Fun stuff w/ Rambus

[ZeusLordofGods]

So, me being the friendly nice guy that I am, I decide to help my roommate upgade his computer. (His 128 mb of Ram was just not cutting it on BF1942). Time for a memory upgrade- easy enough, right?

Wrong.

Turns out his computer uses RDRAM... which is expensive as crap. I was wondering if anyone here has ever used rambus before, and if so, could give me any shopping hints to pass along to my hopeless roomie. Also, Do you have to install it in pairs? he has two 64 mb sticks in right now, with two empty slots (except for the crimms, of course). For example, could he purchase a 128 mb stick, use the two 64 mb sticks, and just leave one crimm in, giving a total of 256 mb of memory? or would it have to be 4 64 mb sticks?

Thanks in advance-
Zeus

 

[HokieESM]

If its an i850 chipset (for the P4)... yes, you need pairs of RDRAM. And yes, it can be rather expensive. Is he using a 400FSB P4 or a 533? Go for PC1066 if its a 533MHz FSB P4--it makes a large difference.

I'm using RDRAM in my computational rig. A lot of people slam it. Yes, the company Rambus sucks. A lot. The technology was quite good, though. Much better than DDR at the time of its release.

Depending on the processor and RAM you need, it MIGHT be cheaper to buy a new motherboard and DDR, though.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Yeah, it may be cheaper for a new mobo and DDR RAM like HokieESM said. Thats what I would do, buying more RDRAM will give him more reason to stay with RDRAM for a longer time..

 

[ZeusLordofGods]

Well, its a Pentium 3 I believe. FSB 400, uses PC800 ram. (Its about to be three years old). Changing the motherboard may be out of the question- its a Dell. Not sure if they were using propietary mobos back then or not.


Thanks again

 

[HokieESM]

Zeus... if its a Pentium 3 using Rambus, its a i820 chipset... and it DOESN'T need RDRAM in pairs. Be sure to check that..... look in the BIOS, it should tell you what the CPU and the chipset are. If it IS indeed a P3, its an older one (they're actually 100MHz FSB), and you can just pick up a single stick of RDRAM.

And you're right... if it IS a P3 and a Dell, a new MB will be pretty much out of the question (they use proprietary power connectors).

 

[ZeusLordofGods]

Oops my bad guys....I was just informed that it is a P4, not a P3. I"ll check out the Bios as soon as I get a chance.

Thanks,
Z-man

 

[RanDum72]

Zeus... if its a Pentium 3 using Rambus, its a i820 chipset... and it DOESN'T need RDRAM in pairs

But it might be the 840 chipset which DOES need RDRAM in pairs. But its already established that its a P4 so its either 850 or 850E. He can keep the two 64mb sticks and install another pair with the same capacity (2x128, 2x256). The 'for sale/trade' forums had some RDRAM for sale cheap. I still use RDRAM (1 gig of PC1066) for my video editing/encoding rig and its still blazingly fast. Now if only the 3.06ghz P4's w/533mhz FSB go down below $200, that would be my last upgrade for my system.....