Slashdot Mirror
Intel To Drop Rambus Exclusivity, Support SDRAM
Overload128 writes "Over on ZDNet, there's an article detailing Intel's plan to let Rambus memory stand on its own. It seems that it will stop bundling RDRAM with Pentium 4s and stop giving rebates to OEMs that use P4s and RDRAM. They are also releasing a new chipset soon, called 845 that will support SDRAM (SDR) with DDR support for P4s not far down the line."
Erm, the P4 bus runs at effectively 400MHz (100MHz QDR) and RDRAM at 800MHz (although the bus width is narrow).
The problem with memory is not the bandwidth, its the latency. For example, the peformance difference between SDR DRAM and DDR DRAM is 5-10% running benchmarks and general apps, despite the later having twice the bandwidth. 3D graphics cards use DDR because they dont have the latency issues and hence benefit from DDR.
Another point is that RDRAM has worse latency then SDRAM but has good bandwidth. So what did intel do? They increased the cache line size on the P4 to 128 bytes, a four times increase over the P3. This little modification is what makes RDRAM usable on the P4 as 128 bytes is long enough to mask out the latency problem. It'ill be interesting to see how DDR performs on the P4.
I;m curious (and htis is NOT a flame - I'm really curious) If you've had the $$ for a new box and you want a speedster system - what kept you from getting an Athlon based system?
Try this, tell your companies excutives that when you call your software vendor for support they won't help you because you are not running Intel Processors in your server but only "compatible" processors.
Our accounting package, MAS90/200, is ONLY supported on Intel processors. Until software vendors ok, AMD, we can't as a company use them. Similiarly with other software we use, and it's not like you can just migrate from an existing installation of your core business apps to another because it limits your pc selection. Really, until HP offers Vectras with AMD, and IBM offers servers (our standards for machines), our company won't be getting AMD but is stuck with Intel.
I tend to think this is another reason that IBM, Dell, and HP do not offer AMD chips in their server lines (yes HP has some durons in laptops and AMDs in consumer line pcs but not Vectras or Netservers).
OK. I'll bite. I haven't bought a P4 yet, but I might.
Firstly, for the application I'm interested in the P4 really screams! How do I know this? Because (an old version of) the application IS one of the SPECCPU2000 benchamarks (254.gap) and the P4 does really, really well on that one benchmark.
Secondly, the CPU cost is just not a big part of total system cost. RAM, disks, case, etc all add up.
Thirdly, I have reports of stability problems for high-memory Athlon systems under Linux. They're a bit old now, and possibly obsolete, but I'd want to be sure.
The big issue against the P4 is memory costs and lack of a dual processor platform, although this last is due to change soon. I like at least 2GB of RAM, ideally 4, and that does tend to point at SDRAM as the only affordable technology. Even DDR SDRAM may be a problem if the mobos don't have enough channels/slots. So, I need to know what damage SDRAM does to the P4 in my favourite benchamrk.
Since you ask, computational pure maths. Everytime I can double my data sizes, I can solve the next problem. I admit that 1GB or so would be enough for other purposes (I also do a lot of compiling and a lot of RAM really helps there).
I don't know how to break it to you, but the price for *all* memory decreased lately, not just SDRAM. Yet Rambus is still over 4 times the price of SDRAM, just like it always was.
And Rambus has some technical strengths, too, when matched with a chip design like the P4 - the max bandwidth of RDRAM is higher than equivalent (PC133 DDR) SDRAM, though latency is higher. THe problem with Rambus was twofold:
Bullshit. The bandwidth of 266MHz DDR is 2128 MB/s. The bandwidth of 800MHz Rambus is 1600MB/s. P4 uses two channels of RDRAM, making the total bandwidth 3200MB/s. That's why in P4 you need to install RIMMs in pairs, one for each channel. So the bandwidth of Rambus is less than that of DDR, and on top of that Rambus has much higher latency and generates a lot more heat. RIMMs need heat sinks for crying out loud!
