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i820 Chipset Under Recall
Dman33 writes "This Cnet story details how Intel hit another bump in the road with its i820 motherboards. This defect is in the memory translator hub which allows for the use of standard DIMMs as opposed to Rambus. Intel is planning on just replacing the standard memory with Rambus memory, but will replace the entire board at the user's request. " The estimated cost would put a big hurt on Intel's bottom line -- several hundred million dollars worth of it.
"A motherboard and RAM swap may not sit too well with sysadmins whose hardware must be up 100% of the time."
;)
Mind you, if that system is crashing all the time anyways...
Chris
-- Humans, because the hardware IS the software.
It's either good customer service or poor quality, you decide.
I agree. I think much of the slamming of Intel comes from people who think of them as a "Big Evil Corporation", just because they are large and have a large market share. They might be big but they are not evil. I think many of us use AMD chips simply because they are an alternative to Evil Intel. People like to side with the "little guy" even if it means some sort of sacrifice. I'm not saying that choosing AMD is a bad thing or that Intel is better.
Intel is doing a very good thing here and it's gonna cost them a fortune.
I'm not trying to flame anyone here...it's just how I see things.
Check Out Knexa.Com
Check Out Knexa.Com
KNowledge EXchange Auction
Revision of Step 7. Transmeta takes over the majority of the CPU biz. (I actually think that there is a chance of this happening. The technology is not as complicated.)
Use Adsense for Charity
You forgot to add "nano"-something. Plus some sort of tacyon device should be involved.
Can't sleep, clowns will eat me....
Read more carefully. This is a problem with SDRAM being used on a board originally intended for RDRAM, there is no problem at all with using RDRAM on an 820 board. Of course, there's nothing wrong with the SDRAM either, it's the memory translator hub slapped on after the fact.
As for Athlon's being a good upgrade path. Suddenly many of those who bought slotted Athlon MBs (which were fairly expensive for motherboards)are discovering that they must buy new boards again for the upgraded Athlons coming out over the next several months because of trace problems with the Slotted Thunderbirds.
It sounds like both companies are having trouble keeping things user-friendly at higher frequencies. Personally, I'd rather have 4 chips running in parallel at 500mhz than one struggling at 1.2ghz
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal...
Mmm, can you say 2.2GB/s of memory bandwidth? (or something close to that)
Still, if a lot of people go for the Rambus upgrade option I wonder if the stock of rambus will hold up. There aren't many manufacturers for it, and I don't get the feeling there is a lot of rambus memory stockpiled.
If a tree falls in the forest, and kills a mime, does anyone care?
June 1999: I start saving up every cent I can so I can replace my Pentium 166 (replaced after the FDIV bug discovery) workstation. I'm looking forward to a Camino (i820) based motherboard.
June 1999: i820 pushed back again.
Dec 1999: I place an order with CDW for an Intel CC820 mobo and an Intel Pentium III 533EB processor.
Jan 2000: RAM, Case, cooling, power supply, and everything else I ordered arrived weeks ago. My products, which were supposed to arrive in 3-5 days are pushed back "until further notice". Calls to Intel provide no further information.
Feb 2000: It's been 10 weeks. I place a call to CDW to be told that I'm still on backorder. I place calls to Intel to no avail.
Feb 2000: It's been 13 weeks. I call Intel to merely be blown off. I file a report to the BBB in regard to their conduct and how poorly this situation is being handled.
Feb 2000: 3 days later I receieve a phone call from Intel, gravely apologizing for the ordeal. My motherboard arrives the same day after receiving an apology call from CDW in which they explained they were shipping CPUs and motherboards to 'higher priority' customers during the processor shortage.
Mar 2000: 2 weeks later the BIOS fails. I suspected it when PCI steering and DMA went awry initially, but I had gotten it to work.
Mar 2000: My new motherboard arrives, and works fine. News stories surface on yer more problems with the i820 chipset.
May 2000: My motherboard is under recall.
Now seriously, what am I supposed to do here? Send in my motherboard for a replacement that'll prolly take several weeks to ensure I won't have any problems? And what about the memory? Do I have to send them my 128M stick of PC100 from Crucial to get an RDRAM replacement? Even then, is the memory I'm going to get in return quality memory? Is it PC800, or am I going to be given PC700 or PC600 (which won't work!)?
I've been quite patient through this and I've put most of it behind me and just enjoyed my spiffy new hand-made workstation. But now something else? This is ridiculous, and Intel BETTER be kicking themselves in the ass right now over wht is arguably their biggest goof ever: i820
I plan on getting a 1.5GHz Williamette when they hit in the planned Q1 2001, and that better well not have a single problem in it, as the motherboard it'll sit on.
Sorry if this has a bit of that "fresh rant feeling" to it, but I'm just a tad irritable over this. >_<
--
I haven't used Junkbuster. Can it be used to filter out this URL so that if I accidentally click on one of these stupid links, I don't go to it? An optional "blacklist" built into the browser would be a nice feature (and handy for work browsing).
Is there an option for hashed URL comparisons so that my blocked list can remain secret?
