Look, budget is $350/400 for only processor, motherboard, and maybe the heatsink. The RAM is free cause I have 2 gigs of reg. ecc ram sitting here doing nothing. I want an AMD, what I'm not going to burn my wallet doing it.
The X600Pro will be changed and so will the case & PSU. I figure if it can hold its own against my P4 Presshot, then it'll definitely hold its own against an Opteron.
Look, my main concern is RAM. I have 2 gigs of Registered RAM DDR266 ECC which I can run in a dual channel configuration. I would sell it and get an A64, but I can't because my Dad pulled it out from a server at work and he brought it home with approval but it isn't his property. They can still ask him about it, later on and if he doesn't have it then that is a serious offense. So, that warrants an Opteron and I won't let 2 gigs of ram sit there.
Secondly, 003, the A64 is just the same as an Opteron except with a higher HTT (939), 1 single HTT link, and an unbuffered memory controller. That doesn't mean that the Opteron can't do the same stuff as an A64. In theory performance should be very similar. In edition, I like the fact that it uses a server board because that literally means your computer will usually never crash due to a hardware problem. That is great because there are certain things I want to do later on where the additional stability will help.
Oh, and I'd like to point out: GAMING AS IN OCCASIONAL COMP GAMER, NOT ALL THE TIME, NOT THE KIND THAT WOULD NEED A 6800GT, THE KIND THAT WOULD BE HAPPY WITH A 6600 OR AN x700pRO.