I, for one, have about 100 PCs to buy once there's a product worth buying.
Ahem, Athlon. Or P3 if you are the Intel type (it outperforms P4 you know...)
___
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Actually, I think AMD systems rock - I recommend them to my friends, and I have two of them at home.
The problem with AMD boxes in a corporate envirnment is consistency. When I buy a box for work, I'm not looking for blazing speed and lowest cost. I want a PC that'll be available in exactly the same config for at least 9-15 months from its date of introduction. There aren't any AMD-based systems being sold by the major manufacturers that meet that criteria - the typical "corporate" system (like the Dell Optiplex, Gateway E-series, etc.) will use a known stable chipset with a long planned lifecycle in the roadmap, Intel processors, and typically an ATI video chipset. When I buy them (in bulk), it's easy for me to use a standard system image to build the PC. Then all we have to do is generate a new NT SID, and set up the user profile. It only takes about a half hour for us to build a new PC as a result, including the time to image the PC.
As for the current P4 systems, the reason we're avoiding them is RDRAM. I have no interest in stocking multiple RAM types, and the performance isn't sufficiently optimized to make it worthwhile. For my purposes, there's nothing wrong with the P3/i815 platform (or BX, for that matter), but BX is gone and i815 will be rapidly phased out once i845/Brookdale is available around the beginning of October. Hotrods don't really benefit us at all (our current main platform is still 440BX/P3-650), but stability does. Brookdale is slated to be around for a couple of years, with the DDR version coming out early next year.
One other advantage of buying the "corporate" class systems is that all the manufacturers who want the business will cheerfully share their product roadmaps with you - including model names/numbers, availability dates, length of product cycles, and pricing. However, it's NDA'd, so I don't get to share, unfortunately. However, I should have i845 sample systems in here during August from a couple of vendors to test.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Rambus RAM is nowadays well under $1/MB (the Chip Merchant, for instance, sells 256MB of PC800 RDRAM for $170) - the only thing that makes it look expensive now is the utter collapse of the DRAM market. About six months ago, that would have been a reasonable price for PC133 SDRAM.
And Rambus has some technical strengths, too, when matched with a chip design like the P4 - the max bandwidth of RDRAM is higher than equivalent (PC133 DDR) SDRAM, though latency is higher. THe problem with Rambus was twofold:
First, the horrible business practices of Rambus, the company.
Secondly, when Rambus finally became available to the PC market (with the i820 chipset), the platform was so underwhelming that Rambus was effectively squashed. That was when the company turned their attention to litigating rather than working to improve the product - and we all have seen examples of companies that lead through legal agtion. They die.
And now that Intel is going to ship Brookdale, they might start selling some P4 chips at last. I know that, at least at my shop, we've held off entirely on PC purchases this year (except for a couple of servers and laptops), in order to wait for a viable P4 platform. I'm sure I'm not the only one - expect Intel's sales numbers to start rising again and some of the top-tier PC vendors to show signs of breaking out of their slumps. I, for one, have about 100 PCs to buy once there's a product worth buying.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I have 512MB RAM in the one I have for work, and it crashes once every couple of days. I thought this was due to instability in my video driver (a ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon), but that could be a different reason for my problems.
I have a SGI flat panel monitor and still haven't been able to get maximum resolution on it because the driver doesn't support DVI out yet. I heard a while ago that this was fixed in Xfree 4.1 - anyone know about this?
D
----
I think Intel lost big-time because of the RAMBUS stuff. I know I lost a lot of respect for them after that, and explicitly asked for an Athelon system for my desk. I wanted 512MB RAM, and I couldn't stomach the RAMBUS price difference for it.
I'm upgrading my Power Macintosh G4/450 dual processor home system to 1.5GB RAM today. I paid less for 1GB RAM than the RAMBUS folks have to pay for 256mb. I'll bet I'll get better performance on this machine than I would have on the P4, not because Intel is slower than the G4, but since I have so much more RAM.
D
----
The first boards will be showing up in August.