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
I agree. Alpha is a very nice architecture and quite affordable nowadays. The only drawback in running Linux on it was the not-so-optimal code that gcc produced (compilation was somewhat slow, too). But now that you can get Compaq's Alpha math library and compiler for free (IIRC), gcc performance should not be a problem anymore. Even with the suboptimal gcc code it was a number cruncher, all right. Another feature I really liked was the onboard flash-rom. You configured a standard kernel to include all the device drivers you need, compiled MILO (Alpha's LILO) against it and flashed the MILO "kernel" into the flash-rom. After that you basically had miniature Linux as your bootloader.
And you can overclock an Alpha, too...
Even if they gave you PC800 RDRAM to replace your 128M of PC100, do you realize how much it would cost you in the future if you wanted to upgrade?
Try costing out 128K of PC800 vs SDRAM....
The Register has "an article linking to a RAMBUS filing with the SEC describing why Intel is required to push Rambus memory thru the end of 2002. I can't read stockbrokerese, so I'm taking the Register's word for what this document says.
man, if they made a feces translator hub that worked, i'd buy it too! just imagine... relief for yourself, a little extra power for your computer, about once a day!
The only announced (not yet available) SMP AMD mobo I'm aware of is the Tyan Dolphin which will be available in Q4 of this year.
:-)
http://www.slota.com/motherboards/
The Dolphin will use AMDs 770 (aka 760-MP) chipset, and presumably support either dual Thunderbirds or Mustangs!
Note BTW, that despite the site's name, the Dolphin (and any 770 mobo) is a socket-A, not slot-A mobo.
Micron have also just entered the AMD SMP chipset business, and will support 4-way and higher SMP.
FYI AMD's 64/32 bit Sledgehammer processor due out next year will include a version with on-chip SMP!
But RDRAM is the problem, insofar as Intel is ramming it down their engineers' and customers' throats with no regard for reality. Intel management has committed so strongly to RDRAM that they'll practically have to commit seppuku before changing their "strategy". They ought to have looked at RDRAM's risks before committing.
I agree that RDRAM can be made to work. But the reality is that RDRAM has numerous challenges:
I'm not knocking the RDRAM concept itself, just Intel's Dilbertian implementation of it. In fact, I think narrow superfast busses are the Wave Of The Future(tm). Imagine buying an extra 16 gigs of RAM, taking it home, and plugging in the optical fiber without turning the machine off. Ditto for hard drives, or monitors. Would be much easier, especially for the average person.
-- ;-)
Kuro5hin.org: where the good times never end.
Apparently the rumor is that the problem is in the motherboard and how it has designed around the i820. Perhaps other motherboards don't have this problem (or perhaps they have their own problems).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
It isn't.
Dell has never passed up an opportunity to trash-talk AMD chips. Their loyalty means they get almost as many CPUs as they want, while their competitors go begging. Athlon? Hey, I just bought one and am a shareholder, but any idiot can tell you AMD is at the 1% mark in the business arena where Dell is king.
Dell gets very preferential treatment for their loyalty, and they have chosen to keep it that way. If Michael Dell called up AMD tomorrow and asked to place an order, Jerry Sanders would load up a wheelbarrow full of whatever Dell wanted and wheel it over personally. So don't tell me Dell doesn't have a choice.
-cwk.
I run a small systems company that builds high-end gaming systems for educated consumers. Three months ago, we removed Intel mainboards and processors from our system lineup. The reasoning had to do mainly with price/performance issues, along with Intel's inclination to force you into a new mainboard everytime you want to upgrade your processor. I'm pleased to report that the 90+ customers who've purchased Athlon systems from us have reported no problems at all with their ASUS K7M and ABIT KA7 mainboards. And they all survived the ILOVEYOU virus due to our policy of deleting IE and Outlook from their systems and getting them started with Netscape and Eudora Light, but that's another issue.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
Gee, does somebody need a hug?
Intel may hire dolts, but Dell seems to have a little more on the ball--DELL DOES NOT SHIP i820 or i840-BASED SYSTEMS WITH SDRAM. sheesh! If you want SDRAM from Dell, you will get a BX or i810 board--or an SMP workstation board designed for SDRAM.
funny how Nintendo (fer christsake) and Sony seem to have had no problem designing around RDRAM.
---
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That is very true. The CPU market is not going to be the cash cow three years from now that it is today. As speeds increase, the cost of CPUs will hit the floor, since many applications do not require any more speed than what they have today.
Intel is attempting to counter this by investing in new technologies. They have expanded their presence in the communications and embedded chip market and have acquired a number of companies.
As far as design flaws go, they happen every once in awhile. Intel has one of the best manufacturing operations on the planet and get great yields with most all of their products.
The current batch of coppermine P3's are a stopgap for the next generation of CPU's anyway. This issue is not going to be very important in the grand scheme of things.
Duff
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
So what do we do when we need ~1 million RIMMS post haste? We pay a little more (or flex our muscle) to get priority. What does the rest of the world do? They a) pay _even more_ b) wait interminably for the prices to come back down to the merely astronomical level (all the while pissing off their customers) or c) screw it and jump to DDR-DRAM.
This does not look good for the short term _availability_, and the long term _viability_ of RIMMs.
