I actually just finished making the same upgrade you are making now. As for your concern with buying DDR over Rambus, I'd definitely reccomend the DDR. You certainly will not be dissapointed by PC2700 DDR-SDRAM. I read an article over at Accelenation (
http://www.accelenation.com/?doc=117&page=1) about overclocking a P4 1.6A Ghz CPU to 2.2GHz using air cooling. So I decided that I was due for an upgrade, and I went out and bought a retail P4 1.6A CPU, which comes with a heatsink+fan for $160. I picked up an MSI 645 Ultra motherboard for $85 and 256MB of PC2700 DDR-SDRAM for $90. I'm running my Pentium 4 1.6A at 2.2GHz now, and I've run every test I could think of to test for stability.
If you aren't experienced with computer hardware you may not feel comfortable running an overclocked processor. Overclocking your processor simply means you are running it faster than Intel intends for it to be run. It also voids your warranty. The two dangers in overclocking are the risk of damage to your processor due to excessive amounts of heat, and a loss of stability. It is very easy to test for stability - there are numerous benchmarks that will test your system for stability. If you overclock a processor to 2.2GHz and it is not stable at this speed, it is very easy to drop down to a lower speed (2 Ghz, for example) and re-test for stability. I have spoken to quite a few people about the Pentium 4 1.6A processors and everybody who has tried overclocking them have easily gotten above 2.0GHz. Also, Intel processors feature advanced thermal protection features so that if your processor gets too hot (say your heatsink falls off for some reason) the processor will halt immediately so that it will not be ruined.
Ultimately you have to decide whether or not you want to run an overclocked processor. It is very possible that you do not need a CPU running at 2.2GHz, and would rather run your 1.6GHz processor at 1.6GHz with the peace of mind that you will almost definitely never have any problems with your system, and if you do you're protected under waranty.
Like I said before, you are far better off going with DDR-SDRAM here. Now, there are 4 kinds of DDR-SDRAM: PC1600, PC2100, PC2400, and PC2700. PC1600 is old and slow. PC2100 was the standard before PC2700 recently hit the market. PC2400 is simply overclocked PC2100. Since a 256MB stick of PC2700 is only $10 - $15 more expensive than a 256MB stick of PC2100, you might as well go with the PC2700, as this is rapidly becoming the new standard. Like you said, you don't want to have to re-buy RAM. So, the memory is a no-brainer. You want PC2700 DDR-SDRAM. You want to get it from a reputable vendor such as Crucial, Corsair, or OCZ Technologies. I personally like OCZ Technologies' DDR-SDRAM the best. That's what I got for my system for $90. Just to clear up any confusion you may have if you're shopping around, PC1600, PC2100, PC2400, and PC2700 are also known as DDR200, DDR266, DDR300, and DDR333.
Now, assuming you agree that you want to buy PC2700 DDR-SDRAM, you need to get a motherboard that supports it. Currently there is only one Pentium 4 chipset that supports PC2700 DDR-SDRAM, the others only have support for PC2100 DDR-SDRAM. This chipset is the SiS 645 chipset. So, now you need a motherboard based on the SiS645 chipset. You want to buy a board with a good set of features, made buy a reputable manufacturer, at a fairly low price. I found that the right board was the MSI 645 Ultra. Apparently Accelenation also felt that the MSI board is a good board to use for this setup, since they used it in their Pentium4 1.6A CPU overclocking article I mentioned above. Here's a link to the information about the MSI 645 Ultra:
http://www.msicomputer.com/product/detail_spec/645ultra.htm.
All this comes to $335. This is a great deal for a high-performance Pentium 4 system like this, and even more of a deal if you decide to overclock. I'd be happy to pick up the parts and pre-assemble the motherboard+CPU+Heatsink/Fan+memory, overclock it (if you want to go that route), test it all in my testing laboratory (I run a computer hardware review&analysis site like AnandTech, only smaller, so I have an extensive computer hardware testing laboratory in our office), then ship it out to you. If you're interested, drop me an email at
reviews@zephirtech.com and we can figure something out. I have references and more personal information I can give you, but this post is long enough as it is. Hope this info has helped. let me know if you're interested.
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