The Rambus folks have single handedly run one of the most vile business models around. Regardless of the quality of their product (which thankfully is low) its important to make an active stand against this kind of behavior, because in the end it hurts us all. Imagine if a company like this had got some patents on underlying internet protocals. The internet would cost a ton and barely exist.
Really, for the hour or two every year, you might want to consider building your own system. If you go with decent parts (ie, nothing from a company going bankrupt) you won't have any install issues. These days you can boot off of CD and have an install going in minutes.
But I dislike using an OS I didn't install myself because I've got strong preferences for what gets installed, etc. Well worth the 20m it takes to install Win2k, or 45m for Linux (Takes longer, cause I always install a bunch more stuff.)
If that hour or two is really that hard to come by, or if you never do it and it would take a lot longer, consider making a list of parts and getting a local consultant or small store to do it for you.
Saving shipping alone is likely to pay for an hour or consultant time (Expect $50/hour, it's not really high-end stuff) and you get a lot more control over what you get.
This is proven by the simple fact that you can get a Dual Athlon this way, where many major companies (Dell, etc) won't even sell powerful single-CPU Athlons.
I've had great luck buying my computer parts from a hardware consultant. He burns everything in, with the appropriate manufacturer's util when applicable, downloads and burns drivers when needed, and delivers them to my home after 6pm, when I'm back from work. Being that he doesn't have a storefront it usually ends up being the same price (+/- 5%) as the local stores, even the really cheap ones. (With retail products, he doesn't do the volume to get really cheap OEM stuff, but these days I like the warranties.)
If Dell decides to start using AMD cpu's, then my next purchase would most likely be a Dell with AMD inside.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
I've read a review about this a few weeks back. The performance of a 1.7Ghz P4 is pathetic to even a 1.2Ghz Athlon with DDR SDRAM. Intel execs must be on crack or something to release this chipset for the P4. It will seriously lower performance. The thing is P4 will be much faster with DDR memory than 'Rambust' and Intel is afraid to admit their mistake. Do yourself a favor and never buy a P4-Chipset845 combo, you'll be seriously sorry.
"The answer to the Question of Life, the Universe and Everything is... 42"
The P4 is single processor only. The Intel Xeon (P4 based) supports SMP.
Since I am a big believer in SMP, and the Xeon line is a little out of my price range, I will be switching to Athalons next time I upgrade (not until lower cost Athalon MP boards are available).
The opinion is widespread because people associate the MB chipset with the proc. And AMD 3rd party chipsets were (and still continue to be even today) notorious for shoddy hardware and drivers.
My brothers K5 was a flaky machine. My friend's K6-2 decided to just die. He always had sound card compatibility problems. Many IRC friends had sound issues with the early K7s. Video cards were always iffy ("Use the latest drivers! Upgrade every week!").
Notice that I left out any mention of the Motherboard chipset manufacturer. Most people, even techies, don't make the proper distinction.
A friend who works for AMD has a nice 1Ghz Athlon system. In Win2k it will occasionally hiccup for about a second or so. The problem? The VIA drivers suck. It's like building a great house but letting someone do a crappy job on your driveway and lawn.
Now, of course, some people haven't had any problems or researched the issues ultra-carefully before diving into the Kx fray but those people are few. I'm happy to say that a friend and I put together a nice Athlon rig for colocation and it's been doing just fine. However, this is an issue that has plagued AMD's public perception from the K5 days and that's why there is this reputation, deserved or not. I myself tread very carfeully when dealing with MB purchases.
Fsck cluebie moderators. I'll say what I want, offtopic or not. And fsck having to qualify every bloody statement just
The comment from the submitter makes it seem as if this is something new and important. This is actually really old news. Intel's 845 (Brookdale) chipset, which supports regular SDRAM and DDR has been in the works and well known for a while now and even benchmarked. Intel is probably initially only releasing it in the SDRAM flavor because of exclusive contracts with Rambus Inc. It is expected that in less than a year the DDR version will be out. Intel publically stated they are less than pleased with Rambus Inc. a long time ago.
