I've got a single opteron 246 and I am going to buy a second one. The only matched stepping procs I can find are oem and I want retail. Is there any way to tell which stepping a retail (boxed) cpu is? I've sent emails to a few retailers asking if they can guarantee a specific stepping for me but none have replied to me.

Can you pair different steppings? The one I have now is a OSA246CEP5AL (c0 stepping). Could I pair a c0 and a cG stepping without trouble?


Abe

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Tyan Thunder K8WE
2xOpteron 246 (cO and cG steppings)
BFGTech 7800GT oc
Creative X-Fi Extreme Music
2 Gig Kingston DDR 3200
Western Digital Raptor 36 GB

You should be able to mis-match CPUs as long as the Rev is the same.
(The C in Cg and C0)

The 0-G are usualy due to small changes.

Rather then trying to get the same stepping for a retail CPU, see if the retailer can get CPUs with very close serial numbers. They should then be the same rev and stepping.

You are correct though to have concern, as it can cause stability issues if your CPUs are of completly different Rev's. But the chance that they would be incompatbile is still slim.

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The opinions expressed above do not represent the views of Advanced Micro Devices or any of their affiliates.

I decided that it was more important to me to have matching cpu's then to have a long retail waranty so I bought an oem cpu that is identical stepping and revision as the one I have now. I also bought a nice vantek heatsink.

It's funny, the oem cpu and vantek heatsink were about 15 dollars more then the retail cpu package. I used to buy oem cpu's to save money ;-) Ah well, I'm rambling because I haven't finished my morning coffee yet.

Thanks for your help ZapWizard.


Abe

-------------------------
Tyan Thunder K8WE
2xOpteron 246 (cO and cG steppings)
BFGTech 7800GT oc
Creative X-Fi Extreme Music
2 Gig Kingston DDR 3200
Western Digital Raptor 36 GB