SK8V mobo + AMD Opteron Model 140 = games?

[TriRyche]

I'm a first time builder.
I was considering geting the ASUS K8T800 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket 940 CPU, Model "SK8V"
with the AMD Opteron Model 140, 64-bit Processor with the intent of upgrading the CPU to an Athlon 64-FX after they come down in price. The mem on the mobo is Registered ECC. I know the Opteron is more for servers.
So my questions are:
Will the Opteron be compatible with Win XP?
What's the dif between reg/unbuffered - ECC/non-ECC?
Is Registered - ECC mem the wrong way to go for gaming?
Is this mobo a waste of money for a gaming PC even after I upgrade to the Athlon 64 - FX?
Thank you for putting up with me, I suffer from D.U.H.!

 

[pmonett]

I don't see why the Opteron would make problems with XP, since it is supposed to be 100% backwards-compatible with the x86 instruction code.
That and the fact that every review site that could get an Opteron tested it with XP should pretty much reassure you on the compatibility issue.
Next, RAM stuff. Now I am no expert (unlike some people here), but I think I can safely say that ECC modules do error checking and correction, while non-ECC modules do not. Typically, non-ECC modules are much more frequent on the market since they are a lot cheaper. In other words, you have probably been using non-ECC RAM since your first computer, and so have 99.9% of all PC users since the first PC. Now if you place a very high value on data integrity, you might want to adjust your budget accordingly, but for playing games I think you'd be better off getting regular non-ECC RAM and saving the premium for some other piece of kit.
Is all this a waste of money ? Well nobody can answer that either way. I am also watching the Opteron business closely, and I am quite interested in the benchmarks which seem to give Opteron very favourable results. However, the full power of the Opteron will not be used before Microsoft comes out with that 64-bit OS it is promising (except for those who install Linux - but we're talking gaming here).
The only one who can judge the value of the expenditure is you. Right now, I am sticking with an AMD XP 3000. Coupled with a top-level video card and lots of DDR400 RAM, I have all the performance I need.
But I will most probably make this years upgrade an Opteron too. I'll just wait until September-October for that.

Pascal.