As another poster mentioned the performance of the P4 with SDRAM is terrible. This is because the P4 was designed for memory with high bandwidth such as Rambus RAM and DDR as opposed to regular SD RAM. Tom's Hardware, perhaps the foremost Rambus hater, has an article on the 845 chipset and its very poor performance with SDRAM. Ace's Harware also has a summary.
All and all Intel's relationship with Rambus and use of Rambus RAM has been very foolish. The P-III was not designed to take advantage of the high bandwidth of Rambus so the improvements versus SDRAM were limited and the price of Rambus made VIA's competing SDRAM chipsets and AMD's solutions much more attractive. Now that Intel finally has a chip (P4) for which it makes sense to use Rambus RAM, Intel is slowly moving toward abandoning Rambus probably in favor of DDR. Although, given how hated Rambus is among RAM makers and the continued superior price-performance of DDR RAM, Intel's moving away from Rambus makes a lot of sense.
Nope, you are wrong. The bandwidth of dual channel PC800 RDRAM is 3.2 GB/s (800 MHz x 16 bit x 2 channels). The bandwidth of DDR SDRAM is only 2.1 GB/s or 2.4 GB/s. The corporate push behind DDR is attempting to confuse customers by giving a name of PCxxx where xxx is the bandwidth, not the frequency.
The problem is that while dual channel DDR will supply that much bandwidth, K7's FSB is quite sluggish and won't be able to take advantage of it. You will already note that currently shipping K7 systems show very minimal performance speedup with DDR over SDR (it's i820 all over again). There's no point in throwing even more bandwidth at the chip, which cannot use the bandwidth.
The most exciting DDR product is the ServerWorks GCHE chipset which has dual channel DDR supporting quad Foster processors, which can actually take advantage of the increased bandwidth.
Am I the only one who still sees "DDR RAM" and thinks "dance dance revolution random access memory?"
so do you think my butterfly upswing another trickstyle will really push my computer THAT much faster?
no
No thank you until DDR chipset/boards arive.
At first this might seem like a good move, until you remember the only current selling point of the P4 is memory bandwidth (until SSE2 is mainstream). So effectively, the took the best feature and killed it to save on costs to the consumer. Too bad most consumers will see "1.8ghz now with 128 megs of SDRAM!" and buy it because they heard SDRAM is cheaper than RDRAM, yet the 1.8gig CPU is over $500.
--------
--------
It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
Well, WinXP is just around the corner.
Not everyone deserves a 320i
Plus, they designed the P4 from the ground up to support RDRAM. It'd be just stupid to quit supporting them now, that it's becoming almost affordable to buy Rambus memory.
I don't recall which Intel executive (one of the chief architects of the Pentium IV architecture) it was that lead to this common misconception, but he later refuted that this was what he meant. He had said that the Pentium IV was designed to take advantage of large bandwidth chipsets, like Rambus. He then went on to remind everyone that like most microprocessors, the Pentium IV was designed to depend on the supporting chipset to interface with the memory technology. The Pentium IV was therefor not optimized for a specific memory technology. Instead the chipsets were designed to optimally work with the Pentium IV and whatever memory they supported.
Perhaps Intel didn't design the P4 for Rambus from the get-go, but it was designed as a bandwidth-hungry chip. While the P4 has been reviewed and analyzed to death, and indications of its merit seem to be on a perpetual see-saw, a few things seem to be objectively emerging.
First off, the P4 is strongest when streaming and when the new SSE2 stuff is being used.
Second, the P4 is clearly bandwidth-hungry, and knows how to use it. This goes hand-in-hand with the first point.
Now a little more controversial, there have been some reports that on non-streaming problems, in other words, away from its design peak, the P4 is bandwidth-wasteful. In other words, the P4 needs the bandwith to run well, whether it's really needed or not. Between the cache line size and prefetch pattern, the P4 just needs lots of bandwidth. It is well mated to Rambus. It may also suffer badly without Rambus, or at least that much bandwidth.
