hmm p4 ddr, rambus mobos, or wait for the dual ddr?

[BobaFettish]

hello,

i just registered to anandtech forums, im planning on building a new system in the near future and ive read alot of the mobo reviews here, on tomshardware and motherboards.org. this isnt the first time ive built a system, but its the first time ive really tried to put time and thought into what components i will need to get the best performance and stability.

im looking for a mobo with a 533fsb, a raid controller, onboard audio and lan would be ok.

the major factors of my indecision on what i want is, DDR or rambus, or wait for the dual channel ddr chipsets.
serial ata's also, i see alot of mobos with sata 150 but no HDDs with this interface, whether i should get sata for a raid0 or just use ide raid

from what ive seen rambus is faster and has more memory bandwidth than ddr, and from what i got from the reviews, a p4 bottlenecks at memory bandwidth with ddr, but rambus allows it to use everything it has. maybe i dont even know, but thats why im posting, to get a better understanding of what i need for performance.

costs set aside, whats my best option?

thanks for the help

 

[cmdrdredd]

dual DDR is just a short time away, and yes RAMBUS may be faster, but the P4 is not really bottleknecked at DDR as some would have you believe. The DDR shipsets allow more overclocking room and can save you some cash. DDR400 is not that far from RDRAM for performance.

 

[senior guy]

BobaFettish, welcome to the forums! You have it figured out pretty well. Setting cost aside (as you suggested), a RAMBUS platform is still the best - as of now - especially if you will be running stock. IMHO, I don't believe that Granite Bay will blow RAMBUS platforms away, but that will eventually happen next year with the SpringDale chipset. At present, there are no SATA drives and the first ones out will not be any faster than the latest crop of 'PATA' drives, so here again you will not see any meaningful advantages until sometime next year.

I never found the waiting game to pay off. There will always be something better just around the corner... Personally, I think that the i845PE/GE boards are your best bet. Their perfomance approaches i850E, they support hyperthreading, and the mobo-memory combo is more cost-effective. I for one am waiting (very anxiously, I might add) to see Evan's review of the new EPoX i845PE board (which was supposed to be out this past Monday)!

 

[Viper96720]

My DDR333 BG7 beats my PC800 P4T-E. I'm assuming the dual ddr will be neck and neck with pc 1066