y is the opteron so expensive

You do know that clock speeds are not a good method of measuring performance between two different processor lines, right?

The Opterons are still more expensive because they are basically the highest-quality (except the FX series) chips that AMD made. They were selected because they were the best of the batch, meaning they're much more reliable for 24/7 operation under heavy loads, and are also great overclockers because of this. 

would it be the best choice for games from amd excpet for fx?kbubba92

Dont get Opterons for gaming they are server cpu's tho I dont own one I just heard some bad stuff.LouieV13

Such as? They are the exact same architecture as the Athlon processors.

would it be the best choice for games from amd excpet for fx?kbubba92

No - they're the best choice (except for FX) for overclockers, not necessarily gamers. Clock-for-clock, the Opteron processors do not perform better than their Athlon siblings, unless it's one of the Athlon's with half the cache of the the Opteron. In which case the only difference will be seen in the cache. 

[QUOTE="LouieV13"]Dont get Opterons for gaming they are server cpu's tho I dont own one I just heard some bad stuff.RayvinAzn

Such as? They are the exact same architecture as the Athlon processors.

would it be the best choice for games from amd excpet for fx?kbubba92

No - they're the best choice (except for FX) for overclockers, not necessarily gamers. Clock-for-clock, the Opteron processors do not perform better than their Athlon siblings, unless it's one of the Athlon's with half the cache of the the Opteron. In which case the only difference will be seen in the cache. 

Well I just heard from some ppl there not good for gamingLouieV13

You can safely ignore those people. The biggest turn-off to the Opteron for most people is their price versus the Athlon. Now, it is true that server motherboards with server chipsets and an Opteron processor generally create poor gaming performance, but that's not the fault of the processor. 

Whoa, slow down, I have personal experience with those chips, I've owned an Opteron 144(single core)  and an Opteron 165 (dual core) and both ROCKED!!! in games. Take my Opteron 144 for example, overclocked to 2.8GHz paired with a 7900GT KO SC, i got 11k in 3DMark05

AMD Opterons not being good for Gaming is preposterous.