Arcade PC Fiasco - need some help. processor. Who is using AMD for MAME & EMUS?

[Comp1demon]

I am one of those people who cannot leave well enough alone.

My mame machine (and the PC in it) was built with the best of the best in 2006.

IN 2013 I guess it would be easier to just build a new machine, but I don't want to.
I want to upgrade my existing PC.

WHY?

Well it just stopped working.  (and that lead to a lengthy tear down to get the PC out of the cabinet to fix it.

Turns out I had a bad ram module.. well that led to going from 2gb to 1GB to now having 3GB (1GB of the original and I added 2GB more)
I had a ATI X1800xt 512MB PCIe 16x 1.0a card.  Now I have a ATI HD 6500 PCIE 16x 2.1 card in there running on the 1.0a slot. yes it will not run at full speed compared to a 2.1 slot but I will get the best performance of any 1.0a card that was made for a 1.0a slot.  From the research the bottle neck is not that much. 

I plan on upgrading the HDD to SSD soon, but to do so I need a new SATA PCIe Card to run the hdd because my eVGA Nforce 4 board does not have AHCI sata 2 ports - so I can go to raptor if I wish - but no SSD until I get the SATA 2 card.  If that don't work I am going to just buy a raptor drive.. but I wanted to move away from platter drives for my boot drive (windows xp drive). 

SO the only thing left to upgrade is the CPU.

I have a AMD ATHLON 64 3200+ in there..  In 2006 that was a $250+ processor.
Thaks to eBay I can get the best AMD socket 939 processors for next to nothing.. (which some are still fetching very high prices - which makes the point for a whole new Board, Ram, and CPU for less than the cost of these upgrades) There are still cheap options.

From what I can find.. the best AMD socket 939 processors for this board are...

Athlon 64 4800+
FX 60
and Opteron 185.

The Opteron 185 seems to have the best passmark CPU mark of 1317.  But they are still around $100 each on eBay used.  I can get the Opteron 180 which is a passmark of 1215 and only runs about $40 bux. 
The FX-60 is slightly better than the Opteron 180 with a passmark of 1244 but I am sure that is barely noticeable.    With my 3200+ only having a passmark of 499.  I am sure that upgrading the CPU to a top end socket 939 CPU will make the PC Literally (TWICE AS FAST) and I can keep the same ram in there.

So here is my dellema.. is the Opteron Processor good for XP and Gaming?  From what I read it is a server processor, but seems to have all the Threading, cores, and technologies that the Athlon 64 chips have.  Its not a totally different architecture so to speak from what I can see, but it might just be different enough? I am not a Hardware expert and there is SO MANY PAGES of info because these processors are all 5-7 years old so I want the word of other MAMEers and EMU Gamers here.

Is the Opteron good for me? DO I go with the highest Athlon 64 XXXX+ processor I can afford?  Or DO I go FX-60 and drop big money?

Any help would be appreciated here.

It's not just about gaming and MAME, it's going to be me experimenting with newer emu's now (Gamecube, Dreamcast, ect..) Also Using my mame machine as a Media streamer and right now using XBMC and the configuration I have - 1080P studders - even with the new video card.. so I know the processor needs an upgrade.  I know many of you might say - just stick with what you have for Mame and smaller emus - that PC is already overkill and it was overkill in 2006 when I built it..  But Without building a whole new PC - I want the best I can make it in 2013.

All comments will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[redbeard30]

One point, the 6500 gpu isn't going to saturate the 1.0 pcie slot enough to slow it down, so your not seeing a bottleneck there. If you were running a higherend card you'd see a small one. I would think it'd be better to go a cheap x2 dual core, newer mobo. X2  3.0 ghz chips can be had for 55-60$, am3 mobo for 50-60 w/pcie 2.0, and sata2/3 ports. Added benefit is new components that probably won't die for awhile, as a used gpu may have been overclocked. I'm currently running an old x2 2.2 ghz, x1800xl 256mb, and 3 gb ram in my cab and run emulators all the way up to dreamcast/ps1 with no problems. If it were me I would spend the very little extra money and go with newer parts.

[Comp1demon]

I decided to go with the Opteron 180.  Many people say it is great at 2.4GHZ and I have seen stable overclocks to 3.0GHZ.  I personally would probably only overclock to 2.8GHZ just to be safe.
The processor was $37 shipped. My Ram new 2GB of ddr400 $33, Sata Card $15, SSD $nothing  (I have a few laying around), Video card $35.
Right now I have the PC up and running with the new Ram and Video card and I've been stress testing them for over 24 hours now. SO far so good.
So as soon as I get the SATA card and New Processor I will complete those upgrades and then back in the Cab it goes.
Even if I can't get SSD working I found a 36GB raptor for $25 bux which I will get.  I am on a budget right now and even these small upgrades took away from other projects.
If the ram didn't die and the machine still worked I wouldn't have considered the upgrades at all.. I would be playing TMNT right now with my son..

Thanks for the advice.  Perhaps a new cab will warrant a who new PC. That project won't be for a while.

[ark_ader]

I have a similar set up for my Monkey Island Bartop even with the 1800Xt and a 3000 Athlon 64.  The 1800 started sparking - nothing was touching it (yeah like WTF) so I popped in a ATI 4350HD and it performs much quieter.

Everything runs fine with the 3000, so you might want to stick with the 3200 unless you swap the board out and go Intel.

Those 4800+ or 180 (classic server CPUs) might need a BIOS update.

[Comp1demon]

I have a similar set up for my Monkey Island Bartop even with the 1800Xt and a 3000 Athlon 64.  The 1800 started sparking - nothing was touching it (yeah like WTF) so I popped in a ATI 4350HD and it performs much quieter.

Everything runs fine with the 3000, so you might want to stick with the 3200 unless you swap the board out and go Intel.

Those 4800+ or 180 (classic server CPUs) might need a BIOS update.

Already updated the board to the latest Bios that was available for it.

The OPTERON 180 was less than $40.  I will pop it in and see how it works. If it don't work right I will just put the old CPU back in.  I should be OK.

Maybe I will call eVGA and ask them on monday.

EDIT: they happened to be open now.. so I called them. Guy said opteron 180 should work fine.
He also told me the PCI 1X slot is bootable as long as my SATA 2 card I place in there is bootable.
So that should work too.. get me a ahci compatible card and perhaps my SSD will boot in this thing. 


Thanks