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
But RAMBUS is moving towards more analog sensitivity. There may be fewer data lines but there are more discrete voltage levels and timing intervals between clock pulses to get screwed up by spurious signals. At least with pure 1's and 0's, ths signal is sufficiently quantized as to be readily corrected until the noise pushes it past the boundary. RAMBUS seems to be squeezing those boundaries ever closer. Lots of bandwidth improving technology has gone the way of more data lines, such as wide SCSI and gigabit ethernet. Generating noise vs. noise sensitivity seems to be the issue here.
One of the problems I do see in motherboard design is that the paths that data and addresses have to take between the various components in the layout is, in a large number of cases, not the shortest.
One of my motherboards, an Intel SR440BX, has a sinusoidal ringing pattern in sync with the horizontal sync pulses. The video has to traverse across the motherboard, unshielded, to reach the video connector. It's not actually getting any digital hash, but it is encountering the impedance variations along the way. Maybe this is just saying that motherboard designers don't get to (or can't) take all things into consideration as others (for example video card designers) could. Which end of a video card would you put the D/A conversion? Which end would you put the VRAM?
Sometimes I wonder if these digital designers were sleeping in Microwave RF Engineering class
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Never mind my crack, yours seems to give a better high!
The server version of Willamette is "Foster" which is DDR. It's got nothing to do with cost, but simply the degrading performce of Rambus as memory sizes increase.
DDR already exists and is used by some graphics cards. It has also been demoed at WinHEC by AMD using their 760 chipset with Thunderbird. I'll accept that DDR chipsets could have problems, as could anything else, but given the strong support for DDR from Micron and other memory manufacturers, it's crazy to suggest there's anything in the least bit broken about the standard.
Junkbuster can do that very easily...
add
goatse.cx
to sblock.ini file (or whatever you call it)
you could even add a line like this
amazon.com
and you won't accidently click on them either
IMHO, I don't think that in its current incarnation INTEL can seriously compete. Like any bloated company that became do big, bloated and powerful, they are destined to fall.
The industry seems to follow patterns.
Genious kid or group of individuals has/have great idea
Small company make millions
Suddenly large company hires high price managment
Original people leave
New managment comes up with bogus strategies
Some new individual comes along with better idea
repeat from top.
It happened before (think Microsoft, Sybase) It will happen again (maybe linux if open source gets killed by companies that release closed products so attractive to management types that they can't refuse them and then become dependant on them)
I know, this is all off-topic and probably redundant but I felt like saying it
Intel will use its continuing best efforts in marketing, public relations, and engineering to make the Rambus-D DRAM the primary DRAM for PC main memory applications through December 31, 2002; and (b)Intel will communicate to the top (10) DRAM manufacturers, Intel's intention to support the Rambus-D Interface Technology in its integrated circuits for low end workstation, performance desktop, and basic PC platforms.
Intel may have sold its soul to the devil in this case, if Rambus turns out the be the flop that it apparently is. Over the next two years, it appears that Intel has little choice but to flog this steaming pile of technology. It's really too bad, AMD needs the competition.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Ooooo.... what a wonderful idea.
:)
Now I know what the Justice Department can do once it finishes with Microsoft
(Hi... I'm from the Better Buisness Buerue and we'd like to talk to you about all these complaints we've been recieve in regard to bait and switch tactics)
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
You will note that I clearly stated that "Intel is planning on just replacing the standard memory with Rambus memory, but will replace the entire board at the user's request"
They covered thier arses, but you are on the right track. I bet this is to spur sales into Rambus, and to fatten thier bottom line. Besides, now when IT staff upgrade in the future, they will have to buy Rambus!
It's good to see that Intel is finally handling this issue. It's too bad they didn't announce this a few weeks ago, before I snapped my cc820 in half and mounted it on my wall, to serve as a constant reminder to avoid Intel products at all costs.
(And you think I'm kidding...)
MSK
Moral of the story - test before production! (and don't assume people will gladly pay for RAMBUS)
Important point.
Have a look at An exploration into overlocked AGP. Of particular note, cards designed and cooled well (like ATI's Rage Fury MAXX) operated without a hitch. They also went overboard overlocking the 440BX to 150 MHz FSB cranking AGP up to 100 MHz.
If you're timid about overlocking, this is a good reason to wait for i815.
Use Evolution instead of Outlook? Bewa
Yep - Intel is contractually obligated to hype (pretty much literally!) Rambus thru the end of 2002, and to push it as their sole memory option. I think the reason Intel was willing to sign such an odd contract is that they wanted to move more motherboard value onto their CPUs (i.e. get bigger % of the PC pie), and perhaps (seems a bit naieve, though...) genuinely thought that SDRAM couldn't be extended further.
Not only is their the contract, but Intel have for a long time been propping their earnings up with capital gains from various holdings that they sell each quarter. They'd have missed estimates last quarter without this (i.e. that fat P/E you're paying for is buying you one-time capital gains, not recurring growing earnings!!!). Intel own a large number of RMBS stock warrants as part of their deal with Rambus, and need to push RDRAM to be able to turn a profit on these to help earnings.
I, and almost every hardware review site on the internet, would suggest getting a tried and true BX chipset-based motherboard, a VIA chipset-based FCPGA motherboard, or an Athlon system.
