P4 SDRAM or RDRAM?

[brembo]

Someone enlighten me as to the drawback/benefit to the different setups? A friend of mine is gonna be buying a Dell and I don't wanna steer him wrong.

RDRAM pros...

Huge bandwidth
(Thats all I can think of)

RDRAM cons

Pricey, although comming down
High latency
Hazy future in personal comps(or is this something I have made up myself?)

SDRAM pros

Gettin zippier everyday
Cheap as dirt
Low latency

SDRAM cons

Will it be the future?
Bandwidth is less
If yer not careful, you can get a odd stick and really do a number to yourself.

Okay that being said, feel free to add to the list. And AMD is NOT an option. Prebuilt is needed, and Dell does not offer an AMD solution.

[Brent]

Stay away from SDRAM with the P4, there is no point in getting a P4 if your going to use SDRAM, the SDRAM will not let the P4 go to it's full potential, the P4 needs the bandwidth, and regular SDRAM does NOT have it.

Rambus: If you HAVE to use this one do it, it's hella better then SDRAM. Yes it's way more expensive, twice to tree times as much. ANd it's only going to get more expensive with price hikes. It has googles of bandwidth, BUT the latency is high. Therefore if what you are doing requires large amounts of bandwidth then this would be the way to go.

DDR: This is the preffered memory type with a P4. It not only has lots of bandwidth, but it has much lower latencies making it the ideal choice. With current P4 DDR mobo's Mem Bandwidth is VARY close to RAMBUS. ANd with it's much lower latency it is more responsive. Also DDR costs about half as much as RAMBUS. If I were going to get a P4 I would get one with DDR no question about it.

[brembo]

DDR eh? What chipset would I need to look for?


*edit*

Thanks Brent

[Brent]

Originally posted by brembo
DDR eh? What chipset would I need to look for?


*edit*

Thanks Brent

Intel already has a chipset that supports DDR, the i845, however they cannot let mobo manufacturers make mobos using the DDR until the first half of 2002, maybe Q1 2002 if we are lucky because of a contract they have with RAMBUS.

If you wish to not go Intel chipset and use a third party chipset then you will find a few out there that are good and support DDR. VIA's P4X266 and P4X266A which of course the latter has a better memory controller just like the KT266A and is very very fast. DDR mem bandwidth is reaching RAMBUS bandwidth with this one. There are others as well, I'm not deep into what is on the Intel side however keep in mind. There may be one from SIS, not sure, there may be one from ALI, not sure. Right now your best bet is the VIA P4X266A though. Mobo's based on that chipset are pretty good and solid performers.

[brembo]

Okay, I whipped up a few examples on Dells site, and the difference is small, mostly the price of RDram versus SDram prices. I shall suggest RDRAM then. Thanks Brent.

[Brent]

Originally posted by brembo
Okay, I whipped up a few examples on Dells site, and the difference is small, mostly the price of RDram versus SDram prices. I shall suggest RDRAM then. Thanks Brent.

No problemo

Avoid SDRAM on the P4

Narrow your choices to DDR or RAMBUS, if you Can go DDR, but if you can't then go RAMBUS

[Ghosthunter]

BTW,

Rdram prices have really dropped big time, I just ordered myself 256 PC 800 for $60.


Yes I know that is still more expensive than sdram, but a lot cheaper then when I origanlly bought my PC almost 2 years ago, I think it was close to $400 for 256 and you were lcuky to get PC 800.

[the_mp3_refuge]

Originally posted by davy19
BTW,

Rdram prices have really dropped big time, I just ordered myself 256 PC 800 for $60.

Geez I paid about that much for 128MB of PC800, can you tell me who sold it to you?

Bob

[Ghosthunter]

I bought it from Dell Direct.

I buy a lot of stuff from Dell, I think it was Kingston or Samsung, I forget who but definitely one of those two. I like Dell because since they are not a fly by shop in the basement who you dont know if I ever have an issue it is easy to return and get an RMA, and believe it or not you can get some really good sweet deals they have different promos every week, like 20% off this and that.

[Easto]

Soyo is advertising a DDR P4 board with the SIS chipset.

Any good?

[dbwillis]

Im using a P4 1.5@1.65 on a Shuttle AV40 with 512DDR, very fast and stable, no problems at all. I would definitley recommend DDR for the P4 compared to the cost of RDRAM