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Technology Stocks : Rambus (RMBS) - Eagle or Penguin -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: denni who wrote (40739)	4/25/2000 12:56:00 PM
From: JH	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

<i was trying to order a dell b series computer> Me too. Perhaps I should post this on the DELL thread, but I seriously think that the RMBS enabled systems are such a damn hassle to buy. Are there any "power" users out there on this thread who can justify needing such a system? For people on this thread who are thinking of upgrading their existing computer, which statement mirrors your opinion? I'd love to see an informal poll... 1) Intel's 820 motherboard is a solid performer, and Rambus has, without a shadow of a doubt, proven its value in terms of price/performance. I'm going to pick up the phone NOW to order a system from Dell, and I'm feeling all warm, fuzzy, and happy from knowing that I've made an educated decision to pay a $500 (or more) price premium to get the reliability, dependability, longevity, and state-of-the-art performance from my PIII/Rambus PC. Hooray, INTC, DELL and RMBS !! 2) Intel needs to get their act together. I'm suspicious that all the bugs from the 820 has not been eliminated (the memory translator hub in the PC133 version, for example), and besides, all the non-Intel motherboard makers in the world are shunning RMBS like the plague. I don't see a singe RMBS enabled system out there, either at the computer "malls", electronics ("geek") supermarkets, nor any of the mom & pop computer retailers. RMBS seems to exist only in the pages and websites of computer testing publications. I'd better wait to confirm with my own eyes whether RMBS memory prices drop to below double or triple the price of SDRAMs. Quadruple the price of PC100 memory is too outrageous. Besides, my current Pentium II machine works just fine... Sad to say, but I belong in the second camp. I'm a RMBS shareholder, and have made money in the stock. I believe in RMBS's future, but the reality TODAY is that there are NO Rambus memory equipped systems out there which are readily available at a reasonable price which potential customers are scrambling to buy. Those who are buying today can be characterized as "early adopters" who don't mind paying the price to surf at the bleeding edge of tech for ego's sake. Today, I called Dell Asia-Pacific to obtain information on their Dimension XPS B PIII 733r system. 128MB 266MHz (huh?) RDRAM, 15 GB UATA drive, PIII 733MHz CPU, 48x CD-ROM, 10/100 network card, 32MB NVidia video card. No monitor, no fancy loudspeakers, no "extras" - the most "basic" configuration possible. HK $17,110 (US $2,200) delivered to Hong Kong. Okay, how about if I added a DVD-ROM drive, a CD-RW drive, and a 250MB internal Zip drive? I nearly fell on the floor laughing when the Dell rep told me that sorry, their factory in Malaysia could not configure the computer with all three devices TOGETHER because the internal connection cables were NOT LONG ENOUGH to connect these three devices to the motherboard. Excuse me? The US Dell website shows that the Dell Dimension system can indeed be configured with all three devices simultaneously. Why doesn't DELL Asia Pacific just use a slighly longer internal connection cable ? Can't cost more than a few pennies more... This type of silly configuration "problem" certainly does not inspire any confidence in a potential customer such as myself. I'm currently using a four-year old Dell PII 266MHz system with 128M of PC100 memory, running the usual suite of Microsoft programs (Excel, Word, Explorer on 56k modem) together with the Bloomberg through an ISDN modem. I think I will stick with this machine for the time being. Besides, a PIII 500 to 800 MHz system is probably overrated anyways... how many of us can honestly say we desperately NEED all that computing horsepower, anyways?