The problem with the BX chipset is that it only supports AGP 2X. This doesn't really matter right now, but it could be a performance bottleneck in the future, if you use high-end AGP video cards and play state-of-the-art games. On a workstation or server, it doesn't matter one bit.
The VIA chipsets are often a little slower than the competing Intel chipsets. I'm not really that big of a fan of VIA, but I truly appreciate the competition that they bring to the chipset marketplace. Current VIA chipsets for both the Coppermine and Athlon support PC133 and AGP 4X. Still, it tends to perform slightly worse than an overclocked BX chipset. Not all BX boards can be reliably overclocked, though. And I would never recommend overclocking a workstation or server. That's for gaming PCs only.
My favorite solution is a dual processor BX board. Get one that supports 100 MHz FSB Coppermine chips, so that you can put in dual 600E or 650 chips (or, if you're rich, dual 700+ MHz chips). Remember that most FCPGA CPUs do not support SMP, as per Intel's press releases.
If you can't afford a dual processor setup, then you should look into the Athlon. It's incredibly inexpensive, plus it's quite fast, up until the 750 MHz mark or so. After that, the ultra-slow cache makes it rather uncompetitive (but it's still much cheaper than a Coppermine).
If you can afford it, go with a DEC Alpha. The 21164A is pretty cheap now, and it uses a standard ATX power supply (300W absolute minimum, so you'll probably want a new tower case with a big power supply). A barebones 21164A should set you back around $500 to $1000, depending on the speed, case, and amount of cache and memory. You can buy a nice Quantum Atlas V 7200 RPM 18GB SCSI hard drive to go along with that barebones system for around $300. Now you're ready to kick some Wintel and Macintoy ass.
By the way, any ideas when 2- or 4-way Athlon-motherboards are due? AMD's homepage only says that the processor itself supports SMP, but so far no motherboards seem to be available.
With the current Athlon pricing, a 4-way Athlon system would probably be quite an affordable system to put together. Unless, of course, the motherboard itself is ridiculously expensive (like a dual 21264A Alpha motherboard ;-).
Does 4.0.0 ? The XServer (experimental) for i810 still gives em a 320x200 res 8bpp under 3.3.5. This is just not good, because we've just received a bunch of PC's with i810s in them :( :( :(. No Linux here, I guess, unless we buy different Video cards.
no sig
For some motherboards, just replacing SDRAM by RDRAM will do no good, as the motherboard only takes SDRAM. So in these cases the motherboard would need replacing.
Why not just interleave 2 or 4 banks of SDRAM DIMMs into 4-way interleaved cache on the motherboard? Cost: 216 more data lines and a few more control lines, plus the larger cache (because there's really 4 caches), plus the fact that you have to have 4 identical DIMMs in place (2 for 2-way mode). How much would this design, with 512MB of RAM organized as 4x 128MB, cost, compared to 512MB of RIMMs and the associated technology?
I declined to choose the 810 or 820 chipsets anyway because they don't support ECC (which I suspect might even be more important with RAMBUS). So I'll be using BX technology unless and until someone makes a K7 based motherboard with correct server technology (The Abit KA7 board doesn't reboot on interrupted power, so I'm avoiding that for my servers).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
If the chip is supposed to be cheaper, why are the 820 based motherboards more expensive than those using BX or 810?
How could Transmeta possibly take over the CPU business? They make mobile CPUs, not general purpose CPUs.
Even if the technology is new and innovative, if it's not demonstrably better than what Intel, AMD, and other embedded/mobile chip manufacturers are producing, the market will ignore them.
I figure that someone will buy Transmeta before they make it too big. Intel or IBM could afford to buy small European nations.
From what I see, RDRAM is just another attempt by Intel and Rambus to cram proprietery, poorly designed technology down everybody's throats so that eventually everyone will be paying up the ass for RAM because it is the one and only standard (hmm... sounds like an OS I know of...).
Anyway, I also found this article on Tom's Hardware comparing the performance of RDRAM with SDRAM, with some surprising results.
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
I mean, how often do you think this would affect the user? How often would it freeze up? I'm guessing it'd be pretty rare.. I mean, i have an i820 motherboard, with these exact specs, and I haven't noticed any proble....MTH ERROR- 10101001010011001010101110101001010011001010101101 1 01
10101001010001011101110010101010100100011001010
As the problem is in the MTH, I suspect that all m/b manufacturers who use SDRAM with the i820 will be affected.
EXCACTLY! The i820-based P3C-2000 motherboard only takes 100 Mhz SDRAM (but has a 133 Mhz front bus go figure!).
:-)
I'm very glad this is happening, I'm calling my hardware dealer right now.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Does anyone know why it is that Intel has been having all these problems lately? I mean, first RDRAM and the Camino chipset thing (where they put a piece of metal over one of the DIMM slots to keep you from using it), low yields on the faster P-IIIs, now this. Is it just a string of bad luck, or is Intel doing rushing production on these things in order to compete with AMD, or what?
