3800X2 vs Opteron 170 Any gain to be had?

I currently have a 3800X2 and considering buying an opty 170 as a final upgrade to MSI RD480 Neo2 F1 Socket 939 Mobo.

I can OC the 3800 to 2.2 with reasonable stability, but no further.
Is the Opty worth it, and how high can it be OC'd??

Any help or comments are welcome for this noob.

Bilpier

I wouldn't even consider that an upgrade. The only CPU upgrade that would leave you noticing a serious difference would be the X6800 or QX6700.

Memry is 2x1 Gig OCZ platinum ddr400 timing2,3,2,5.

yeah... in that case, i would first relax the timings, to 3-3-3-6 see if that helps at all (or more, if needed)... second, reduce the memory speed from 200MHz, down to 166MHz... see how much that helps

if you can get a noticable OC, try tighting the memory timings some again, until its unstable again, then back them off some

ddr memory frequency is the clock speed of the chip, so you want to take that down from ddr400 (200mhz) down to ddr333 (166mhz) (when OCing up to 2.4, HTT multiplier 4x), ddr266 (133mhz) when OCing much more than 2.4, up to about 2.6-2.7 (HTT multiplier 3x)... going down to ddr200 (100mhz) would really only be necessary if youre OCing to 2.8 or above (i would think anyhow)

you should be able to get to at least ~2.6 (2.5 to 2.7, either way)

(first number) CAS latency should be changed from 2, to 2.5, or even 3

(second number) tRCD should be set to 3, 4, 5 etc (higher is slower)

(third number) tRP should be set to 3, 4, 5 etc (higher is slower)

(fourth number) tRAS, not important to change really, its 5, more couldnt hurt, not too necessary to change, maybe 6, 7, or 8 if you wanted to

dram cmd-addr timing should be adjusted to 2T, 1T is faster, but again, 2T might be necessary to get a higher OC (if you can do 1T while also having an OC, all the better)

memory voltage is the only other one thats significant when you get high enough in clock speed, it wont need to be adjusted right away, and not for at least a few hundred mhz cpu increase either way

the other settings dont matter too much, TBH... and, im not sure about a lot of them myself (someone else can probably clear that up better)... the north bridge voltage is the only one im wondering about, but i wouldnt increase it unless you really needed to (should find out)

but when you reach a high enough clock speed, you can try tightening settings again, to see whats the most stable, while offering the best performance

beyond that, youll want to check for stability with a program like orthos, to see if the OC you have is stable, leave it running for at least 10 minutes, longer is better, try to stay at or below ~60C cpu temperature (too much higher and you will have instabilities)

welcome... one last thing though, be sure to back up your data... OCing can cause data corruption on a hdd (experienced that before myself with a bad OC)