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First, I wanted to provide a URL that provides an example of the speed differences between CAS speeds. This is one of several URLs I came across. 3dhardware.net review of cas2 vs cas3 at various bus speeds.

Second, in their article, they made a very good point. For almost all tasks, you're going to be better off INCREASING the amount of SDRAM you have in your system, versus upgrading to DDRAM. Why? Because with the extra RAM, you're going to be caching more and you're going to be churning your hard drive a whole lot less. And if you think SDRAM is slow, in comparitive terms, getting data off of the hard drive is like watching glass melt at room temperature. (Note: It does happen. Just VERY VERY slowly.)

So, if you are UPGRADING a system, you're going to be better off with more memory rather than going DDRAM. Way more bang for the buck, unless you've got a major specific thing you work with that you know that DDRAM is somehow going to give a big advantage (rare).

I was also reading a bit about the future of memory. It seems that there are things coming down the pipe, that by the time you want to upgrade your NEW system, you probably won't be using your current SDRAM or DDRAM modules. So it almost makes sense to keep with your current memory modules and get more life out of them. Or at least to spend your money on MORE memory, rather than FASTER memory. (Which MORE memory will equal FASTER performance, even if you don't have the fastest memory around.)

Hope this helps!

"http://new.3dhardware.net/reviews/dti18/

ack... that should read:

The correct URL is http://new.3dhardware.net/reviews/dti18/For some reason it requires the / at the end.

I guess I should use preview.

Mark Duell

The correct URL is . For some reason it requires the / at the end.

Mark Duell

Ok, so i know this is off topic, but I just noticed they have updated the article on the FMD-ROM standard with some pricing info. Apparently the drives will be selling for FIFTY bucks! And media for around 1$...

On page 2, I began to get skeptical.

Not only did the writer sound like he was a 13 year-old girl talking about the hot guy she saw on the beach the other day, but the things he were saying were, well, unbelivable. For example:

Please, read that again, because that's more than 20 times faster than any hard drive around today, and 100 times faster than any DVD-ROM drive on the market.

So what you're saying is the piece of round plastic in the picture (on every single page) holds more space and runs faster than any hard drive on the market? Why isn't Intel scrambling over this? If that piece of what could be ordinary plastic beats the hell out of my 6 gig hard drive, why haven't any hardware manufacturers at least caught up some of the way? I mean, the highest-end comps I've found have no more than 40 gigs, max. This beats that by a whopping 100 gigs.

And please, tell me the picture at the bottom of this page doesn't look like something out of Star Wars.

I won't believe this until I see it in action.

GeForce / TNT2Ultra / Voodoo3 Roundup [ Shugashack]
Guillemot GeForce256 3D Prophet Review [Ace's Hardware]
Guillemot GeFroce256 3D Prophet Review [Puissance PC]
nVidia GeForce 256: To Buy or Not to Buy [AnandTech]
Guillemot GeForce256 3D Prophet Review [GA-Source]
nVidia GeForce256 DDR Review [3DGPU]
nVidia GeForce256 DDR Review [Riva Extreme]
nVidia GeForce256 DDR Preview [Thresh's FiringSquad]
nVidia GeForce256 DDR Review [Riva3D]
nVidia GeForce256 DDR Review [Planet Riva]
nVidia GeForce256 DDR Benchmarks [Bjorn3D]
Guillemot GeForce256 3D Prophet Review [CGO]
Guillemot GeForce256 3D Prophet Review [Fast Graphics]
Creative GeForce256 Annihilator Benchmarks [3DHardware]

3DNews has more info here.

Basically, it has every important feature from every card on the market, running about 3-4x faster (I'm not sure if I buy this, but...). It also has full OpenGL and Directx 7 support, but isn't listed as being Linux compatable.

Now, what it doesn't have, and what I'm waiting for: full geometry. I don't really care what this thing is packing, if someone (I'm betting on Matrox at the moment) can get a card with full onboard geometry[1], that what I'm waiting for. (Oh, and at least 128MB memory, preferably 256--I hate AGP.)

1: I don't mean geometry boosters, or a crutch for my poor celerons; I want complete FP and vector units on card, with whatever bus mastering it would take to circumvent the processors. (Can AGP tap into core for more than textures? That would just about fit the bill, esp. at 4x.) Sure it'll cost a fortune, but Halo II is worth it ;-)