I love how you guys talk about the poor performance numbers for RDRAM. Let me explain what the average Joe sees, however.
I just got my August copy of PC World today, a publication read much more widely than this thread, Intel's web site, or just about any other source you can put up. It has now been three months since the publication added RDRAM systems to their list.
Here's how things look...
The two Dell RDRAM systems continue to hold the top 2 positions -- the Dell XPS B800r (PIII-800EB, 256K L2, 128M RDRAM) is first with a PC Worldbench score of 201. The Dell OptiPlex GX300 (PIII-733, 256K L2, 128M RDRAM) is second with a PC Worldbench score of 165. The other 8 systems are SDRAM-based (interestingly, there are no systems from IBM, Compaq, or HP of either type at all on the list).
With a score of 201, the B800r beats the Polywell Poly 800K7 Athlon-800 systems (128M SDRAM, 512K L2) by 50 points, or about 33% (and is priced only 15% higher).
The B800r beats the NuTrend Athlon Ultra 2 (Athlon-850, 128M SGRAM(?), 512K L2) by 55 points, or about 37% (and is priced 18% higher).
The B800r beats the Sys Performance 850A (Athlon-850, 128M SDRAM, 512K L2) by 3 points (a tie) and is priced 2% higher (a tie).
The B800r beats the Micron Millenia Max 800 by 7 points (4%) and is priced 14% higher (this is the only price/performance outlier).
The B800r beats all of the PIII-800 systems with SDRAM by 45 to 53 points (again, roughly 33%) while being 14% to 30% more expensive.
The Optiplex GX300 is a 733Mhz system, and it beats all of the PIII and Athlon systems up to 800Mhz and one of the 3 Athlon 850 systems, by 9 to 19 points (6% to 13%). Pricewise, the Optiplex line is targeted at a different customer than the desktop lines so is actually more expensive than the B800r ($170 more) even though it's only a 733Mhz processor. This increase is due to additional support services offered for Managed PCs.
So, what we have is a benchmark score (again, much more widely read than anything else ever posted here) that says that on a price/performance basis, RDRAM is actually a better choice. All our rantings here won't change the fact that the average reader sees that RDRAM is, in fact, a performance enhancer that pays for itself in increased system performance.
Good luck to all.
Dave |
