Who said Rambus is slow?

[Buuri]

Samsung Electronics announced the completion of development of a 288Mb Direct Rambus® DRAM (RDRAM) component and 576MB Rambus In-line Memory Module (RIMM?) Module. A design rule of 0.17-micron is used. The data processing speed at each pin has been improved to 800Mb per second, so the device can process the equivalent of 6,550 newspaper pages of information per second.

Quote from slashdot.org .

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[KvHagedorn]

No one said it was slow.. only ridiculously expensive..

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Kind Regards,

KvH

[Buuri]

Yes, well.. my friend's dad bought a 286 some time ago that cost him over $5000, so that much for prices in this field.. if you know what I mean

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[Jammrock]

Buuri,

I SAY RAMBUS IS SLOW!!! Seriously, I do. Although RAMBUS does have an incredible data transfer speed (400-800 MHz and 800 MB-1.6(?) GB a sec) it has a high latency (can't remember the official number). So Rambus can transfer a lot of data at once, but it takes it a few more clock cycles than SDRAM and DDR RAM does. So its effective speed is not that good.

My brother, a Micron R&D engineer, pretty much says that RAMBUS is pretty much dead in the water right now. It may revive, but not unless prices get really cheap, really soon. Heck, Micron isn't even making any RAMBUS right now (as of last time I talked to him, about a week ago). He says that Micron is banking on PC133 SDRAM and DDR RAM right now, and are not going to even enter the RDRAM market unless they know they can make a profit in it.

I read an article were Dell compared 2 identicle systems, one using RDRAM and the other using PC133 SDRAM. The SDRAM won. Once I find it again I'll post it.

Jammrock

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PIII 450@504, 256 MB RAM, 35 GB total w/ WD Experts, Abit UDMA 66 controller, CL 6x DVD, PLEXTOR 8x4x32 ATAPI CD-RW (my newest toy), G400 32 MB DH, SB Live! w/ Digital I/O, LinkSys Etherfast 10/100, DSI 56k modem, Addtronics 6896A Case w/ a crap load of fans and Dynmat noise dampening, MAG DX715T monitor.

Hi, my name is Jammrock. I'm a computer phreak and an EverCrack addict.

[Wombat]

Fact is, RAMBUS isn't that fast. That's nice throughput, but it's also serial. I'd still rather have PC133 RAM in my machine.

Where are you going with your 286 example. Sure $5000 for a 286 is a lot, but I'd rather buy the $500 286.

[Buuri]

I was trying to point out that something that may be expensive now, is affordable to large public in a year or two so it really doesn't matter. It's not like Rambus is expected to take over next month or anything.

Heck, I remember when those first generation CD-R devices cost like $2000..

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[Jammrock]

There is a big difference between RAM and CD-R's. RAM is required to run your computer, but a CD-R is not. If manufactures loose money making RAMBUS (which Samsung is, and they are the only people making it right now), and nobody buys it then RAMBUS will die no matter what Intel does.

The only thing that can save RAMBUS right now is if the Tier-1 OEM's start using it in all their computers. If that don't happen, then RAMBUS doesn't happen.

My $0.02

Jammrock

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PIII 450@504, 256 MB RAM, 35 GB total w/ WD Experts, Abit UDMA 66 controller, CL 6x DVD, PLEXTOR 8x4x32 ATAPI CD-RW (my newest toy), G400 32 MB DH, SB Live! w/ Digital I/O, LinkSys Etherfast 10/100, DSI 56k modem, Addtronics 6896A Case w/ a crap load of fans and Dynmat noise dampening, MAG DX715T monitor.

Hi, my name is Jammrock. I'm a computer phreak and an EverCrack addict.

[Wombat]

The last I heard, Rambus RAM was expected to drop in 1/2 after a year. Woohoo, $5 a meg. And since we'll want 256MB by then...

[Thundrchez]

Rambust is going down and it is going to leave egg all over Intel's face. Their El Camino chipset is still unstable. People are not going to pay that much more for a technology that does not give them much improvement. The general Joe is not going to notice the performance difference between a SDRAM and a Rambust system, so why pay the extra $$$$?

One of my buddies was dumb enough to get a genuine Intel Cape Cod i820 SDRAM mobo and a Cu-mine. It is EXTREMELY unstable. He can't even watch a DVD movie on it without it bluescreening at least once. Frequently he has to reinstall directx & matrox drivers & his games just because something freaked out in the system. The only smart thing he did was get a G400MAX.

Let's not forget the HUGE performance penalty people suffer when they use SDRAM on a Rambust wannabe mobo with the i820 El Camino.

[MadCat]

You want to wrangle over ram eh? <a href="http://www.techrepublic.com/article.jhtml?id=%2Fdocroot%2Farticle%2Fcolumn%2Fr 00220000104eje01.htm&page=1">Get informed</a> first!

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This Signature Space FOR SALE / RENT

[Rags]

HEY!!!! What's wrong with ElCaminos???






Rags



[This message has been edited by Rags (edited 10 January 2000).]

[Jammrock]

Interesting article MadCat. It summed up what most other people say. I still haven't found the Dell results, but I will keep looking.

BTW, Micron is one of the 3 DDR RAM ready memory builders.

Jammrock

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PIII 450@504, 256 MB RAM, 35 GB total w/ WD Experts, Abit UDMA 66 controller, CL 6x DVD, PLEXTOR 8x4x32 ATAPI CD-RW (my newest toy), G400 32 MB DH, SB Live! w/ Digital I/O, LinkSys Etherfast 10/100, DSI 56k modem, Addtronics 6896A Case w/ a crap load of fans and Dynmat noise dampening, MAG DX715T monitor.

Hi, my name is Jammrock. I'm a computer phreak and an EverCrack addict.

[Jorden]

Can someone tell me what the abbreviation DDR stands for?

On the topic of Rambus: It's expensive as hell, and if/when you want to use it for real, you'll have to upgrade about 3/4 of your PC. Is that worth the probable speed?

I think not.

Jorden.

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[Rags]

Hi Jorden,

DDR stands for Double Data Rate, it works much like AGP 2X does, it doesn't actually run at twice the speed, it double the chunk during each clock cycle.

Rags

[Thundrchez]

Intel has disgraced an American legend by codenaming their i820 chipset the El Camino.

Can anybody verify if the i820 El Camino comes complete with an astroturf heatsink?