the scene doesn't always mean best technology. I wouldn't think twice of taking AMD over IBM CPU's any day, unless you want a slower processor that is.
Wondering how it musters up to dual G5 computers, well in all tests I've seen it's won the majority. (exception of Apple's own tests) Most around the range of 77 to 13 in tests of indipendent companies. But I dunno, I'm hard to please on comparing PC's to Apple computers. Benchmarks aren't amazing either, hope I didn't leave that impression on anyone... The software and platforms are different between the two also, and that's an obvious reason why I don't like PC vs. Apple tests. And none of the wins for either side were by much more than nanoseconds in most of the tests............ In other words who cares, you can't feel it. BUT, it's interesting how AMD's technology of one processor can stay up to par with two of IBM's G5 processors. One more reason I wish Apple would make a switch! If you're gonna put a PC processor in your machine you might as well update to the best technology is the way I see it, no matter who the company is.