I'll be curious to see benchmarks of:
P4+Rambus
P4+Intel SDR SDRAM
P4+Intel DDR SDRAM
P4+non-Intel SDR SDRAM
P4+non-Intel DDR SDRAM
From what I've heard on various performance websites, the Intel/Rambus contract forbade them from fielding a non-Rambus solution with > 1GB/s bandwidth. One could look at PC133 and say it was a violation, but I suspect one could finesse that by saying that you can never in practice achieve the peak. I believe the rest of this has been reported as waiting for certain contract provisions to expire. I don't know the details, only the same rumors as everyone else.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I don't recall which Intel executive (one of the chief architects of the Pentium IV architecture) it was that lead to this common misconception, but he later refuted that this was what he meant.
This isn't a common misconception... it is, in essence, true.
The P4, as it stands today, has very small on-chip caches, certainly by comparison with, say, the Athlon, and the primary reason why that is is because of memory latency. Smaller caches have lower access latencies, mitigating the effects of RDRAM's high access latency. RDRAM also has very high bandwidth, significantly higher than even DDR SDRAM, which means that keeping these small caches filled is less of a problem.
Consider also the very long, 20-stage pipelines found in the P4. These also require very large memory bandwidth to keep them filled, and what memory technology does that better than RDRAM? Conversely, a branch-prediction miss by the P4 takes a long time to work its way through this 20-stage pipeline before the P4 can restart its work. This gives RDRAM breathing space to refill the P4's small caches from elsewhere in memory that it would not have if the P4's pipeline was shorter.
Cynics might argue that perhaps the P4's branch-prediction isn't as good as it could be, in order to make up for some of the access latency that RDRAM suffers from...
Don't forget the benchmarks either: where does the P4 really shine, and convincingly beat the Athlon? That'll be benchmarks where the data set that is being processed is large and (mostly) sequential. Why? Well, it's obvious, isn't it? It's down to RDRAM's massive bandwidth. Other tests which do not hammer the memory bandwidth as hard, or where the data set is scattered around memory, show the Athlon coming out on top.
All of this points to the fact that the P4 was at least designed with RDRAM in mind. If not specifically for RDRAM, then at least for a memory technology with large bandwidth and high latency, and how many types of memory do we know that fit that description?
I suspect that future revs of the P4, designed to work better with DDR SDRAM, will have larger on-chip caches, and (possibly) better branch prediction. The larger L1 and/or L2 caches will be necessary in order for the P4 to have competitive performance when using SDRAM. However, this will come at a price - a lot more transistors on the die. More transistors == larger die size, higher power requirements, and, worst of all for Intel, means that they will not be able to scale the clock speed up as fast as they would like to, which leaves me wondering whether they will genuinely be able to keep up with the Athlon in terms of performance.
This is a couple of weeks old...
But Intel is shooting themselves in the foot with this. They're holding off on DDR support for reasons that nobody claims to even try to understand and handing the high midrange over to AMD in giftwrap. Truthfully, in that kind of performance territory there's very few people this kind of performance should even remotely matter to (the usual high-demand games and scientific computing crowd being the usual exceptions). The fact is that even with this development there's no compelling reason to buy a P4.
/Brian
Yeah... as a general rule that does seem to be the case. Those who know about computers build, and usually build AMD. Those who don't buy and tend to wind up with Intel.
/Brian
I don't know about Gateway -- their hardware can get very weird sometimes. A lot of their systems ship without reset buttons and have what seem to be soft power switches. I've had to unplug Gateways to get them to reboot.
/Brian
In other words, it's completely nonsensical.
Rambus won't take over the marketplace; that should be self-evident by now. If this is their motive, than they're in even bigger trouble than it looks from the outside.
Imagine that: forced to market the overrated technology of a disgraced company...
/Brian
I think among tech-types, this is a bigger embarassment to Intel than the Pentium bug back in the day. I mean, that bug was fairly harmless really, but it was blown up quite a bit in the media. Of course the actual seriousness of that bug is probably somewhere in between what Intel said and what the media said.
