RDRAM-the undisputable leading solution for P4 with a bright future..!

[dbal]

From Anand's latest P4/133 FSB review
"That statement doesn't come without stipulations however; since all of our benchmarks used officially supported PC800 RDRAM (going to PC1066 would result in another boost in performance over what you see here) that does mean that in order to get the highest performance out of the Pentium 4 you will have to go to the RDRAM based i850/850E. As you can conclude on your own by looking at the necessary math, there isn't a single Pentium 4 DDR solution available today that can offer the amount of bandwidth necessary to feed a 4.26GB/s 533MHz FSB. Especially as CPU clock speeds increase, the Pentium 4's dependency on a high bandwidth memory bus will increase as well. While we haven't included the numbers here (we're planning another Pentium 4 chipset comparison in the near future), pairing the Pentium 4 up with Intel's 845 solution paints a significantly different performance picture."

My message title says it all-a simple interpretaion of Anand's final words shows that RDRAM is the undisputable leading performance solution this time around for P4 with a bright future..! Just wanted to share it with u all guys-especially the ones troubled in choosing your system platform.... Cheers !

 

[dbal]

Now I realize that my perception was right about the majority preffering DDR...
Maybe it turns around in the near future, like it happened with the AMD frenzie recently....

 

[THUGSROOK]

we dont care

even if rambus supposed to be twice as fast - i still wouldnt buy it.
(proprietary ahole company)

 

[PowerMacG5]

RDRAM will always have the advantage over DDR. First let me build up from SDRAM. With SDRAM there is only one signal trigger per clock cycle, on the leading edge. DDR has two signal triggers per clock cycle, one on the leading edge, and the other on the trailing edge. Now, RDRAM has 4 signal triggers per clock cycle, two on the leading edge, and two on the trailing edge. This equates to that RDRAM has twice the trigger amount than DDR. Dual channel RDRAM, like all of the P4 chipsets, are capable of out transferring DDR. PC800 RDRAM is able to reach peak theoretical transfer rate of 3.2 GB/s, and the new unofficial PC1066 RDRAM is able to reach peak theoretical transfer rate of a whopping 4.266 GB/s. Currently this will out perform all of the DDR chipsets, including the new SiS645Dx.

 

[HowDoesItWork]

The problem initially with RDRAM was latency. Yeah it transferred data 4X per clock cycle (4X as much as the SDRAM is was 'replacing') but it did not provide 4X the memory bandwidth. In fact it provide very little to no performance increase in benchmarks at it's intial release. RDRAM has made great strides in performance and the price has fallen out of the bottom of the stuff (as it sucked royally initially). Will the 'new' RDRAM be a godspend or another flop? Once bitten, twice shy. We will see.

 

[Steppy76]

When it was released (with the P3) it didn't benefit that chip any more than SDRAM because of the slow fsb of the P3(sdram already provided all the bandwidth the p3 could use).

 

[dbal]

You know, it's always nice to see people keeping their mind open and have the courage to rethink about their choices-especially in computer market where things change day after day. That's what I did when I learned more and more after last year's October about my choice in the video card ("upgraded" as needed from a TNT2 Diamond to the Radeon VE I have now only to get a 30% average performance boost without knowing about the 64-bit bus memory width and its extra crippled VE core).
But I am just proud to read that from Anand about my choice of the P4-i850 platform on a P4T-E in a period where everybody was crying for an AMD selection. Things change rapidly-you just have to be adpative as long as your wallet allows u to do so ....

 

[lookin4dlz]

I just wish Intel would slow the pace of its advances for a couple of months (joking of course) so that I could decide on a motherboard/memory. I was set to go with the 645DX until I read that the 845G will run faster with the same processor/memory setup, now it appears that RDRAM 1066 will soon be available and when teamed with an 850e that setup will be faster.

Intel will release 3Ghz processors on the 533MHz bus by the end of this year - maybe earlier since they released the 2.53GHZ/533MHz a quarter early - and processors based on the .09 micron core next year. The problem for me is that I can't keep waiting, I need to upgrade!

 

[Tom]

Some time soon RDRAM might become the hands down best choice for new P4 systems.. but first there are going to have to be more motherboard companies producing RDRAM motherboards and the price for those motherboards needs to come down.

At this moment, and this has been true for several months, there are still advantages to DDR systems..

1.cost of the motherboards, particularly SiS 645 motherboards.
2. no real 533FSB rdram motherboards with overclocking ability. It's possible with an Asus P4-Te or an Abit TH7ii, but only by jumping through a significant number of hoops.
3. mostly irrelevant performance advantage since the overclocked P4 Northwood DDR combos are plenty fast.

As far as the Anandtech article is concerned, they did not test the best DDR platforms yet(ever wonder why Anandtech won't test SiS645 motherboards ?), so there isn't any basis for their conclusion that RDRAM is a necessity. Or if they have tested the best DDR platforms they haven't published the results.

Since Anandtech lately seems to focus on sticking to officially supported speeds, the following would be an interesting comparison...

i850e motherboard, 533FSB P4, PC800 rdram
Versus
SiS645DX motherboard, 533FSB P4, PC2700 DDR

I suspect the RDRAM system would win most benchmarks, but not by much. Factor in the cost and which one is the overall winner ?

 

[AkumaX]

rdram has overgone a long journey, from the release of the p4, 128mb that costed $500 (in the days of 256mb pc133 for ~$100), to the now 256mb rdram that is somewhat parallel in cost to ddr pc2100. yes, the company still sucks, but i think their getting their marketing straight. especially with the highly praised forecast of rdram, and the more affordable solution with it (and maybe the o/cability of it (see tomshwguide, they have "pc1200" rdram)) the future is uncertain...

 

[dbal]

Very good post for talking about it Parrot! Here's what I think:



<< Some time soon RDRAM might become the hands down best choice for new P4 systems.. but first there are going to have to be more motherboard companies producing RDRAM motherboards and the price for those motherboards needs to come down. >>



You are absolutely right.



<< It's possible with an Asus P4-Te or an Abit TH7ii, but only by jumping through a significant number of hoops. >>



One more time. DDR is much suitable for overclocking geeks-but official products need to be compared at stock performance. Noone has the right to argue if his famous 1.6A doesn't overclock 1Mhz higher for some reason...That's why I praise Anand for sticking to stock perf. comparisons....



<< Since Anandtech lately seems to focus on sticking to officially supported speeds, the following would be an interesting comparison...

i850e motherboard, 533FSB P4, PC800 rdram
Versus
SiS645DX motherboard, 533FSB P4, PC2700 DDR >>



I can't wait!



<< I suspect the RDRAM system would win most benchmarks, but not by much. Factor in the cost and which one is the overall winner ? >>



If u compare it with RDRAM1066 which normally pairs up with i850E when passes all Intel's validations, the perf. difference might be too much to think of prices if u really need that speed....

 

[CBone]

<<

Since Anandtech lately seems to focus on sticking to officially supported speeds, the following would be an interesting comparison...

i850e motherboard, 533FSB P4, PC800 rdram
Versus
SiS645DX motherboard, 533FSB P4, PC2700 DDR

I suspect the RDRAM system would win most benchmarks, but not by much. Factor in the cost and which one is the overall winner ? >>



I wouldn't mind seeing Anand get his hands on a VIA p4x333 board and throw that in the mix. In the reviews of the p4x266a, running at 100/133, the two ddr boards are tied up. I find that pretty impressive since the board uses the old southbridge from the kt266a.