I bought 9 Alton motherboards. Worst mistake I ever made. Tossed those, then bought 9 more Boardrunners. Not too bad, but it turns out that 2 of them have the i820. Crap. Can't win. Can't break even. Can't quit the game. SOL.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
... must be pretty big for Intel to put up with this crap. Sometimes I wonder if they went with RAMBus just to prove that they owned the market. Some peopl are so gung-ho Intel (and usually MS) that they'd buy TurdRAM if Intel sold it, with a Feces Translator Hub.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
a while until picking up on new chipsets until the bugs are worked out... Like a few years later.
-- On the side of the software box, in the system requirements section it said "Requires Windows 95 or better." So I i
my comments:
first off, why go bleeding edge with new technology that is untested when a simple upgrade of the only technology would work cheaper, faster, quicker?
DIMMS were an upgrade on SIMMS(double insertion Mem mod,single insertion Mem mod) that saved us from pairing SIMMS together and also upped the speed of the RAM chips.
SDRAM goes to DDRAM(single data rateRAM, double data rateRAM). i think they should just go all out and quadrouple the assossiation of a DDRAM, double the pincount for bandwidth sank, and also up the size, 200Mhz DDRAM would act like 1.6GHz allowing 32GB/s+ memory bandwidth which is enough for a processor up to say 2.5Ghz before memory bandwidth is an issue again, then just 4xassossiation and size and your good to go. Also, motherboards should have oldschool cache slots on the main board for a "level4" cache module that would be a standard DDRAM DIMM that would run at FSB speed. Or just do a massive convert of the current computer standards and go to all RISC and DDRAM on a new style bus more like an EV6 alpha bus
"AMD to the bank"
Duh
This defect is in the memory translator hub which allows for the use of standard DIMMs as opposed to Rambus.
Why can't they fix with the good ol' fashioned method of "reversing the polarity of the positron emission trail" or "modifying the deflector shield harmonics to emit a resonance"?
I mean, what is the problem! Are these people stupid or something?
It's difficult to follow the logic at Wall Street (if there's any) but I was wondering why the hell the bad news from Intel affected the whole semi-conductor sector. Why Motorola for example saw its stock go down? They have nothing to do with the ridiculous i820 Chipset.
A hungry bear does not dance!
Hmm, I wonder if they would upgrade 1 gig of DIMMs to 1 gig of RAMBUS. If so, it would be worth buying an i820 just for this purpose :) Chris
Wow. Defects in something related to RAMBUS. Intel is really starting to lose points on reliability. As I recall, the GHz PIII comes with an oversized fan and a recommendation that it not be used in mission-critical systems. At least they've got the responsibility to fix the system right. Ironically, their proposed fix will actually increase RAMBUS profits, since Intel will have to buy a whole lot of it. Problem is for those who will want to upgrade later. They need the whole motherboard replaced. I think my next PC will be an Athlon.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
well as far as DVD is concerned (without clogging the CPU) & 'video out' quality is concerned, the ATI card leaves the GeForce for dead.
tcd004
Here's my Microsoft parody . Where's yours?
So.... Did the engineers do this on purpose? It seems that Intel is really hell-bent on killing RAMBUS.
A motherboard and RAM swap may not sit too well with sysadmins whose hardware must be up 100% of the time.
It was for reasons like that I purchased my NexGen machine and the AMD K6-2 machine after that.
AMD is really giving Intel a run for its money in terms of quality, price and performance.
It strikes me that intel's in a dilly of a pickle if they plan to swap regular pc100 dimms for rdram. What's to stop a person from claiming (maybe even legitimately) that they needed 2G RAM on their new mobo? Go out and spend whatever it'll cost for 2G of pc100, and then let intel swap it up to rdram? You'd make a killing!
Another application would be to buy several of these, as needed. Buy a boatload of ram for one, and when they replace it with rdram, use that to feed the others.
They weren't kidding when they talked about damage into the hundreds of millions. That rambus investment is starting to look more and more painful for intel shareholders.
This has gotta hurt. It takes a lot of guts for a company to eat a bunch of revenue like that, especially when they aren't doing so hot in other areas.
[Off-the-wall and highly improbable conspiracy theory]
Or maybe they are doing it purely to entrench RDRAM in the market.
Step 1) Oh no, that SDRAM makes things buggy. Let's replace it for free with RDRAM for ya! (Who wouldn't go for it?)
Step 2) Now that EVERY i820 board has RDRAM, more RAM companies make RDRAM, the price of RDRAM goes down, and the price of SDRAM goes up
Step 3) Revisionist history starts pointing the finger at SDRAM for being an unreliable technology, not the i820.
Step 4) More and more consumers scoff at anything that doesn't use RDRAM ("Sheesh, your RAM runs at a puny little 133Mhz! Mine runs at 800!")
Step 5) AMD is hurt by the fact that none of their CPUs run on a chipset that uses RDRAM.
Step 6) While Intel flushes cash fighting AMD, HP takes over the majority of the CPU biz. (OK, maybe not.)
Intel has a name, created by a gigantic campaign, and continued by a gigantic name. It is the name that makes Intel the industry leader, and they will swallow just amount any amount of money to keep that name.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
You mean technology hasn't already leveled out?
Several friends are in the market for a home PC. They don't need it to do much, just some word processing, the ocassional spreadsheet and some web browsing.
