Talk to me about RAM....

[Zulu8]

I have been out of the loop for awhile now, what's with the new DDR and RDRAM?? I'm getting the idea that basically the new athlons are using the DDR and Intel is sticking to RDRAM for P4, this right?? Also will the new DDR ram fit in teh old PC133 DIMM slots?? i'm confused...thanx.

 

[zzzz]

<< basically the new athlons are using the DDR and Intel is sticking to RDRAM for P4, this right?? >>


partially, there are mobo's for athlons/durons which can use the DDR. P4 is stuck with RDram


<< Also will the new DDR ram fit in teh old PC133 DIMM slots?? >>


no. There are separate mobo's for the DDR.

 

[Desmoquattro]

DDR seems to be the chosen memory type by AMD while RDRAM seems to be the one for Intel. I won't come close to RDRAM for awhile until it matches the DDR price...but I doubt it...considering the crap Rambus is in. DDR will not fit your board and you will have to get a mobo that will support it. They are slowly smoothing things out right now...but I'm still sticking with regular SDRAM for now until they completely take the bugs out. RDRAM doesn't do much for the p3 since it isn't bandwith dependent...but the p4 is. but take into account that minimal software is currently optimized for the p4 which is why it is losing so many benchmarks. I think at this time right now, we're in this transition phase...i believe that DDR and RDRAM are going to end up in the same place at the end...despite the different routes they are taking now. I'm just going to sit here and watch for awhile.

 

[Zulu8]

one more, P3 is still using PC133 exclusively right?

 

[lifeguard1999]

The slots for SDRAM/DDR/RDRAM are incompatible.

SDRAM has 6 flavors that are compatible.
- PC66
- PC100
- PC133
- PC150
- PC166
- PC175
PC133 is the best to buy for performance. PC150/166/175 are not official standards. Crucial's PC133 can perform at PC150 levels.

Rambus DRAM has 3 flavors that are compatible.
-PC600
-PC700
-PC800

PC800 is the best to buy for performance. PC600/PC700 are worthless and turn in worse benchmarks than SDRAM. PC800 loses to SDRAM for the Pentium 3 in all but motherboards built with the i840 chip. This really turns out to be the Pentium 3's fault, not RDRAM.

In the Pentium 4, it is a different story. The P4 rocks with RDRAM ... if the application has been optimized for the P4. But that is a P4 problem, not a RDRAM problem. The P4 only accepts RDRAM, not SDRAM and not DDR. SDRAM will be available for the P4 in the fall. DDR will be available for the P4 in the first quarter of 2002.

DDR SDRAM comes in 3 flavors:
PC1600
PC2100
PC2400

PC2400 is overpriced and not a standard. Crucial's PC2100 can run at PC2400 and is cheaper. DDR has not shown much benefits in the Athlon or Pentium 3. PC133 is nearly as good, performing to within 5%. If it wasn't for Crucial making DDR equal to its PC133 in price, then DDR would be a hard sell.

 

[lifeguard1999]

No. You can buy RDRAM motherboards for the Pentium 3. You can buy DDR boards for the P3. You can also buy the regular SDRAM boards for the P3.