Is it your sense of being "comparable"?
pricewatch.com
128MB DDR PC2100 - $40.8
pricewatch.com
128MB Rambus PC800 non-ECC - $80.2
A few thing here. First the DDR your siting is the low level DDR which is giving at best 5-10% improvement over SDRAM performance in all benchmarks.
Second the RDRAM your siting is the high-level RDRAM, which is faster than the PC600 RDRAM, which is still much faster than DDR200, which is the product your citing.
Third, DDR is not standardized across the industry. You just can't buy any manufacturer's DDR and plug it into different DDR boards, DIMMS, etc. You can do this with RDRAM.
Fourth, the total cost of the systems are not all things being equal as RDRAM implementation on boards is simpler, RDRAM has better granularity (far better), and RDRAM can be done dual channel, where DDR cannot.
Fifth, what you are talking about is 5-10% improvement over SDRAM with this DDR and your talking paying 2x as much as the equivalent amount of SDRAM for DDR.
Sixth, the rumor (and its only a rumor but would fit the income statements of the major DDR producing DRAMS in comparison to the major RDRAM producing DRAMS) is that DDR is being put on the street at below cost.
So these comparisons are not all things being equal.
But nevertheless, Samsung is stating that RDRAM 800 will be at no more than a 20% premium over DDR this year and the RDRAM 4i (which will come out early next year) will be at or very near price parity, all this while offering far better performance and standardization for the PC, not to mention greater granularity, the ability to use dual channels, and far less line traces on the PC boards. Not to mention plug and play capability with the supporting value chain across the industry.
Tinker |
