Rdram ??

[Jammrock]

I always recommend getting a good brand of RAM. The cheap generic stuff normally has issues on heavily used, overclocked, gaming systems...and many other systems for that matter.

Crucial
Corsair
Samsung

Are the best 3. Kingston is good as well, as is OCX (?).

Jammrock

[mutz]

borat, wow! That leaves me breathless! You told the whole story in one breath, and you are right on. I like that!

I don't go out and buy a rig. I keep an eye on the latest and add or change things according to need or whim. I've had the board and the RDRAM for almost a year, and that's a record for me. The way it is at the moment, anything faster would be for boasty points, but really just diminishing returns. Boasty points are very expensive.

What do I use it for? Well just about everything, with the major weight on photo, graphics and, of course, solitaire!

My favorite toys aren't in the sig. Canon Powershot G2 (soon to be G5), Canon Canoscan 9900F and Canon BJC i9100 A3 printer. It's a thrill, almost a shock, to see how good this stuff is! Every day!

[Kurt]

RDRAM is out of the picture right now (unless SIS manages to make a really fast chipset and someone else than Abit sells a board with it).

I recently filled an order of RDRAM+P4 computer for a gov. agency. Well, even if the sys had 512MB RD1066 and a WD 80GB 7200rpm 8MB cache running on an Asus P4T533 (Intel 850E) it felt a whole lot slower than a much cheaper computer with an SIS 645DX chipset (Asus P4S533-MX) with the same P4 2.53GHz and same WD800JB and 512MB DDR333 RAM (all running Win XP Pro).

The RDRAM PC is probably faster for calculations (consensually, but I didn't run benchmarks on them) but overall, the DDR one was much more responsive -hence _faster_...

[mutz]

I won't argue for or against RDRAM. The rig I have now is just very satisfying. Every different rig I've ever had has had it's sweet spots and its "Ok, I'll do it if you force me" spots, but there is usually a tweak or ten somewhere in each machine that evens things out.

...and right now, dread, it's time for the good old cleanup routine, format C:, dumping all the parasites, accumulated untraceable junk, twisted .dlls, registery bloat and conflicts, and reinstall everything with only the latest drivers and updates! This always brings a big surge in performance and sweetness across the board. The fact that I haven't felt it necessary to do this for a whole year is a record, and speaks very well for the machine.

[Kurt]

Yup. Up until now the RDRAM was the best memory you could use with the P4. Things change

[Che Guevara]

For best performance, wait for the 4-channel FSB 800 PC-1200/PC-1333 (real clock) rambus chipset of SiS (9,6 Gbyte per second with 4-channel 1200 mhz I think, would be enough for intels prescott cpu to do its best performance).
Today intels i850e is still the most stable chipset and as fast as the i875.

I'm one of those crazy guys who use rdram with a pentium 3 Cpu, still good performance (with only 1000Mhz) and no breakdowns or crashes the last years .

[borat]

i was really close on buying a P4 rambus last year, but i was offered a deal on an athlon 2200+ with a parhelia so i took that instead, everythings fine but the athlon is a pain as its hot and doesnt overclock,wish id gone for the northwood now.Im seriously considering a canterwood right now with dual channel DDR, and i want to get it from the states which makes it even more appealing as the current exchange rate is mega, have to see if the wallet will permit first though

[mutz]

Like Che says, rock stable and cruising.

Yeah Borat, with the heat you have to pump off the Parhelia, who needs another oven in the box?

The thing that pleases me is that I've had this board and the RDRAM for almost a year now and feel no need to mess with it 'cause the performance is still tops.

Only thing to watch out for is the Northbridge. Fan burn out, then the board burn out. Gigabyte replaced it immediately. I clapped a Titan TTC CUV2AB on the Northbridge and now it's cool.

[Kurt]

Originally posted by Che Guevara
For best performance, wait for the 4-channel FSB 800 PC-1200/PC-1333 (real clock) rambus chipset of SiS (9,6 Gbyte per second with 4-channel 1200 mhz I think, would be enough for intels prescott cpu to do its best performance).
Today intels i850e is still the most stable chipset and as fast as the i875.

I'm one of those crazy guys who use rdram with a pentium 3 Cpu, still good performance (with only 1000Mhz) and no breakdowns or crashes the last years .

The SIS chipset is to the 850E what the P4 is to the P3: it's slower at the same clock speed, but by increasing it it will eventually be faster. I'm not sure whether RDRAM PC1200 will actually save the day for that chipset, but you never know. Your second and third problems will be to find the motherboard and the RAM as it's not exactly a popular chipset.

[Novdid]

Originally posted by borat
i was really close on buying a P4 rambus last year, but i was offered a deal on an athlon 2200+ with a parhelia so i took that instead, everythings fine but the athlon is a pain as its hot and doesnt overclock,wish id gone for the northwood now.Im seriously considering a canterwood right now with dual channel DDR, and i want to get it from the states which makes it even more appealing as the current exchange rate is mega, have to see if the wallet will permit first though

Who said athlons don't OC?!?! I can OC my 2500+ just as well as any Intel CPU!

It's all about getting the right Athlon, sadly you got a T-bred A...

[Che Guevara]

@ Novdid:
But a northwood doesn't need so much power and doesn't produce heat like a high-clocked Athlon XP .

At the moment even the price is not really a good argument for amd.

[borat]

Originally posted by Novdid
Who said athlons don't OC?!?! I can OC my 2500+ just as well as any Intel CPU!

It's all about getting the right Athlon, sadly you got a T-bred A...

yeah i bought it knowing that but like i said i couldnt refuse it with a parhelia bundled at the price, personally though id go intel all the way from now on, amd always feel a littel cowboy like

[mutz]

Kurt, your point is well taken. RAM and CPU are more of an investment than a motherboard. The upgrade path is a question of which future motherboard and chipset will extend the life of RAM and CPU. In that sense, AMD and DDR are easier to dump and move on.

On the other hand, my current setup, which I've had for a year, already beats my past upgrade cycle and I feel there is still another year in it from a performance point of view. For all practical purposes, faster than this rig wouldn't be particularly relevant and certainly wouldn't return the cost, even in whoppee and brag. The theoretical upgrade money can now go into other components.

...and while this sounds sensible, I'm not...