RDRAM or DDR PC3200 with 3.06?

[Marine]

Hi all, hoping for a good answer to this question. I have just received an ASUS P4PE baseboard and 1GB of Mushkin's best DDRPC3200 RAM. I was going to put a 2.8 GHz cpu on the combination. However, I just received one of the new 3.06 GHz with HT CPUs and I have been wondering about my choice of RAM.

In everyday use, gaming and MS Office, would I notice any improvement in performance going with 32 bit 1066 RAMBUS memory instead of the DDR. I really like the P4PE because of all the on-board features, Gigabyte Ethernet, Serial ATA, etc, but would swap it for a 850E chipset board like the PT533 if I could tell the difference.

Please give me some advice on what memory would best support this new CPU, DDR or 32 bit RAMBUS. Thanks very much.

 

[Ketchup]

I personally doubt you would notice a performance difference going to RDRAM. My buddy has the same CPU and video card as me, but has PC-1066 RDRAM, and I actually get higher 3dMarks than he does. The reason is becuase his Gigabyte doesn't have the AGP/PI lock, and so if he overclocks too far, his RAID array gets corrupted. My computer has the lock, so I can overclock farther. Besides that, he brought it over, and I didn't think it felt any faster than mine. I think the difference in speed between DDR-333 and PC-1066 RDRAM are only apparent in benchmarking.

Having said that, Hyperthreading does seem to have more effect when using RDRAM over DDR, but again, I don't think the difference would be noticeable. If you are overclocking, DDR has proven iteself to handle high bus speeds better than RDRAM.

It looks like you have a killer system going. Put her together and let us know how fast she is. And if you are into overclocking, let us know how far you get.

 

[dbal]

I will let Anand talk about it....Click here and u ll get the answer u want even when RDRAM is compared to 845PE or DDR400 combinations under game stressing conditions.
BTW go with the 32bit solution*P4T533 is
a.the king of the hill (regarding stock performance, since DDR really handles o/cing much better)
b.at the moment (noone can predict the future in computing so don't fall for the hype of RDRAM's future etc)
So enjoy it while u can(!) and let us know...!

 

[Marine]

I appreciate the link, but this discusses the wrong chipset. The 533-C can only use 16-bit 1066, whereas the P4T533 uses the newer version of the 850E that uses 32-bit RAMBUS. That's the chipset I'm interested in comparing to the 845PE.

 

[Ketchup]

The only difference between 32-bit RIMM4200 and 16-bit PC-1066 is that you don't have to install RIMM4200 in pairs because each piece is dual-channel. Performance for the two is the same.

 

[dbal]

Just adding to ketchup79's statement-everybody knows that the 850E version is ONE and came out to support the 533 P4's FSB and has nothing to do with RDRAM. The 2 boards are ASUS' implementations of the traditional (16bit 1066 modules) and the newest (32bit 4200 modules) RDRAM types. Of course, if RDRAM lives at the end, everything will be 32bit so go get the P4T533. In addition, if u read the latest article about the brand new Granite Bay chipset u 'll see RDRAM is as competitive as ever even from a price to performance standpoint that has always been a problem for RDRAM compared to DDR solutions.

 

[Marine]

Thanks for the explanation. I now understand the implementation difference is pairs versus single RIMM of RAM. Thank you all.
I still have a question, dbal.
You wote: "In addition, if u read the latest article about the brand new Granite Bay chipset u 'll see RDRAM is as competitive as ever even from a price to performance standpoint that has always been a problem for RDRAM compared to DDR solutions."

I'm trying hard, but I just can't figure out what you're saying. Is it that RDRAM is the best performer regardless of price? Thanks! dlk


-------------------------
I Love This Rig!

 

[dbal]

Pleasure to talk with you at first, Marine...! As for the question, my statement means that RDRAM has always been the best performer especially if u take the factor of overclocking potential away, but was not preferred by many enthusiast users because it was much more expensive compared to DDR. Now that dual channel DDR has arrived and is on par not only in performance but also in price with RDRAM, the disadvantage of high expense has gone away.
Of course I have to mention that all roadmaps show Intel has decided to pull RDRAM away from the scene but afterall,whatever platform u choose now, will be almost obsolete again 1 year later,isn't it??

 

[Marine]

Thanks again for the explanation. In the frustration of not truly knowing the ultimate performance setup, I went with the recommendation of Maximum PC (formerly BOOT magazine) and got a P4T533 32-bit mobo and two 32-bit 512MB sticks of 1066 RAMBUS. I'm putting my Radeon 9700 Pro in the machine along with SCSI Ultra 320 RAID and two IBM 10K RPM HDDs. With the 3.06GHz CPU, I'd think the machine would be pretty quick.
I appreciate your advice, thanks much!

 

[dbal]

God !!! This system will be fast as a rocket!! :Q

I am so jealous of you...!!!

 

[Ketchup]

Ha ha "pretty quick" That's a good one.! That has got to be the understatement of the decade! Seriously though, you are going to have one mean system. With one gig of memory on tap, you should be able to turn of virtual memory so Windows should really fly for you.

If you are into overclocking, please let us know how far you get. The 3.06 has hit 3.6-3.7 on air cooling, so it may be worthwhile to give it a try! Oh, and if you want your speakers to be the same caliber as the rest of your system, make sure they are Klipsch's!

Enjoy your system!

 

[RanDum72]

The setup is fine but I would think twice about the U320 SCSI setup. Unless the motherboard has some 64-bit, 66mhz PCI slots (and a SCSI controller that can use it), you won't really see the benefits because regular PCI has a bandwidth of 133MB/sec. I would rather get two Maxtor 200gb, 7200rpm (8mb cache), put them under RAID 0 with a Highpoint Serial ATA RAID controller. The controller has two parallel to serial adapters so regular harddrives can be used.