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Is Rambus Destined to Return?
An anonymous reader pointed us to an article running over at Tom's that talks
about the world
of ram and criticizes the performance of DDR. The article goes
into DDR333, DDR400, and Rambus, and explains the issues at higher
clockspeeds.
First Sweden 5 Canadia 2 post
im glad that i was able to escape the fire in my building to claim this fp (no lie i can see the trucks outside my window)
Experience tells us that Rambus is faster.
Pocket books tell us that ddr is better.
Which will your wife let you decide on?
Embarrassing. Double 'r', double 's'.
I also disagree with your use of then. Than is used to be comparative. Then is indicative of expressions of time or timing and consequence.
Might I suggest a more heartfelt and serious way of proposal? What was the diamond on the ring? A penguin-shaped imperfect piece of shit bought at the mall last minute? Zales? I doubt Mr. JUBEI [cmdrtaco.net] machine knows an SI-J from a VVS1-E. You are very heavily 'included,' Malda. Can you think of s shittier and more clichéd day to propose, or is Valentine's Day king shit of that Tird Island? She must be a lobotomized retard, otherwise your would-be spouse would have spit in your face.
Hey, loserboi, don't forget to invite Larry Wall to the wedding and write your vows in a Perl Script. Then you can "chomp" down on your cake.
You don't have to be a Kreskin to see this loser elopement ending in the very near future.
This is crap, Malda. A fifth grader can be more romantic than this garbage drivel. I wonder how often you were dropped as a kid. This is pathetic. I feel bad for your wife.
The Deutsche Demokratische Republik was absorbed into Bundesrepublik Deutschland 12 years ago!
psot
They can suck my ass, those no talent fucks.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
I am a idiot!
But I'm destined to TROLL UP A STORM today.
STOP ME BEFORE I POST AGAIN!
First Post
GO APPSTATE
BOO!
best.. Slashdot.. subtitle.. ever..
KHAN!!!
Given the bad performances of RDRAM due in large part to its insanely high latency, and Rambus' dubious business practices based mainly on trying to milk patents to leech on the entire memory industry's back, why on earth should anybody give then the opportunity to make a come-back ?
It seems to me that Rambus has offended so much of the industry that it even intel's continued (though lately lessening) support, or perhaps especially with intel's support it will fail to be implemented by the majority of m/b manufacturers.
Other avenues for gaining speed exist- like Nvidia's extra memory controller for the gpu in the xbox and higher end nForce chipset.
because I want to get an early post. My question is this: how will this development affect Beowulf clustering? Thanks in advance.
Patrick
With the exception of the shady business practices of Rambus, I don't fully understand why Intel dropped RDRAM in the first place. In every benchmark that I saw circa 7-8 months ago, the huge amount of memory bandwidth present gave Intel one of it's only advantages over the corresponding AMD CPUs.
It couldn't have just been the prices either, because Intel obviously knows they're not going to win that race.
Anyone?
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
Erfahrung erklärt uns daß (Score:1, Troll) durch 1155 am Freitag Februar 15, Erfahrung @08:29PM (# 3016268) (INFO des Benutzers #538047) erklärt uns, daß Rambus schneller ist. Pocket Bücher erklären uns, daß ddr besser ist. Welches wird Ihre Frau ließ Sie an entscheiden? [ Antwort auf dieses | Muttersubstanz ] erklärt Re:Experience uns, daß durch 1155 (Score:1) Freitag Februar 15, @08:32PM Re:Experience uns Freitag Februar 15, @08:35PM erklärt **time-out** Rambus als ein Firma (Score:1) durch Jesse Herzog an Freitag Februar 15, @08:34PM (# 3016295) (Benutzer #559062 INFO) geben d falsch Leistung [ tomshardware.com ] von RDRAM passend in groß Teil zu sein insanely hoch Latenzzeit, und Rambus zweifelhaft business Geschäftsverfahren [ ebnews.com ] basieren Haupt- auf versuchen zu melken Patent zu leech auf d gesamt Speicher Industrie Rückseite, warum auf Masse sollen jemand geben dann d Gelegenheit zu bilden ein Comeback? [ Antwort auf dieses | Muttersubstanz ] mehr Faktoren als Geschwindigkeit (Score:1) durch slithytove (momerath@ghet.to) am Freitag Februar 15, @08:37PM (# 3016302) (INFO | http://www.dank.uni.cc des Benutzers #73811) scheint es mir, daß Rambus soviel von der Industrie beleidigt hat, die es sogar INTELS anhaltender (zwar kürzlich vermindern) Support oder möglicherweise besonders mit Support INTELS es von der Mehrheit einen m-/bherstellern eingeführt werden nicht kann. **time-out** ander Allee für gewinnen Geschwindigkeit existieren wie Nvidia Extra- Speicher Controller für d gpu in d xbox und hoch Ende nForce chipset. [ Antwort zu dies | Muttersubstanz ] erst canadia Pfosten (Score:0, Offtopic) durch Anonym Feigling an Freitag Februar 15, @08:28PM (# 3016266) erst Schweden 5 Canadia 2 Pfosten [ Antwort zu dies | Muttersubstanz ] fp (Score:0, Offtopic) durch Anonym Feigling auf Freitag Februar 15, @08:29PM (# 3016267) im froh das ich sein fähig zu entgehen d Feuer in mein Gebäude zu behaupten dies fp (kein Lüge ich können sehen d LKW außerhalb mein Window) [ Antwort zu dies | Muttersubstanz ] Re:fp Freitag Februar Ist Tot. (Score:0, Offtopic) Der vor DDR durch Anonymous Coward am Freitag Februar 15, @08:30PM (# 3016274) das Deutsche Demokratische Republik wurde in Bundesrepublik Deutschland 12 Jahren aufgesogen! [ Antwort auf dieses | Muttersubstanz ] frist (Score:0, Offtopic) durch Anonymous Coward am Freitag Februar 15, erster Pfosten des psot @08:30PM (# 3016275) [ Antwort auf dieses | Muttersubstanz ] (Score:0) durch Anonymous Coward am Freitag Februar 15, erster Pfosten @08:31PM (# 3016281) GEHEN APPSTATE [ Antwort auf dieses | Muttersubstanz ] boo.. (Score:0) durch Anonymous Coward am Freitag Februar 15, @08:32PM (# 3016284) BOO! [ Antwort auf dieses | Muttersubstanz ] von der D-wrath-voncRam-Abt. (Score:0) durch Anonymous Coward am Freitag Februar 15, @08:34PM (# 3016293) gut. Slashdot.