Personally what I would love to recomend is PII-266 with 128mg of ram, a 10gig hard drive
and a 56K modem. This is what I bought 3 year ago and it would work fine for their needs (in fact I might even argue it would be over kill).
If you start playing games it might even be sufficient for most of them (depending on your graphic card).
Why do they need more?
What does your 'average' person use their computer for?
Games
E-mail
Web Browsing
Word Processing
Spread Sheet
Playing CD's
The thing that pushes the resources on the computer more then anything else is the games. If their idea of a game is Minesweeper or Solitare (as boggling as it may be to me who is in the middle of playing FinalFatasy8, Tiberian Sun and is anctiously awaiting the Homeworld expansion pack... and yet addicted to Mille Bourne on my Palm Pilot when I commute on the subway), then they don't really need any more computer power. Barring a major revolution in the way things are done (like the introduction of better Voice Recognition software, or Video Conferencing), the only time they should need to replace a system is when it dies (or they need an additional unit).
If Linux can make a move into the desktop (for the average clueless user) then its ability to push the resources of a machine might make the machine viable over an even longer lifespan for your average user (I was using KDE and Gnome on my p166 with 40mb very happily).
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
I'm been running my FSB at 83 MHz, with the AGP bus runing at 1/1 for quite a while now, with a few different video cards, none of which have had any problems. Just make sure you use a card that can handle it, and it'll be fine.
I could drop the AGP bus down to 2/3, but then I lose about 1 FPS in Quake3 ; ) Can't have that.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
(And you think I'm kidding...)
No, but pictures would surely be nice! 8P
Nintendo got rambus working right on their platform, why can't intel?
Actually, it's nearly the same thing, but not exactly... the problem wasn't with the Athlon - it was the chipset and often power draw. Note that AMD doesn't actually make the chipsets (nor the voltage regs), while intel is actually designing and fabbing the faulty parts here.
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
There's a problem running slot-A Thunderbirds (Athlon successor) in *SOME* KX-133 mobos due to Via having violated AMDs timing specs. AMD's own 750 Irongate chipset is fine for slot-A Athlon->Thunderbird upgrades (not that AMD intend to sell slot-A TBirds other than to OEMs). However, some mobo makers such as Abit and Asus are already releasing BIOS upgrades that make their KX-133 mobos Thunderbird compatible.
:-) If you're in the market for a new Thunderbird based PC, then go for a KZ-133 socket-A mobo which should let you upgrade to Mustang.
If you have a slot-A mobo and want to upgrade from Athlon to Thunderbird, then there should be third party "slocket" cards that'll let you use a socket-A Tbird.
So this KX-133 issue is a Via screw up, not an AMD one. More importantly the slot-A TBird is only a VERY short term OEM transition product. Aside from this, TBird/Duron/Mustang are all socket-A chips, and need a KZ-133 socket-A mobo.
Personally if I had a, say, 700MHz KX-133 Athlon I'd not be looking to upgrade to TBird, but would hold out for a KZ-266 DDR 1.3/4GHz Mustang due out in Q3/4! Or maybe even an AMD 770 dual-SMP Mustang!
Will Intel replace non-Intel motherboards (eg Asus CUC2000) which are based on the i820 but only have SDRAM slots, not RDRAM? Or will Intel only replace Intel branded boards?
Intel owns a large number of RMBS stock *warrants* with various strings attached.
If Intel did simply own RMBS stock then (absent their contract with Rambus) they could simply sell or hold it and specify memory subsystems based on simple price/performance considerations.
As it is, with the contract and warrants, Intel is coerced into pushing RDRAM regardless of whether it makes sense.
Sure. I'm not just kidding. We see all these problems with various chipsets (even AMD and VIA have serious problems with good memory controllers) becouse the gap between CPU clock/speed and memory clock/speed becomes frightening.
While CPU need a only few clockticks to operate instructions or data cached somehow the access to today's DIMMs is really terrible. If there's a cache-miss the CPU waits very long time(ie. hundreds of clockticks) till the data is fetched properly. And, if using DIMMs, the same situation is if you want to switch between reading the memory and writing the memory. Really lazy. RIMMS go further this way.
It's a long time from Pentium/66 with memory bus operating the same frequnecy. Now we have PIII or Athlon with 1GHz but the memory is still 100MHz -- pain in the ass.
I have an alter-ego at Red Dwarf. Don't remind me that coward.
I just hope AMD does not rename the Duron the 'Pinto'.
I am looking for the AMD Expedition though, or the Taurus..
No, the first Athlon chipset was AMD's own 750 "Irongate". It was always notorious with GeForces.
Intel themselves are only pushing RDRAM for consumer use. For workstation and server use they are pushing DDR since RDRAM slows down unacceptably for large memory sizes. "Foster" workstation/server version of Willamette is DDR, even if Intel are backpeddling on that to appease Rambus.
RDRAM's only claim to fame is bandwidth - it has long access latencies which bandwidth overcomes in some benchmarks, not in others. Only the very fastest PC800 RDRAM compares favorably to DDR (in some benchmarks only, at that). Slower/cheaper PC600 etc is pretty much useless.
Intel's engineers are humans too, they make mistakes.
