[Wine] Current best AMD processor for running mainstream games?

[John Drescher]

> I can't seem to find any single core Opterons these days - minimum I can find is 2 core, and that's for AM2 sockets (and can only saturate DDR2 ram? Am I mistaken?)
>

That is because they have not made these in 4 years.

> Should I restrict my selection to AM3 Opterons (http://products.amd.com/en-us/opteroncpuresult.aspx?f1=Quad-Core+AMD+Opteron%E2%84%A2&f2=&f3=Yes&f4=&f5=512&f6=AM3&f7=C2&f8=45nm+SOI&f9=75+W&f10=2200&f11=4&)?
>
> Assuming so, would something like an Opteron 1389 (http://products.amd.com/en-us/OpteronCPUDetail.aspx?id=563&f1=Quad-Core+AMD+Opteron%E2%84%A2&f2=&f3=Yes&f4=&f5=512&f6=AM3&f7=C2&f8=45nm+SOI&f9=75+W&f10=2200&f11=4&) (2.9ghz, 4-core, AM3) be ideal then?
>
> Or were you suggesting something more like this:
> AMD Phenom II X4 Black (http://products.amd.com/en-us/DesktopCPUDetail.aspx?id=714&f1=&f2=&f3=&f4=&f5=&f6=&f7=&f8=&f9=&f10=&f11=&f12=)
> or
> AMD Phenom II X6 Black (http://products.amd.com/en-us/DesktopCPUDetail.aspx?id=726&f1=&f2=&f3=&f4=&f5=&f6=&f7=&f8=&f9=&f10=&f11=&f12=)
>

The answer depends on how much money you want to spend and what type
performance you want.

Also remember that a $125 i3 processor would be faster than all of the
above in most games that do not utilize more than 4 cores. Remember i
series processors have a significant IPC advantage over AM3 and below
so you basically need to subtract 800 MHz from the AMD chip to find
the equivalent Intel i series processor. The IPC advantage is even
more with SB (Sandy Bridge) but because of the motherboard/flaw and
recall you will have to wait for that.

John