-. Subtitle.. überhaupt. KHAN!!! [ Antwort auf dieses | Muttersubstanz ] habe ich nicht Zeit, den Artikel (Score:0) durch Anonymous Coward am Freitag Februar 15, @08:38PM zu lesen (# 3016304) weil ich einen frühen Pfosten erhalten möchte. Meine Frage ist diese: wie beeinflußt diese Entwicklung das Bündeln Beowulf? Dank im voraus. Patrick [ Antwort auf dieses | Muttersubstanz ] WARNUNG! TOGLODYTE MOLD-DAH (Malda) (Score:-1, Offtopic) durch Anonymous Coward an Freitag Februar 15, am guten Spelling des!worth @08:30PM (# 3016273) Kathleen oder an der Grammatik [ slashdot.org ]. Kathleen, wollte ich dies in möglicherweise embarassing möglichem auf diese Weise tun, und ich stellte es hier tun dar und jetzt, vor einem Viertel von Million Fremden war eine Weise wie irgendwelche so gut. Ich liebe Sie, dann, das ich innerhalb der Begrenzungen auf diese kleine kleine Geschichte beschreiben kann. Wir sind zusammen für viele Jahre jetzt gewesen, und ich habe für die meisten dieser Zeit gewußt, daß ich meine Lebensdauer mit Ihnen verbringen wollte. Genug abschweifend. Heiraten Sie mich? In Verlegenheit bringen. Verdoppeln Sie ' r ', doppelte ' s. IchBIN auch mit Ihrem Gebrauch dann anderer Meinung. Als verwendet wird, vergleichbar zu sein. Ist dann von den Ausdrücken der Zeit oder der Zeitbegrenzung und der Konsequenz hinweisend. Er ist klügeres Sein gut als Schlechtes; Er ist sichereres Sein meek als fierce; Es ist der Monteur, der gesund als wütend ist. -- R. Browning. Konnte ich eine heartfelt und ernstere Weise des Antrages vorschlagen? Was war der Diamant auf dem Ring
Sorry...
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
Seriously, ignoring pure performance considerations, RDRAM is garbage. It has to be put in pairs, and if those pairs aren't made by the same manufacturer, I've seen motherboards refuse to boot. Heat is a serious issue, and I've burned one finger too many on those heat spreaders. I've also seen an analog cable coming from the cdrom get stuck between the RIMM's and melt to the heat spreader. And price is still an issue, although it's improved quite a bit recently.
Expensive + Has to run in pairs + Runs very hot == Useless to me.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
Someone, please send me food to feed my ego: CowboyNeal 123 Fat Ass Road Fat Farm, FT 12345
all you slashdot trolls are the biggest pansies... get a fucking life.. go out and get laid.. even if it's a guy... better than sitting in your house... jerking off and first posting... you stupid anal pedophileantric ass fucks... this post especially goes out to eurotrash and the biggest eurotrash of em all.. October_30th
Get that rats nest off your head, you numbskull -- Wesley Willis
After their stint with the "take the heat sinks off, watch the athlon melt" FUD, I refuse to believe anything that comes from tomshardware.com.
I just wonder how many poor saps were caught by that rather large untruth and decided to buy a processor that may not be suitable for their needs.
This can be a problem. You should be able to make back the money so you cover your costs. Unfortunately, you may have to have deep pockets to stay in the game for a long time.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
[NT]
Why does slashdot post a story every time Tom has a new article? Agreed some of the reviews are really well done but it seems like 2/3 of tom's articles get posted on slashdot. There are lots of other hardware sites out there besides Tom's that have great reviews and information. Just a thought..
It's not news that a CPU which was designed to use one memory doesn't perform as well when using a different kind of memory. The PIV needs memory bandwidth desperately. How was Intel supposed to know that all those Alpha engineers would go to AMD and give the public a decent alternative? How were they to know that the public would have the option of getting better performance for less than half the money? The PIV is the last processor of an era AMD just put an end to. It's foolhardy to derive the future of a memory technology from its performance in conjunction with a misdesigned processor. If you could test an Athlon with DDR versus RDRAM, of course, the DDR would perform better. Please let's not post "news" from Tom's anymore - Tom's has just really gone to crap.
Much like SGI boxes for the average desktop, Rambus plays it's part to a niche market. (Though I'll be damned if I'm going to stay in a job that makes this ram standard build)
When price isn't an issue, and politics not a motivater, it's amazing what ends up in the niche.
-Slashot is like a sewer, what you get out of it, pretty much depends on what you put into it.. - Updated Tom Lehr.
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
The fact is that most IC testers today support the lower-speed parallel connections. High-speed serial connections like Rambus and SERDES require very expensive mixed-signal testers with expensive and complicated load boards (the PCB between the tester itself and the chip). These high-speed serial I/Os on the memory ICs themselves are also generally much larger than on a DRAM, probably by a factor of 5. So, you don't get die savings, you don't get lower test costs, and most of all you don't have any processors whose front-side buses exploit this. Plus, you have very expensive target products in terms of motherboards to support the Rambus ram requiring tight trace routing and signal isolation, and their very limiting 28ohm max impedance (at least with the PC800 RDRAM), almost completely opposite in difficulty to DDR. So where's the advantage?
If you also figure that the memory controllers for Rambus are configured for dual-channel operation, it becomes much clearer that the advantage is not in the memory architecture itself but in the controllers. Suppose a server board manufacturer decides to support quad-channel PC2700 1GBx4. That's 10.8 GB/s of potential memory bandwith on sequential accesses! There's hope with chipsets like the Nvidia nForce420 dual-channel DDR, but the Athlon FSB is the limiting factor there. And let's not get into the infamous first-access latency issues which I hope they're finally addressing.
Rambus is also notorious for poor tech support. I worked for a major silicon vendor using their core, and they never responded to our requests for minimum PLL-to-Rambus core distances. It was abjectly ridiculous, but not surprising considering that regular SDR/DDR memory interfaces outnumbered Rambus designs 100:1. Have things changed? Considering what their legal bills have been lately and an erosion of their tech support, I doubt they can afford to improve it much.
This gets a 2 and Offtopic?
*DOWN WITH SLASHDOT MODS*
Go back to RUSSIA, YOU MODS!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's the most informative post here. A lot better than the other garbarge you mod up.
Mod me down, FOR AMERICA!!!!!!!
If you see an interesting article on another hardware site then submit it. The submit story link is on the left hand side of all /. pages.
---
http://slashdot.org/moderation.shtml
... and you reading this are a bunch of losers.
Choke on a dick and DIE, whores!
I defacate on you and Rambus!
Have a look at the SUSE linux kernel compilations with dual athlons here. As everyone with dual processors knows, compiling kernels is one of the main advantages of having dual CPUs. In this test however the athlon dual boards got worse scores than their single processor counterparts. If they had just run make with the "-j 2" option they would likely have gotten around 80% faster than than the single processor boards.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
on what systems you are working with? if you want a performance p4 system then obviously you use rambus... and if you want an amd system you use ddr(since there is no rambus/athlon chipset)
and until there is a rambus/athlon chipset i don't really think we can gague the real world implication of it...
either way i have better things to do with a few $100 than put it into a more expensive chipset/cpu/memory rig. if you have the extra money and the rambus system gives you what you want, then more power to you. overall, right now, you can't say either system is "the best" in ever possible catagory
I believe sex is highly over rated... unless it involves me
Good try, but you're TOTALLY WRONG.
Been reading too much Tom's Hardware Misinformation Guide?
the FUD was amd using a modified motherboard with its own thermal sensor instead of the half assed one built into the cpu.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Umm, does somebody else want to comment on this? Hello?
I have a few problems with RDRAM.
The first one is the price. It's simply more expensive than DDR Ram as far as I can see.
Secondly, it appears to me that we are getting to the spliting hairs, angels dancing on a needle level here with RAM. Unless it dramaticly increases my boot time, time to do things in a word processor, makes mySQL fly like a greased dolphin, gives me kickass FPS in UT, or makes my G4 fill my bowl with Fruit Loops in the morning, I'm not going to spend one cent more for RAM than I have to.
If RDRAM is 101 dollars for 256 and DDR is 100 dollars for 256, I'm going to go with the DDR and the hardware that supports it.
What do you mean? DDR is fantastic! I just can't coordinate my moves rightly. Every time I get an RIGHT-LEFT-RIGHT-LEFT I fall down on the ground.
Who gives a crap if RAMBUS is on the way back? All /. users know that even if the number of channels double, Bill Gates will just jack up the memory usage of Windows. Then everyone will just start bitching about it. Then Jon Katz will just post an article about something that has nothing to do with "News for Nerd". The cycle never ends... ... ...
About a year or so ago, intel was doing demo's of Q3A at fry's to show off the new P4. Economy was good, I had like 4k from PTO that I aquired between jobs so I said what the hell and dropped $1500 on a 850dgb board, processor, case and 128 of ram.
I gotta say, this stuff is hot, my friends have all gone off and bought gforce3's, amd's with DDR. I thought these new cards/systems would have score winmarks well above my own (around 3800 with a gforce2gts) but I was surprised to see they only score 1000 or so more than me.
Out of curiosity, we put one of those GF3's in my system. Without fail I would score about 400 to come in around 6300 3dmarks above my buddies amd1.6. My P4 is just 1.4. Yet even with a lower clockrate the memory bandwidth made a huge difference.
I'm not trying to cause a ruckus here, anyone with deep enough pockets (or access to enough systems) can just as easily do the same testing I did. Bottom line whether or not the moderators like it is rambus systems do provide the absolute best possible performance in 3D gaming. It certainly was expensive when it came out but now with the falling prices of all ram, it's within reach of anyone that want's that extra "oomph" in thier system.
Does anyone know of any AMD boards that use rambus? I'm sorta curious what kind of scores those get in comparison to the intel one's. Anyways thats my comment.
I'm generally not too fond of Rambus. Why you ask? Look at what's it's done with the N64. Framerate problems, jaggies...etc. I'm just fine with my SDRAM, thankyouverymuch.
That Intel needs Smallbus, err, Rambus memory to keep on par with AMD chips.
This is the 'return of Rambus!'?
Please. SDRAM is the standard. DDR is entrenching into that market. Rambus? It's like the Mac - some people wonder, 'What's that?' while the techs laugh at people who have it.
Rambus is a horrible. The technology? No, the company. Not by speed, but for business should we continue ignoring it. They are a horrible company, and despite their products, should not be dealt with as a result.
The technology.. Isn't really any better or worse than SDRAM/DDR save for price. I've seen boxes refuse to boot when two different brand yet same speed/size SDRAM chips were inserted into a computer. I've seen bits 'o SDRAM cause page faults, kernel panics, etc.
I've seen Rambus do the same. *shrug*
It wasn't a bad article... I mean, the facts -do- show that the p4 runs better with RDRAM, and he addresses the consequences of that quite well, and quite neutrally. For that I commend him.
But he does misrepresent some issues. For example, signal integrity issues. I can say with complete assurance that Rambus is loaded with signal integrity issues. These issues get -very bad- as the clock frequency goes up. Also Rambus is -not-, strictly speaking, a serial bus. First, it is 16 bits wide, while pure serial would be 1. Second, the depiction of a DIMM as being a unterminated stub with significant SI issues is correct, but this doesn't go away with rambus, and this definition of "serial" fails as well. While the signals do pass through a RIMM continuously, eliminating the RIMM itself as the source of major SI problems, you still have each and every RDRAM device itself acting as an unterminated stub, each of which causes reflections of its own. Especially for devices with tolerances as low as RDRAM, this can be difficult to manage. While in the balance I'd have to concede that at a given clock frequency RDRAM has the SI advantage, remember that RDRAM needs 4x the clock frequency of DDR to match bandwidth.
Or you could have 2 channels of rambus, and only need 2x the frequency. Well, 2 channel DDR is becoming a reality. Not only does nForce support it, Sledgehammer will as well. Neither of these are Intel platforms, but I would guess that going dual-channel would be a natural step for VIA and others competing with Intel chipsets. It would especially make sense for p4, as it would more than make up the memory bandwidth disparity that currently exists.
Speaking of nForce, another thing I take issue with is the suggestion that the nforce's DIMM-slot population problems are indicative that DDR is crippled by SI issues. I think more likely is that this was the first chipset designed by a company whose experience lies solely with graphics cards, on which the ram is directly soddered to the PCB. Lack of experience in the harsher SI conditions of a computer motherboard are to blame.
Speaking of DIMM population, it's hard for me to see only having 2 DIMM's on some boards as a particularly black mark for DDR... That leaves you with 2GB per channel, the same as RAMBUS.
So, he was right about some things, insightful on others, but the picture is -not- so clear-cut in the image of rambus Inc.
The enemies of Democracy are
QDR is coming out soon, (though they are calling it something else as I recall, no idea why, QDR is such a nice logical name, even the laymen can understand it) and it (seems to be?) but a mere advance of DDR technology.
:) (it never would, latency is too high, part of the base rambus technology)
:)
Not to mention how far up Nvidia has managed to scale DDR RAM. Heh. I would like to see RAMBUS get that.
RAMBUS would settle down good in a video toaster type of applicance, but that is about it. Video editing seems to be one of its few strong suits.
Besides, I would like to see a Motherboard that is halfway cheap and can support 3-4GigaBytes of RAMBUS RAM.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
The days of cheap memory are over.
They say this because of the huge expense needed to provide 512MB or more of ultra fast memory. But what if they added yet another level of "cache"?
Put in 128MB or more of super-fast RAM (faster than today's RDRAM or DDRAM, maybe using an exotic bus) backed by gigs of cheap, easy-to-make memory (PC266 DDRAM or slower). The cheap ram is still orders of magnitude faster than a disk drive. Manage them with hardware that does page swapping similar to virtual memory.
You could get good system performance and lower overall cost.
It runs REALLY hot. The machine one of our techs has needed an extra fan to cool the memory!!
But really Rambus is not the solution, but another technology will finally arrive. Damn it, I want those quantuam computers with 3D optical storage!
How much does Tom get kick-backs for supporting Rambu$? They are one of poster boys for Patent reform for both consumers and the patent holders.
The one thing it's good at, it doesn't get to do...
I'm interested in how the folowing comment will be moderated down:
Fuck you all, even though I love you all.
MEEPT!!
I didn't like Rambus either. Hated them and the bs lawsuits they busted out with. However, I also knew just how much faster RDRAM was, and reading this just confirms what I've known and been enjoying for months: a P4 paired with RDRAM not only rocks, but it's simply the only way to go if you're getting one. A 20 stage pipe on a proc demands the higher thoroughput dual channel RDRAM offers. If saving a buck is the prime concern, build an athlon XP box!
Then the political aspect is ignored and he talks almost exclusively about technical issues about why Rambus might theoretically be better, and uses existing intel chipsets as evidence.
Hello? Answer the question, please? Has Intel ever come out with a non-crippled DDR chipset for the P4? How do Intel's DDR P4 chipsets compare to non-intel DDR P4 chipsets? (ARE there any non-intel P4 chipsets?)
How much of the problem is political, and how much of it is a real technical issue?
Fuck Yeah!
Thomas Pabst (who we all respect) posted scathing reviews not only of Rambus the company but also of Rambus the technology. If he is recanting he should do it in person, not through a couple of stoolies. By withdrawing such a controversial statement Tom's site is calling into question both the technical and political validity of his write-ups.
Don't get me wrong, THG rocks and I respect Tom's advice. He knows 10x more than me about hardware. But he should explain why this review is so opposed to the ones he wrote himself...
what does NT mean? i am hearing it often and stoopidity bothers me. please explain
Now, unless you're doing video encoding, I don't know why you'd want a P4 in the first place...
:)
But to even entertain the thought in the first place, you can't be on an ultra-tight budget! So why try to save what will ultimately be a small % off the total price at the expense of performance?
It just doesn't make sense.
Though I still want to see a dual-channel DDR chipset for P4.
The enemies of Democracy are
Ayn Rand and the perversion of libertarianism
The political controversy of the late 19th century was: whether
socialists (all those who believed in the individual's right to
possess what he or she produced) should engage in the political
process, seize control of the state, and use the state apparatus
to achieve liberation; or, whether a worker's state was inher-
ently contradictory, counter revolutionary, and would only lead
to the creation of a new ruling class whose interests would still
clash with those of the ruled that the state should be abolished
allowing for no transitional stage of any kind during which power
may have the chance to reconsolidate itself.
The situation has recreated itself with amazing similarity
almost exactly a century later.
Non-libertarian parties the world over (those who see authori-
tarian centralization the bulwark of civilization) are bankrupt,
economically and intellectually. The only viable intellectual
current today falls under that ambiguous term~ `libertarian'.
Today there exist beneath this umbrella as many splinter groups
as there were a hundred years ago under the umbrella of social-
ism. Two distinct trends, a right and a left if you will, are
clearly discernible.
One group, clearly the largest with a hierarchical organization
modeled on the other political parties, believes, like most
Marxists, in constitutional parliamentary republican democracy.
They believe that the state is a necessary guarantor of indi-
vidual safety and the product of the individual's labor, and in
gradual progress toward a free society through participation in
the political process.
The other group, much smaller and far more splintered, reject
the state as necessarily a tool of class domination and exploita-
tion.
This group believes that what Bakunin said a hundred years ago
is as true today, ``If you took the most ardent revolutionary,
vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse
than the Czar himself.''
The first group is in all fairness a direct inheritor of the
ideals of the American Revolution. In modern times, however, it
has only two roots: (1) the Austrian school of economics repre-
sented by Ludwig Von Mises; (2) the philosophy of Ayn Rand.
Von Mises never considered the libertarians. He answered the
Marxists and the Keynesians and defended laissez-faire capitalism
at a time when no one else would. His justification for capital-
ism was empirical~the greatest good for the greatest number.
Ayn Rand, however, attempted to offer a moral justification of
capitalism by substituting the word `capitalism' for the liber-
tarian meaning of the word `socialism'. She then attributed all
of the ills of capitalism to government interference with the
market and all of the world's wealth to the minds of the men whom
the world considered the robber barons.
The contrast between Ayn Rand's `Objectivism' and libertarian-
ism is deeper than mere substitution of terminology, however.
Several of her propositions or axioms place her clearly outside
of the libertarian tradition.
Her justification of the state is derived from a Hobbesian
state of nature theory:
``...a society without an organized government would be at the
mercy of the first criminal who came along and who would precipi-
tate it into chaos and gang warfare....'' [The Virtue of Selfish-
ness, 152; pb 112]
``If a society provided no organized protection against force,
it would compel every citizen to go about armed, to turn his home
into a fortress, to shoot any strangers approaching his door~or
to join a protective gang of citizens who would fight other
gangs, formed for the same purpose, and thus bring about the
degeneration of society into the chaos of gang rule, i.e., rule
by brute force, into perpetual warfare of prehistoric savages.''
[Ibid., 146; pb 108]
Ayn Rand's belief in the inherent depravity of human nature
which renders us forever incapable of living without rulers and
not descending to the level of `savages', clearly places her out-
side of the libertarian tradition which views human nature as es-
sentially good, capable of indefinite improvement through the
experience of freedom and the exercise of reason.
Her knowledge of anthropology is as embarrassing as her under-
standing of history. For example, in regards to her conception of
who are the savages, she describes America as, ``...a superlative
material achievement in the midst of an untouched wilderness,
against the resistance of savage tribes.'' [For The New Intellec-
tual, 58; pb 50]
To Rand, the essential characteristic of the state is that it
possesses a monopoly on the use of retaliatory force. How does
she justify this monopoly or national sovereignty? She accepts it
as a given, something not requiring a justification, and demands
that an-archy, the negation of the proposition, justify itself.
Her concept of national sovereignty is then something tran-
scendental, existing separate and apart from individuals. and
beyond the right of the individual to accept or reject according
to his or her own reason.
These propositions clearly place Ayn Rand's philosophy closer
to Hobbes, Hegel, and Marx, than to libertarianism.
The state, according to Miss Rand, must hold a monopoly on the
enforcement of contracts and the settling of disputes between
individuals, at least whenever this arbitration is not accepted
by both sides voluntarily. She fails to consider that the en-
forcement of contracts by the state fundamentally alters the
nature of free agreements. Agreements are made on terms which
otherwise might not be, because they are justiciable.
The terms of ``free agreements'' under law are titled in favor
of lenders over debtors, landlords over tenants, employers over
employees, in a way which would not exist in a ``free market.''
This leveraging of power is not `objective' at all. Depending
purely on legal convention, creditors may have debtors impris-
oned, tenants may be evicted without notice and their effects
confiscated, one human being may own another or the land on which
another lives and works, all to varying degrees.
To understand Ayn Rand's psychology it is helpful to know her
background. She was born to a wealthy St. Petersburg family in
1905. The position of her family in Czarist society must have
been considerable. At a time when the lives of most Russians had
changed little since feudalism, her family was wealthy enough to
afford a French Governess and take regular vacations to the Cri-
mea.
It should be noted that wealth in Czarist society was almost
wholly a measure of one's favor with the government. There were
few if any Horatio Alger stories about individuals who lifted
themselves out of serfdom without the patronage of the Czar.
At the age of twelve, she must have been very upset when those
nasty workers took over her father's business. Her family fled
St. Petersburg for the Crimea and the protection of the White
Army.
This experience rendered her forever incapable of seeing land
reform or any struggle of oppressed and exploited people as
anything more than hatred for the good and lust for the unearned.
She shared with Marx the bourgeois ideology that only a few
people were capable of running things. The masses ought to be
happy to have a job working for bosses. Any suggestion that an
enterprise could be run by the employees without having someone
in charge was to her absurd.
She shared with Godwin and Kropotkin the belief that the indi-
vidual is born tabula rasa~a blank slate, and all human knowledge
is derived from sense experience. She then proceeded, however, to
completely dismiss environment and socialization as the determin-
ing factor in the development of character.
People were to her good or evil, brilliant or indolent, depend-
ing solely on their volition. People should be judged by their
actions with equal severity regardless of their condition. Though
she insisted that the United States was not and never had been a
completely free country, she granted no such thing as extenuating
circumstances when judging an individual and had no qualms up-
holding the power of the state to inflict capital punishment.
A far more sinister legacy of Ayn Rand to libertarianism is
that of a moralizing autocrat who gathered about her an inner
circle which she ironically called, ``The collective.''
Outwardly, this collective professed egoism and individuality.
They were to be the vanguard of an intellectual renaissance. The
price of admission to this group, however, was slavish conformity
of one's life and professed philosophy to Ayn Rand's whims and
eccentricities. For example, she did not like men who wore facial
hair or listened to Mozart, and if you didn't give them up you
were unfit for Rand's inner circle.
This is particularly sinister if one considers that Karl Marx,
believed by millions to be the very symbol of liberation, was
also an autocrat who, though professed to be the ultimate champi-
on of democracy, resorted to extraordinary means to maintain
control of the International Workingmen's Association. He even
moved its headquarters to New York to exclude the libertarian
influence.
Today Ayn Rand is gone, but like Marx a century ago, hers is
the primary influence on the largest libertarian organization
existing. Even the pledge which all Libertarian Party members
must sign is taken directly from her admonition, ``I hereby
certify that I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of
force as a means of achieving political or social goals.''
In spite of their pledge to non-violence, many libertarians are
frustrated with election laws and media censorship. An argument
which circulates among libertarians of the right is that, if they
were more threatening, the government may take steps to accommo-
date them as it did the black civil rights movement.
Ayn Rand's writings are not entirely consistent on the point of
non-violence either. In The Fountainhead, Howard Roark resorts to
the use of dynamite. In Atlas Shrugged, Ragnar Danneskjold
engages in piracy on the high seas and even shells a factory
which has been nationalized. In a clandestine rescue mission,
Dagny Taggart shoots a guard who stood in the way of her desired
end.
In the event of economic upheaval, ruined by unemployment and
inflation, tenants and home owners may refuse to make rent and
mortgage payments. The unemployed may seize vacant land and begin
to farm, and factory workers may realize they can run things
without stock holders.
It would not be at all surprising if there were to emerge
within the libertarian right, groups committed to direct action
and counter revolutionary violence, even a coup d'etat.
Imagine a charismatic and autocratic personality at the center
of such a group and you have the Objectivist Lenin.
Like the Marxists and right libertarians, Lenin and the Objec-
tivists are professed republican democrats. Lenin and the Bolshe-
viks promised that if given power, they would immediately convoke
a constituent assembly. When they realized, however, they would
not hold a majority in such an assembly they turned against the
idea of such an assembly.
Can anyone doubt that the cultist mentality which characterizes
most of Miss Rand's followers could lead to the creation of a
group of self appointed avengers of the capitalist class? That
they would suppress strikes, demonstrations, and factory take
overs? That they would not execute people for crimes against the
libertarian state?
Ayn Rand believed in a republican form of government with a
cleverly constructed constitution which would deny the majority
of the power to infringe on the rights of a minority as she
conceived them. If the majority supported a general strike
against rents and mortgages and supported the factory takeovers,
would not the clandestinely organized Objectivist libertarian
party be tempted to dispense with democracy in order to enforce
what they conceived of as the rights of the dispossessed bour-
geoisie?
In all fairness it must be admitted that Ayn Rand herself would
never sanction such actions, but the same argument is made
everyday by western Marxists that Marx would probably not have
sanctioned many of Lenin's actions and would certainly not take
credit for the Soviet Union.
Lenin and the Bolsheviks won power by promising, ``Land to the
peasants!'' ``Factories to the workers!'' When they took power,
however, they immediately set about liquidating the factory com-
mittees and nationalizing the land. They crushed work place
democracy by installing armed guards in the factories, and even
returned former owners to their positions as employees of the
worker's state.
Leon Trotsky stopped the practice of soldiers electing their
officers from their ranks and even restored former Czarist
officers to their ranks in the Red Army.
When the Russian Revolution began few people clearly understood
the gulf which separated the state socialists from the libertari-
ans. Many dedicated libertarians like Alexander Berkman, rallied
to the Bolshevik cause, willing to give them the benefit of the
doubt in hopes that seizing state power would only be a transi-
tional stage toward the development of the stateless/classless
society.
Many sincere lovers of liberty now flock to the standard of the
Libertarian Party, as they did the Bolsheviks, completely igno-
rant of the history of the last century. As Santayanna said:
``Those who forget the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat
them.''
What should be done? It should be obvious that government
enforcement of private contracts is not libertarian any more than
is taking state power to set people free. Libertarianism is and
always will mean socialism~the self emancipation of working
people.
Libertarians must stop courting the Republican right and return
to their intellectual roots. By standing outside of the political
process we deny the state legitimacy, and like the state tortur-
ers in Atlas Shrugged, they will come and beg for libertarians to
take over.
Remembering the experience of the Spanish libertarians, and
heeding the advice of John Galt, libertarians must refuse state
power even when begged. The state can never be a tool of libera-
tion. Only its complete and utter collapse will allow for the
emergence of non-statist institutions, libertarian coops, com-
munes, and free markets, to flourish and displace the political
state once and for all.
I am into the copy and paste.
Intel uses testers from schlumberger (their reps are quick to point that out). Typically, a tester cost anywhere from 1-10 million dollars + plus they require a lot of maintenance, calibration, etc. Basically, the faster and more pins you need, the more it cost.
I've worked with some schlumbeger 'KX' testers, they're a big pain in the ass, unreliable, and are badly designed: just shutting the thing off can break it!! (especially if you use the emergency off button).
There is another choice, however, you can use 'bist'(built-in self test) and have the chip basically test itself :-). This allows companies to get away with using cheaper, more reliable testers.
First, it looks to me like RDRAM is still about double the cost of SDRAM, according to Tom's Hardware's own price guide.
They have $93 for 512mb SDRAM and $175-250 for 512mb RDRAM.
My question is this: Let's say I have a choice between 512mb of SDRAM and 256mb of RDRAM. Would the SDRAM not almost always be faster because RAM, however slow, trumps swap space every time?
In other words, isn't the amount of memory I have more important than how fast it is?
Many moons ago, I had a SGI O2 workstation. Tremendous memory bandwidth, but memory that cost 10x more than anything else. As a result, it could be embarassed by lesser machines, since I couldn't afford to load it up with RAM.
I see Intel repeating the same mistake when it decided to focus on RDRAM.
Apple is putting L3 cache in their G4s so that the use of expensive RAM is confined to a relatively small and affordable amount. I can upgrade my PC133-equipped G4/450 dual processor to the latest 1ghz dual processor, put my 1.5gb RAM in it, and fly. That seems like a good compromise to me, maybe better than going to DDR, which I would have to buy new.
Thoughts?
D
I've noticed that alot of slashdot posters hate rambus with a passion. Why is this? I have not really been paying attention to the history of rambus vs. DDR. Other than hearing stuff with "rambus sucks" or somthing like that in them. Could someone post an article or explain the history of rambus and why people hate it?
I work for a test and measurement company and we sell logic analyzer tools for both DDR and RAMBUS. I service at least 1 site of each of the major computer manufactuers and I can tell you none of them are even considering RAMBUS. In fact, I can't remember the last time someone asked me about it. The only thing I have consulted customers on is the future of DDR. If anyone was interested in RAMBUS, I'd at least be hearing murmurs. Keep in mind I am only looking at computer manufactuers, not the 3rd party Asian motherboard manufactuers. Who knows what they are doing.
Instead of focusing upon some benchmarks with overclocked CPUs squaring off against one another, why not pay attention to another article from Tom's that shows some benchmarks of the P4 2.0 ghz operating at factory spec on a number of different P4 boards with different memory configs(P4 + i850 + RDRAM vs P4 + Sis645/ViaP4X266/ViaP4X266a/i845 + DDR). As you can see from that article, at least on the pre-Northwood P4s, DDR did pretty well on the non-Intel chipsets, particularly on the Sis645 when PC2700 was used.
I'll take the Glad Bag!
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
they've relied alot on patents with a few shady practices. Your average slashdot reader doesnt know anything about ram design though, so they tend to just follow the loud critcizers..
-
I'm sure there is already memBIST built into the memory for automatic test and repair, but that's just at a logical level. Nearly every RAM out there today has it, and especially embedded SRAMs that I'm used to dealing with.
The real issue here then becomes analog BIST. To test analog, you frequently have external known reference voltages and impedances. How are you going to do this if you have problems? Usually the SERDES cells have a loop-back mode where TX and RX are tied together, but that says nothing about their interoperability with components on the outside - only with what's inside. On that basis, you can exclude any bonding/package problems (but assembly yields are typically high anyway), and external drive capabilities under certain and varied conditions. And, again, we want to make sure we have working problems on the outside so we don't have the same problems that arose with the i815 chipset so that customers are told about a kludge for a solution. I'll bet diamonds to dollars Intel didn't get enough apps-side support from Rambus to be able to solve that problem properly, turning that chipset into garbage.
After Tom's Hardware printed that article where all they glossed over the PS2 and Gamecube as if they were useless (and all the information about those 2 consoles seems to have come straight from Microsoft) and then devoted 12 pages to details about the Xbox, I'll never really believe what they write about products again. I'm not even really sure if I believe all their AMD benchmarks, anymore. They were clearly bought by MS for that, so they probably were bought by AMD for those other articles.
If you doubt these words take a look at Compaq's
Alpha EV7 with it's RAMBUS controller ON CHIP.
Just because PC architecture is limited by chipsets with limited memory bus bandwidth does not mean there are no other uses for such a memory architecture.
Peter
www.alphalinux.org
For a simple enough high speed link, you can do I/O bist using external loopback. Or alternatively, use a second know good device on the loadboard to test it. Of course it should be used only for detecting manufacturing defects, you need to do a lot of testing up front to convince yourself that the part will actually meet specs across process variations.
Oh, and by the way, I like that nice shiny red button behind the Scumburger testers. :D
To be honest, I really don't plan on buying another desktop system ever again. If needed, I'll build one out of spare/cheap parts. Why? Because I use my laptop anymore 99% of the time.
There will NEVER be a laptop with RIMMS in them because they are too damn hot. Unless the design of them drastically changes in some unknown way, this "NEVER" is a fact.
I think there are some DDR laptop solutions in the pipe now. Yet, there is the problem of the slower system bus speeds on laptops, so it will not matter much until that's fixed too.
I couldn't get any for a gateway e4400 I have at work (not what I would have spec'd, but no matter) from Crucial or Kingston. I finally bid on Ebay.
If you guys think DDR isn't fast enough, just TRY to pass Paranoia on maniac mode... It's got more steps than a ladder to the moon. :D
Woah, you meant RAM?
---- I'll take you in a Hunt deathmatch any day.
Sounds like Tom @ Tom's Hardware is finally selling out to Intel. Can't beat'em - join'em, right Tom???
Rambus is crap. P4's were designed for Rambus memory - that is why they run better with it. All this means is that BOTH the P4 and Rambus are crap designs.
And no, we didn't make a mistake in judgement in the beginning about the Rambus/P4 designs. The market speaks for itself. P4's are only being sold to technically un-inclined users who don't know any better. They are not being used in critical or demanding markets and never will be.
In other words, isn't the amount of memory I have more important than how fast it is?
I think this is probably true.
However, as you point out, the price difference between RAMBUS and SDRAM is now very small. According to Sharky Extreme the difference between 512 MB of SDRAM and RDRAM is about $80, and DDR RAM (PC2100) is actually more expensive than RDRAM! So if you plan to put 2GB in your machine, SDRAM is appreciably cheaper, but if you plan to do that, you probably plan on some serious hardware as well, so you'll probably spend $3000+ (probably coulnd't get a motherboard that would take 2GB SDRAM anyway...).
My point is that both SDRAM, DDR RAM and RDRAM have come down in price dramatically in the past year (although memory prices seem to be on the rise again). The price difference is very small when compared to the total price of the machine, so why bother? I have nothing against DDR RAM, but it'll have to win on technical merit nowadays.
As an example, I had to specify and buy a PC for my job some weeks ago. Now, this PC will be running a very specialized application, and nothing else. No CD burning, MPEG/MP3 encoding, no image processing, and no games. I like a cool machine as much as the next guy, but I simply could not justify putting more than 512 MB in this machine. Same for the hard drive, 40GB should be more than enough. A decent monitor was a requirement however. So why save $80 on memory when we're spending $700+ on the monitor alone?
Summarizing: if 512 MB is enough for you, why bother? If it isn't enough, you'll likely spend a lot of dough anyway, so again, why bother?
MSN 8: Now Microsoft even has bugs in their ad campaigns.
You arguement is invalid. DDR isn't so cheap anymore. The only thing DDR has going for it--besides the Athlon--is super high density. 1GB modules.
The funny thing is, everyone is guessing "which will be the better RAM in the future?", the truth is DDR is the best bang for the buck right NOW. In the long run, RAM won't even be on the motherboard! It'll be on die with the chip. Remember the days when Cache was on it's own seperate chip on the motherboard? There are already plans right now to put ALL of the ram on the processor die. We already have processor designs w/ 8 meg caches... how long before we hit 256 megs and don't need ram? or 512 megs? The primary problem with RAM is that it is designed to be a cheap,intermediary storage for data between the processor (and cache) and the hard drive. As the difference in speed between the processor and the ram increases (which it will exponentially b/c ram cannot increase in speed at the same rate the processors can), cache sizes will continue to grow. At some point, the cache will become large enough to act as if it were RAM, and RAM as we know it today will likely disappear or become imbedded into hard drives as a larger buffer. Then, we'll have to figure out a way to focus on increasing hard drive speed by trying new devices... like using RAM drives w/ internal power supplies to prevent our data from being wiped ;-) I believe at the current rate of increasing processor speeds and cache sizes, we'll see RAM vanish within the next 10 years... Maybe by then we can work on faster hard drives ;-)
The falling off heat sink thing is FUD. In the several year period working repairing PCs on a daily basis, I came across ONE heatsink having fallen off. It was on an old K6-2.
I've never seen a newer Socket 370 or Socket A HSF fall off. They are simply on much too securely. This included boxes that were moved by idiots to different locations so gently that the HDDs were destroyed. The HSF was still attached though.
What percent of CPUs do you think have their heatsinks fall off? Less than 1% probably.
Making people worry that their computers will melt down over a less than 1% chance of something happening, is spreading Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.
Ok, I'm going to try to keep this short even though I could talk about RAM for days on end.
.5 cycles per random access (to DDR) will make the difference. It won't. First, we're talking .5 cycles out of ~10 (for a purely random access), or a 5% increase. Second, bursting from the RAM almost entirely disguises this so that CAS makes up less than 1% by the time its all said and done. This happens because burst accesses (which are almost all that takes place in a PC, due to the cache structure) pipeline and end up hiding the CAS time over a long period.
There are quite a few inaccuracies in Tom's article here. From calling Rambus serial to some of his crazy statements about DDR not handling impedance balancing as well as Rambus, I'd call him insane.
However, its a statement like 800 Mb/s/pin is better than 333 Mb/s/pin that really gets me fired up. Yeah, those are the speeds, but he's losing so much of the big picture that its scary. The more important thing to account for is the geometry of the RAM configuration which includes things like the number of data pins in parallel. For instance, a DDR bus has 64 while Rambus uses 16. Lets see here, multiplying 64*333 and 16*800 (pins*(Mb/s/pin)=Mb/s total) shows that DDR333 is now twice the performance of Rambus. Yikes.
And then there's his comments about CAS latency. Tom says that CAS 2 will be the factor that makes DDR333 outperform Rambus because CAS 2.5 is too slow. Lets just sketch out what CAS means: it is the time between when a read command is issued to the RAM and when the first piece of data comes out, measured in clock cycles. So basically, he's saying that
Gads, I've been doing too much work with RAM lately.
Sure we can, you've never seen the i820 PIII chipset with Rambus? It wasn't as fast a the BX with PC100. The PC800 also cost 4x more.
The P4 is a dog. A P4 platform requires: a more expensive CPU, more expensive RDRAM, and the expensive i850 chipset motherboards. And then, it still isn't much faster in apps where it isn't beat by the Athlon.
But, I would recommend it highly to people who use the Lightwave 3d modeling app, and Windows Media Encoder!
I see Rambus from two perspectives. One is from the perspective of a home computer enthusiast. From this vantage, it is expensive and hot. There is also the fact that a system based around DDR memory performs plenty well for practically everything I do (including games). However, this isn't the extent of the market.
I also work as a design engineer for a defense contractor building computers for radars. These systems are extremely memory and I/O intensive. When they aren't running computations, they are doing corner turns (transposition in matrix speak) This requires tremendous amounts of memory bandwidth, and we use Rambus memory in some of our designs.
Of course, our customer is more interested in performance than price (within reason), and we have the option of using liquid cooled and conduction cooled boards, so heat, while still an important issue, isn't as big a deal.
As for stability, we run our systems through environmental tests that would totally destroy any home computer, and the rambus memory not only holds up - it keeps running. Of course, so does SDRAM.
The long and the short of it is, Rambus just isn't a great choice right now for home computing. They are not, however, without merit - and will likely have a place in the industry for some time.
If I don't need to insert data I use hiew (hacker's view).
I've used it to fix other people's software many times. One case had tcl source code stored in an Oracle database with no official way of altering it. So hiew it was...