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

To: Bilow who wrote (52843)	9/8/2000 6:01:26 AM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 93625

Hi all; RDRAM rebate from Intel on P4? Bert McComas says so today: Intel Platform Roadmap Update Authored by Bert McComas, InQuest Market Research - Sept 8, 2000 ... Intel’s RDRAM Rebate Deal In an attempt to offset OEM reluctance to gamble on RDRAM, Intel has resorted to a $70 ‘Rambus Rebate Deal’ for its P4 OEM customers. This rebate will apply to Willamette+850 system manufactured during Q4’00, and drop to $60 a pop in Q1’01 after which the program will be abruptly terminated. In Q2’01 OEMs are expected to begin re-directing their attention to lower cost DDR platforms using the Brookdale chip set. Intel will have no reason to subsidize these lower cost SDRAM platforms. It is questionable if this rebate deal will be available to the board makers who were burned so badly over the last year by Intel’s numerous problems with its 820 platforms. It seems unlikely that Intel would produce a rebate unless the manufacturer is able to prove that systems actually shipped with RDRAM populated in the system. Considering the hardships already suffered by the board manufacturers based on limited RDRAM availability and high prices, this scenario seems unlikely. Worse yet, Intel’s rebate program could be a signal to DRAM makers to raise prices on 800 MHz RDRAM parts. In the face of a potential squeeze on 800MHz RIMM availability, the shrinking market for 820 and 840 systems may not provide a large enough market to move the slower RDRAM bin splits - besides there will be no RDRAM subsidy from Intel on these systems. ... There remains one final shocking feature of Almador that has not yet surfaced in the industry rumor mill. The 810 and the 815 both support a small 32-bit 133MHz 4Mbyte SDRAM graphics memory option, which is used for Z-buffer data by the integrated graphics controller. Intel calls this feature a ‘Display Cache Controller’ or DCC. When this additional SDRAM bus is populated, it can improve the performance of some 3D applications by a small margin, but even with this feature activated, the 810/815 3D performance is still entirely uncompetitive for serious 3D. As a result, few OEMs or board makers are actually populating this extra memory bus. Knowing this, Intel has also defined an external SDRAM module option that will allow an OEM the option add this Display Cache SDRAM for some configurations, without burdening all of its customers. The amazing news is that in Almador, Intel will be converting this unused bus to RDRAM. Since Intel’s 820+MTH strategy has failed, this may be nothing more than Intel’s last-ditch effort to ship unpopulated RDRAM interfaces, so that Intel can satisfy the 20% unit volume clause of its contract with Rambus. ... inqst.com Thanks to [H]ard\|OCP for the link. -- Carl