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To: Charles R who wrote (55)9/18/1999 11:38:00 AM
From: grok  Read Replies (2) of 271
 
I believe Intel announted Rambus because of 3D. Back in 95-96 they became interested in 3D as a way to continue the demand for MIPS because it was becoming obvious that you don't need gigahertz processors to sit at your screen and hunt-and-peck postings like this one.

So they decided to move big-time into 3D support, doing a deal with Real3D and even acquiring Chips & Technology. They also decided that the best way to provide 3D was with Unified Memory Architecture so they devised a PC system architecture with a fast graphics bus (now 4X AGP) so that textures could be stored in main memory and use all those megabytes available when you're not using Word. The next step called for moving the 3D into the North Bridge and final step is moving it into the CPU itself.

But feeding the graphics requires bandwidth so they annointed Rambus as the next memory standard even though Rdram provides little if any advantage in traditional apps.

So Intel starts marching down this path and 3D is now in their new chip sets and Timna will appear next year with 3D and chip set inside the CPU.

However:
1. Rambus has proven to be more difficult to develop than expected and is still not fully proven even though the delayed mega launch is only a week away.
2. Rdram has a significant cost penalty which doesn't seem to be easy to fix.
3. It is very hard to demonstrate that Rambus provides any performance benefit in non-3D apps.

Now for the big problem:
Hardly anyone cares about 3D!!!!!!!!!!

I hope that gamers don't start flaming me but 3D just has not caught on with mainstream users who make up the bulk of the market. A few years ago a number of people were optimistic that PC users would adopt high performance games in a big way but it hasn't happened. Some people were predicting non-game 3D uses such as 3D Windows or TV channel guides, none of which have happened. Some people are now saying 3D will never happen. Please see 3dlinks.com

So now Intel is viciously trying to cram Rambus where it is not needed and provides no benefit. Maybe they can force it to happen due to their massive power but it becomes more and more like pushing on a rope. The fact is that there is no killer app for Rambus. Some people are frantically trying to come up with some justification like voice recognition, backups, virus checkers, etc but this is sheer desperation.

So this cram job is underway which may work but may result in a clusterf***. And it is all based on a mistake about the demand for 3D.
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