Hi techreports; Re: "And for your comment that RDRAM might not provide any increase in speed, then explain the reports I've read that a 1.5GHz P4 with RDRAM out does a 1.7GHz P4 with SDRAM, yet costs less?"
That an RDRAM equipped computer costs less than the equivalent SDRAM equipped computer is a Rambus lie. RDRAM is more expensive than SDRAM, RIMM modules are more expensive to manufacture than DIMM modules, and RDRAM motherboards are more expensive to manufacture than SDRAM motherboards. Enough said.
To compare expensive dual channel RDRAM systems with inexpensive single channel SDRAM systems isn't very fair. Instead you should compare expensive dual channel RDRAM systems with expensive dual channel DDR systems. But you won't have any such DDR systems to compare with until next year (other than the nVidia nForce 420).
The naked fact is that there are far more computers with inexpensive single channel memory systems sold computers with expensive dual channel memory systems. Single channel systems are mainstream, dual channel systems are high end.
Rambus had a single channel RDRAM system, it was called "Camino" and it was a famous disaster, with low performance, poor stability and high costs. You can now buy the motherboards for $42 on pricewatch. Intel had another single channel RDRAM system in design, it was called Timna, and it was cancelled for the same reasons that plagued Camino.
Now the word is that Intel has a dual channel DDR system. When it gets here, supposedly about a year from now, then you can compare expensive dual channel DDR P4 motherboards to expensive dual channel RDRAM P4 motherboards. Here's a prediction: The DDR will win.
In fact, if it wasn't obvious to Intel that RDRAM was going to stay expensive, and that DDR would be cheaper and better, Intel wouldn't be going to the trouble of designing these new DDR systems.
Intel got themselves into trouble by signing that contract with Rambus and now they are slowly getting themselves out of it.
Re: "RDRAM adds like 40-60 dollars to the cost of a computer. If you are buying a $2,000 dollar machine, it doesn't really matter. Granted, if you are buying a 600 dollar machine, then it probably does."
You're making up numbers here. If I'm going to buy a $2000 computer, I'm going to put 1GB of DRAM onto it, not the 128MB you're probably assuming. Four 256MB DDR PC2100 DIMMs costs $104 on Pricewatch right now, while the same amount of RDRAM RIMMs costs $328. That's a difference of $224. If you have the vendor supply your DRAM, the difference will be even greater. Your estimate of $40 to $60 would be the difference for some dinky $600 computer with minimum memory, not a high end machine intended for photoshop applications.
Yeah, I know that you're a Rambus moron, and it's impossible to argue with you about these things, but think about it. Why did Intel make the 845? Why is Intel supporting SDRAM for the P4? Why does PriceWatch now have 7 pages of hits for "845 SDRAM" and also 7 pages of hits for "850 RDRAM"? Why did Jdaasoc, a long time Rambus investor and pump, suddenly announce that SDRAM will be the main memory for the P4? Why is Dell supporting SDRAM for the P4? Do you think that Dell will support DDR for the P4?
You're way past the point where it was reasonable to suggest that RDRAM had a future. It's time to admit that Rambus' only chance is in the legal arena.
Re: "This is also ignoring the fact that RDRAM prices will come down in price. What happens if RDRAM is as cheap as DDR?" That's easy. If RDRAM is as cheap as DDR, monkeys will fly out of my ass. Since I haven't had a monkey / ass problem recently, I'd say that it's not going to happen. And Intel said the same thing:
Paul Otellini (Intel VP) on RDRAM:
"The problem is the cost structure. The cost structure never met the goals we had."
news.cnet.com
What part of "the cost structure never met the goals we had" do you have trouble understanding? What happened with RDRAM is that the industry had trouble making the stuff, and told all the users (memory designers like me) that DDR would be the next mainstream memory. They promised us DDR at the same price as SDRAM, and most of them never even bothered to put RDRAM into production. