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.
Tom's price guide is not usually the place to find the lowest prices on hardware. But it's also not entirely fair to compare RDRAM prices with normal SDRAM prices, because of the performance difference and shrinking platform availability for non-DDR SDRAM.
If you look at pricewatch.com, though we can find some prices like these:
Samsung 512MB RIMM for $156 + $9 shipping from some provider called 11cb. I simply picked this as the cheapest Samsung-labeled provider, since Samsung provides some of the best RDRAM.
Keep in mind for interleaved operation that you'll actually be using two RIMMs, so you might instead want to compare 2x256MB or simply look at 2x512MB for your other RAM platforms.
From SDRAM and DDR SDRAM I'll just pick Crucial/Micron, while they won't be picked as the high-performance provider (people would be more apt to pick Mushkin or Corsair for performance) you'll see much less flakiness than with a non-labeled generic provider.
(Shipping not mentioned with Crucial, check their site)
Micron 512MB PC133 CL2.5 $139 + $10 shipping from "Alpha International Business Inc."
Now for the faster DDR I'll pick the lowest reputable name-brand item, since Micron/Crucial don't offer all speeds of DDR, currently.
Corsair 512MB PC2400 CL2 $187 + $9.74 shipping from Googlegear.com
Mushkin 512MB PC2700 CL2.5 $211 + $9 shipping from Mushkin
Now, I don't intend for you to read too much into this, but provided you stay with "non-crap" providers of memory, the closer you come to the performance levels of RDRAM, the less you see a price difference in favor of SDRAM.
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?
If you aren't being limited by the amount of system memory, then no. Provided that for your application at hand you don't need more memory than you currently have available, swap access differences really aren't an issue. Does it matter that you have 1GB of memory if you only use a small portion of it for something other than disk cache, when compared to 512MB of memory with much more bandwidth?
If you don't need or can't use the bandwidth, then of course it's not overly useful. Or if you need to access more data than you can realistically ever store in memory, then there will be a point where memory bandwidth is made mood by increased disk access. It's a matter of application and necessity of your processor.
The Pentium 4 sees very realistic gains from using RDRAM versus DDR memory, because of how it was designed.
At one point Intel was being embarrassed by the absurd cost of RDRAM, but times have changed. It's continued to go down in price, and DDR and normal SDRAM have recently increased in price.
Historically RDRAM has been plagued by cost, which has deterred its adoption, but this isn't why average reader of Slashdot dislikes it. They might claim that they think it's technically inferior (PC600 and PC800 have more latency than SDRAM, but PC1066 and PC1200 RDRAM will likely be out within the next year), I think a large majority of hatred of RDRAM comes from Intel and Rambus's business practicates.
Intel and Rambus were hoping to strangle the market into adopting RDRAM in order to hurt Intel's competitors, and when this failed (RDRAM's prices lead people to adopt PC133 and then DDR), they attempted to obtain royalties or sue developers of alternative memory technologies for patent infringement of one form or another.
Though some might argue that the role of the preview option is to avoid such errors, I am inclined to agree with you. Either due to a lack of willingness to bother to preview, or simply because mistake initially escape your view, an "Edit" option would be most helpful. I'm almost entirely certain that many would argue that it would be abused (for instance, posting something insightful and receiving a bonus, and then swapping to an ASCII penis). Of course there are numerous safeguards that could be utilized to reduce the likelihood of this.
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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.
Tom's price guide is not usually the place to find the lowest prices on hardware. But it's also not entirely fair to compare RDRAM prices with normal SDRAM prices, because of the performance difference and shrinking platform availability for non-DDR SDRAM.
If you look at pricewatch.com, though we can find some prices like these:
Samsung 512MB RIMM for $156 + $9 shipping from some provider called 11cb. I simply picked this as the cheapest Samsung-labeled provider, since Samsung provides some of the best RDRAM. Keep in mind for interleaved operation that you'll actually be using two RIMMs, so you might instead want to compare 2x256MB or simply look at 2x512MB for your other RAM platforms.
From SDRAM and DDR SDRAM I'll just pick Crucial/Micron, while they won't be picked as the high-performance provider (people would be more apt to pick Mushkin or Corsair for performance) you'll see much less flakiness than with a non-labeled generic provider.
(Shipping not mentioned with Crucial, check their site)
Micron 512MB PC133 CL2.5 $139 + $10 shipping from "Alpha International Business Inc."
Crucial 512MB PC133 CL3 $139 Crucial 512MB PC2100 CL2.5 $152
Now for the faster DDR I'll pick the lowest reputable name-brand item, since Micron/Crucial don't offer all speeds of DDR, currently.
Corsair 512MB PC2400 CL2 $187 + $9.74 shipping from Googlegear.com
Mushkin 512MB PC2700 CL2.5 $211 + $9 shipping from Mushkin
Now, I don't intend for you to read too much into this, but provided you stay with "non-crap" providers of memory, the closer you come to the performance levels of RDRAM, the less you see a price difference in favor of SDRAM.
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?
If you aren't being limited by the amount of system memory, then no. Provided that for your application at hand you don't need more memory than you currently have available, swap access differences really aren't an issue. Does it matter that you have 1GB of memory if you only use a small portion of it for something other than disk cache, when compared to 512MB of memory with much more bandwidth?
If you don't need or can't use the bandwidth, then of course it's not overly useful. Or if you need to access more data than you can realistically ever store in memory, then there will be a point where memory bandwidth is made mood by increased disk access. It's a matter of application and necessity of your processor.
The Pentium 4 sees very realistic gains from using RDRAM versus DDR memory, because of how it was designed.
At one point Intel was being embarrassed by the absurd cost of RDRAM, but times have changed. It's continued to go down in price, and DDR and normal SDRAM have recently increased in price.
Historically RDRAM has been plagued by cost, which has deterred its adoption, but this isn't why average reader of Slashdot dislikes it. They might claim that they think it's technically inferior (PC600 and PC800 have more latency than SDRAM, but PC1066 and PC1200 RDRAM will likely be out within the next year), I think a large majority of hatred of RDRAM comes from Intel and Rambus's business practicates.
Intel and Rambus were hoping to strangle the market into adopting RDRAM in order to hurt Intel's competitors, and when this failed (RDRAM's prices lead people to adopt PC133 and then DDR), they attempted to obtain royalties or sue developers of alternative memory technologies for patent infringement of one form or another.
Though some might argue that the role of the preview option is to avoid such errors, I am inclined to agree with you. Either due to a lack of willingness to bother to preview, or simply because mistake initially escape your view, an "Edit" option would be most helpful. I'm almost entirely certain that many would argue that it would be abused (for instance, posting something insightful and receiving a bonus, and then swapping to an ASCII penis). Of course there are numerous safeguards that could be utilized to reduce the likelihood of this.