Hi Dave B; Re: "Interesting. So you can get 2.1GBs with DDR on the P4 or 3.2GBs with RDRAM on the P4. Sounds like they're saying that dual-channel DDR is just too difficult for the desktop market (unlike RDRAM)."
It's not a matter of "difficult", it's a matter of expensive. The P4 with dual channel RDRAM is too expensive for the desktop market similarly.
Here's some prices from pricewatch that illustrate this. Note that the P4 has been out in larger volume than the DDR motherboards, but the DDR motherboards are already much, much cheaper:
Cheapest DDR motherboard: $118
Cheapest 850 RDRAM (P4) motherboard: $195
pricewatch.com
pricewatch.com
Re: "Also, I didn't see anything on your list closer than four to six months away. There's that magic number (promise?) again. Funny how it keeps coming up. Are we ever going to see this DDR thing really, actually, truly launched?"
Eventually the bulk of computers will be sold with DDR memory. For quite some time all we heard on the thread was "where are the DDR chipset prototypes?" Then the prototypes showed up, and all we heard on the thread was "where are the DDR reviews?" Then the reviews of early prototypes showed up, and all we heard was "where are the DDR motherboards and DDR DIMMs on pricewatch?" Then DDR showed up there, and all we heard on the thread was "where are the complete DDR systems?" Then DDR showed up at Micron PC and BestBuy, and all we heard on the thread was "where are the DDR systems from major vendors?" Today Compaq released a DDR system, and now what is it that is all we are going to hear? I'm not sure, probably something like "when are all the major computer makers going to have DDR systems?", but maybe you guys have figured out that you are on the losing end of this sequence, and so now your questions are going to be phrased more vaguely, so that you can't be told "I told you so", which I so love to do. So do fight the urge to run, and please give me a less vague "where are the DDR ..." statement to work with. :)
The significance of the huge number of DDR chipsets under development (and three released already in volume), as compared to essentially no new RDRAM chipsets is that the industry is certain what the next mainstream memory standard will be and has moved on to design the chipsets that will use it. Your constant focus on the past doesn't work for engineers who must design products that will be manufactured in the future.
DDR is here. DDR is staying (until it very likely gets replaced by DDR-II in about 2 years or so). RDRAM is obsolete, and is dead, dead, dead.
-- Carl |