But for this Rambus fiasco, the tech community has scolded Intel pretty hard since day one with one benchmark after another, and Intel's refusal to accept that they may have selected an inferior product may have hurt them in the eyes of people who actually respect them for their technology.
Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?
It was economic reality that this would eventually happen. The average person might be willing to pay for this equipment, since they don't know there is any option. However the high end power users know there are other options, and they know that the RDRAM Memory is over priced, over rated, and under powered.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
PC133 memory kills any performance advantage the P4 has. See Tom's Hardware for benchmarks.
Until they support DDR, there is no real alternative to Rambus for P4s. If you are spending money on an overpriced P4, you are wasting your money if you use PC133 SDRAM.
On the other hand, Athlons work rather nicely with DDR, and are a much better value.
Unfortunately, it is due to some sort of brand loyalty. I WISH that I could get a nice elegant Athlon system from my favorite PC vendor (DELL) but they just won't do it. I have nothing but positive experiences with Dell PC's and am very reluctant to switch, but if anyone knows of another MAJOR PC vendor that bundles their systems with AMD I would be happy to look into it. But as of late, they are not THAT easy to come by. And please, spare me the "build your own system and save" replies - my time is precious.
Since when is "public safety" the root password to the Constitution?
It's nice to see Intel get with the program and dump Rambus. This outfit has been screwing with the system too long. They have created quasi-standards then demanded licensing for them; built an empire on suing manufacturers, and have been investigated for all sorts of fraud. It's time for Intel to move on to support real standards in an open competitive enviroment. It's nice to see them taking steps in that direction
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Brookdale was already in Intel's roadmaps for a long while. They're just waiting for their contract with Rambus to end, since it's preventing them from releasing DDR products.
Plus, they designed the P4 from the ground up to support RDRAM. It'd be just stupid to quit supporting them now, that it's becoming almost affordable to buy Rambus memory.
Personally, I loathe Rambus as much as the next guy, but if you think rationally, this decision should have been taken by Intel a long time ago -- now it doesn't make sense anymore.
Join the NFSNET. Our prime goal is making little numbers out of big ones. http://www.nfsnet.org/
1 lb heatsink jokes aside, the P4 runs cooler then the Athlon. Hell, with the default Athlon OEM heatsink, 1+ ghz CPUs have no problem hitting 50+C. The slot athlon is rated to 70C, the socketed athlon is rated to 95C, which is only 5C short of boiling. My home CPU (K7 1133), with OEM heatsink and only one case fan has hit temps of 71C. (Yes, I'm shopping for another heatsink, I just kept the OEM heatsink on because that's what we sell to our customers, and I'm curious about the temp.)
On the other hand, the P3 @ 1.13 Ghz (and the P4 @1.5 Ghz) have a max temperature rating of 72C, which probably means its normal operating temperature is a tad cooler.
Now the difference in temperature measurements probably means that the actual temp vs the measured temp of the pentiums are more accurate, rather then the underreporting I suspect the K7's temp measurement reports. The pentium has its temperature measured by an internal diode. The K7 goes by max case surface temperature of the cpu. I'm guessing that the K7 method of temperature reporting will lead to a lower then real temperature then the P4's method of temperature reporting.
So, if heat is an issue, or if there is a lot of computers in a room and AC might be an issue, then there might be a reason to go with the P4. Of course, the ignores the fact that RDRAM is supposed to run hot, and I'm too busy/lazy atm to look up the total heat output of a P4 + RDRAM solution vs K7 + DDR-SDRAM solution. Anyways, now since the P4 is switching to to DDR-SDRAM, that is no longer an issue. Intel traditionally has had a better chipset then AMD's 3rd party solution, at least in the opinion of many people in the technical community. This is another factor in favor of Intel. Also, the K7 doesn't beat the P4 in *all* benchmarks. There are some benchmarks where the P4 will beat the K7. So even though the K7 is a great chip for the money, I could see using the P4 for a computer devoted to a specialized app if the time saved was worth the extra price of the P4.
