Athlon64 board with ECC support?

[David O'Brien]

On Tue, Jun 14, 2005 at 06:10:12PM +0200, Oliver Fromme wrote:
> David O'Brien <obrien at freebsd.org> wrote:
>  > On Mon, Jun 13, 2005 at 06:16:13PM +0200, Oliver Fromme wrote:
>  > > I'm currently evaluating possibilities to upgrade to a
>  > > 64bit system (preferably AMD).  I would like to get a
>  > > single-processor Athlon64 system, no Opteron, because of
>  > > heat, noise and power consumption (and price).
>  > 
>  > There is no difference between Athlon64 and Opteron with respect to heat,
>  > noise and power consumption.  There is yes a price difference.
> 
> That's interesting.  I've seen several Athlon64 and Opteron
> systems, and it was my impression that the latter were all
> noisier and ran "hotter".  But my impression could be wrong.

The thermal requirements of standard Opteron and Athlon64 are the same.
There are low-power Opterons (30W & 55W), which aren't available in the
Athlon64 line.

> It's also interesting to note that there are now plenty of
> Athlon64-based notebooks, but I haven't seen any Opteron
> notebook so far, 

WHY would you want an Opteron notebook?  You certainly don't have the
room in a notebook to add all kind of I/O devices to utilize the 3
HyperTransport links (vs. the 1 of Athlon64).  I don't know of anyone
that wants to track down registered(buffered) SODIMM's either.  I don't
think most notebook design houses could do a proper 2P notebook design.
Thus what is the advantage of Opteron over Athlon64 in the notebook
arena?

> which lead me to believe that the Athlon64
> has some power-saving features which the Opteron lacks.
> Does the Opteron have "PowerNow" or "Cool'n'Quiet"?

Yes, Opteron definitely has "PowerNow!".  You need a rev.CG processor and
BIOS that supports it.

-- 
-- David  (obrien at FreeBSD.org)