The problem is, this isn't solely a symptom of Intel's engineers goofing... Intel has been trying to get Camino out the door for quite a long time now (I believe the first publicly announced roll out date was more than a year ago). If they can deliver millions of CPU's (which are arguably much more complex than a memory controller) why then, can't they deliver an 820 that works. Remember, this is a company with billions of dollars to spend and thousands of the brightest minds in the industry... They ought to be able to deliver a memory controller that works in a reasonable amount of time.
This latest 820 debacle is more of symptom of political infighting and a company collapsing under its own wieght. There's an awful lot of 'us vs. them' infighting between the various processor and chipset marketing/design teams. Trust me.
Just like they replaced all those Pentiums with the FDIV bug
...but only after a tremendous backlash from customers after Intel told them that Intel's engineers would decide on a case by case basis who would, wouldn't get replacments.
The problem has nothing to do with RDRAM
...excpet that it has EVERYTHING to do with RDRAM. Camino is an RDRAM memory controller, right? So... I don't know how you could say that this has nothing to do with RDRAM.
So please, guys, cut Intel some slack here.
No... they don't deserve it. They've screwed countless customers (think Dell and many other OEM's) with promises of Camino based motherboard delivery, and every time, they've managed to screw it up. Dell has taken it in the shorts for several quarters now due to Intel's inability to deliver Camino and Camino based motherboards. I'm no great lover of Dell, but its fortunes shouldn't be based on (or ruined by) the ineptness of a monopolistic supplier. Expect the governement to start looking at Intel again before too long... I do.
I remember Andy Grove once saying that Intel's biggest enemy was itself.... That's looking more true everyday.
Don't believe Intel's hype, and don't feel sorry for them. They work their engineers and production workers VERY HARD and VERY LONG for relatively low pay (like I said, trust me) and make up the difference with stock options. Well, if the company, as a collective, performs poorly (as Intel has over the past year and half or so), alot of the compensation that comes in the form of stocks options will devaluate and Intel's talent will look elsewhere for a company that can manage its own complexity and avoid political infighting an turf battles.
-t
Since this chipset is claimed to support 'dual' rambus & sdram, I'm not sure it is going to be any better. In fact, I've been watching the trades for any news about a Big Cheese getting fired for the continual gaffes about rambus/i820. If nobody gets canned, we can expect more of the same!
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
Shrink the bus and crank up the frequency... I'm not so sure this is such a great idea, with more heat and higher power consumption. Do we really want to start down this road?
Increased performance would be great and all, but I have enough trouble keeping the computer cool and keeping energy bills down as it is. I'd much rather opt for more elegant solutions.
---
Where can the word be found, where can the word resound? Not here, there is not enough silence.
"Where shall the word be found, where will the word resound? Not here, there is not enough silence." -T.S. Eliot
Here in Latin America, The CC820 motherboards replacements with RAMBUS will be send to the countries in 3 or 4 weeks. (information from Intel's plant in Costa Rica). So if you are affected with the problem, or your customers, Think fast!!!. Not all the motherboards had the problem (I have tested 30 and one of 5 are only affected), If the situation is critical you may substitute with BX, or 810e. But as we saw in the ancient times. Do not trust in Intel supply chain for the VC820 to solve the problem, I can predict a horrible delay!!!. Thanks and a message for Intel: HOW DARE YOU!!!, DO YOU KNOW "AMEF", and Quality assurance???? I think that we MUST reconsider AMD proposal.
"Sine ira et studio" Tacitus. With neither anger nor partiality.
Well, I guess I'm glad for holding out for a while until I upgrade to a new system.
The question is, how long will these processor wars last, and when will prices come down to a good level before I upgrade this aging K6-2?
RAMBUS is an expensive joke! The i820 can't even keep up with the "old" 440BX based solutions. Have a look at a March 8th article that goes into all the gory details. To quote Mr Pabst: "Rambus seems to be a rather nasty disappointment."
Not everyone will want to overclock a 440BX board to 133 MHz, but since so little hardware is actually overclocked, and even then only by 30%, you stand little chance of ruining anything. Just make sure you use a CPU and SDRAM rated for 133 MHz FSB.
If anything, wait for i815 to come out. This is supposed to be the "real" successor to 440BX.
Use Evolution instead of Outlook? Bewa
Intel's engineers are humans too, they make mistakes. But, when the mistakes happen, Intel takes care of its customers. Just like they replaced all those Pentiums with the FDIV bug.
Oh, and for all you RDRAM hatemongers: The problem has nothing to do with RDRAM; the memory controller used in specific motherboards was not shielded properly, causing intermittent lockups.
So please, guys, cut Intel some slack here. It's not like AMD is bulletproof, either (Athlon/GeForce, anyone?).
NathanSo, they make this chipset, and it's supposed to save you all this money, and lower TCO of workstations, by performing multiple operations.
It actually sucks, it's dog slow, etc - but it IS cheap, and it sells like hotcakes, and now a million or so peecees are around there using it.
Hehehe, sorry, I can't stop giggling at the irony of it, this chip that's made to save money is costing everyone out the butt.
In a perfect world, maybe some IT managers would sit up and say 'hrm, well, maybe we should not keep buying the cheapest piece of junk workstation that ibm/compaq/hp makes..'
Or maybe not.