There is also brand loyalty, and service/supplier agreements that lock a company into dealing with intel-only products. If a company is getting great technical support from an intel-only supplier, I cannot see any reason to change, great technical support is worth the extra cash.
Of course, "intel" and "pentium" are household names, everyone keeps asking me who "AMD" is and what they do. And the P4 has a higher mhz rating which makes the idiots flock to it.
From the consumer side, intel is hurting. I work in a shop that has switched over to selling only AMD, based on AMD's price. Sure, we can and will custom order Pentium CPU's, but after we show the customer the price difference between the P4 and the K7, they have all switched over to the K7. Intel still has a stronger market in multi-processor solutions, but the release of the Athlon MP (as well as the fact that all K7's, Athlon or Duron, support a dual processor configuration) and the availability of a dual-processor motherboard will change that, especially when the other motherboard manufacturers release their motherboards and the prices lower to a more reasonable level. AMD has a different SMP solution then Intel, and I believe that AMD's version will convince shops to switch over to the Athlon MP, as long as AMD markets a dual-processor configuration successfully, and can keep up with the demand.
Okay, I'm done playing devil's advocate. Last Pentium CPU I've owned was a P100. I'm quite happy with my Athlon, even if it is a portable heater.
References: Processor Electrical Specifications - Gotta credit my sources for the temperature ratings.
You're probably right, however, I doubt RamBus will go quietly and will now focus even more intently on extorting money for its numerous patents - they've lost one case (if memory serves) but they'll probably waste millions of their money and the memory makers to try and extract every dime they can from their illegal patents. I wish they'd just file for Chapter whatever and go away
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
Gateway & COmpaq have been selling Athlons for some time. Dell's reluctance can only be attributed to a sweetheart deal from Intel - I too love Dell systems (My laptop is an Inspiron and I managed a support group who handled Dell servers and desktops - it was great) and can't understand why they refuse to add AMD processors to their lineup. I've been surprised they have held out this long - but Dell has a HUGE edge over others in that their corporate contracts which are for HIGH margin machines allow them to earn plenty of money without trying to attract low end buyers with AMD or Celeron type processors. I fear that until (if ever) corporate execs are willing to buy Athlon machines because they feel they are cuttin gedge, Dell will have no need to bother with AMD which is sad.
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
I;m curious (and htis is NOT a flame - I'm really curious) If you've had the $$ for a new box and you want a speedster system - what kept you from getting an Athlon based system? The benchmarks I've seen between teh fastest P4s and Athlons haev been mixed - P4s excel in some areas while Athlons at much slower clock speeds excel in others the P4 can't seem to master. I'd paint it a draw unless all you do is play Quake :)
So is it brand loyalty? The need to have that ultra high (and meaningless) MHz number? P4s are more expensive, though sometimes the mboos are cheaper than equivalent Athlons.
I'm not trying to start a flame fest of replies - I'm just curious if maybe theres experiences out there that the numerous HW sites haven't touched on that make waiting for the i845 worth doing.
Yes, I tend to lean towards Athlons due to teh price/performance ratio. I can't stomach the prices Intel wants for some of their CPUs when a 1GHz Athlon 266FSB is now < $100 But in teh technical community that is /., besides brand bias/loyalty are there really black and white compelling reasons to shun Athlons in favor of a P4 with SDRAM support? Remember, some of the benchmarks that P4s excelled on were due to memory bandwidth of RDRAM and with SDRAM, they may not be so high - only time will tell of course.
So if you reply, try to be insightful instead of saying AMD sucks - who knows - this thread might be worth reading for folks who don't check the HW sites daily :)
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
I have yet to see one and I don't know anyone who owns one. Im not convinced they even exist.
-And if the band you in starts playing different tunes......
my RAM won't cost as much as my damned CPU/Motherboard combo.
Screw 3...