--
blue
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
Many customers who bought the MTH mobos were trying to avoid Rambus and the cost associated with future memory upgrades (not just the initial costs).
Customers will be now be screwed (and Intel's investment partner Rambus rewarded) when it comes time to upgrade with more memory. Intel should be forced to provide working SDRAM as they advertised and are doing with other mobos -- not stick people with an expensive failing technology that Intel has investments in.
I see a possible class action lawsuit on the grounds of a recall "bait and switch" that will financially harm their customers.
...which is why MS stamps theirs out. Intel has competition and has for some time, so they have to innovate the old fashioned way.
Of course, that means mistakes, rush jobs, recalls, and all the problems that go with them. I also tend to think that users are not seeing the bang for the buck out of these new RAM technologies. PC100 was a good thing, but how much farther can we climb in sophistication before there really is no visible difference in performance/the technology itself tops out?
In space, no one can hear you moo.
Doesn't Intel have to support Rambus contractually? I mean, isn't there some kind of deal between the two, where Intel has to use their memory and be seen supporting them in good faith?
If so, when this deal expires, watch out RMBS...
Your Working Boy,
Intel does not own ANY stock in the company that they license the RDRAM tech from....many people think they do, but they DON't. Also, the company (RAMBUS) is just an IT company and doesn't actually make the ram, so don't blame them for the current high prices, it's just they're having trouble finding people who can meet the standards to make it.
doesn't matter for me though. i'm an athlon lover. and waiting for spitfire and whatnot...
wooo.
-dennis the kid
aka Simon.
You decide ...
Chivalry is not dead, it's just frequently misspelt. - M. Langley
Seeing as how RDRAM is still a lot more expensive than SDRAM these days, I'd be inclined to take up on the RAM replacement offer as opposed to a new motherboard....
Not to mention the fact that i820 + SDRAM = huge latency, which then translates into slow speed. A new 820 board + SDRAM is going to be a lot slower than the old 820 with RDRAM...
- Ed.
That is a very good point.
Make sure Intel replaces your whole motherboard or else you will be stuck having to buy the 6-8 times more expensive RAMBUS memory when you upgrade later.
It is almost as though Intel planned this so that RAMBUS will get some guaranteed sales early on. Then Intel and RAMBUS can get together and issue a press release detailing the huge initial adoption by consumers of RAMBUS memory over regular memory (without mentioning that the surge is an artificial byproduct of Intel's defective motherboards).
Some other links (also at C|net):
Intel launches expensive recall due to chip glitch
Rambus at the root of Intel's memory troubles
--
He lives in a world where those who do not run the client software of the omnipresent meme are unacceptable.
No Linux here
No Linux, or just no X?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I would suggest that in that case, they'll probably replace the motherboard. They are offering to upgrade the RAM, because if the loss is the same, they want to start moving people to RDRAM... However, I doubt that they'll let you get away with rediculousness... they'll just ship out a new board.
Alex
I mean, this is Intel. They're partners with Rambus, and own a big chunk of the company, after all. No one was buying Rambus memory, at least not in the quantities Intel and Rambus had counted on, so it may have been agreed that Intel would buy the excess Rambus memory, giving Rambus a better bottom line, and contributing to a lower cost for Rambus later when the Willamette systems debut, and the "noise" issue with some MTH i820 systems is probably just an excuse to let them do this. It also gives a convenient explanation for something which Intel has been saying--that Willamette will use Rambus exclusively and no MTH-type devices will be available for it.
Now, this is a "conspiracy theory" which makes sense. It's only "certain" MTH-equipped mobos that are affected, so the total cost will probably run less than we think. It gives Rambus, partially owned by Intel and a close partner in Intel's strategy to corner the market (licensing fees in the millions, folks) on RAM used on Intel systems, a better bottom line. It gives Intel a PR-friendly excuse to drop the MTH and thus all SDRAM use in its future Willamette chipsets. I see a net gain for Intel here, not a net loss. Intel has refused to even consider the DDR SDRAM which the rest of the industry wants to use, even though it'll be faster and more cost-effective than RAMBUS. I mean, come on--Rambus has to run at 400Mhz (800 effective, two cycles per clock) to give performance comparable to SDRAM running at 133Mhz! It's obviously inferior if it has to run that much faster to attain similar performance. While 400Mhz RAMBUS does slightly outperform 133Mhz SDRAM, it ain't enough to justify 3x the price. Imagine when DDR memory and supporting VIA chipsets are available toward the end of the year--133Mhz DDR SDRAM will kick the shit out of whatever RAMBUS has available at the time (they have trouble producing their part in quantity at 400Mhz, for heaven's sake!). Face it: RAMBUS memory is an Intel scam. It has to run 3 times as fast as SDRAM to compete with it, and yet it costs 3 times the price. Wake up and smell the Intel monopolists. Just as Microsoft used IE to leverage itself into cyberspace, Intel wants to use RAMBUS to leverage itself into a RAM/chipset monopoly, what with licensing fees and all. Don't fall for it. It's just another trick from Intel, the same people who brought us the same damn processor core for five years with only minor tweaks.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
according to some rumors, Intel engineers are not a happy family anymore. The various departments are said to be pretty pissed at eachother.
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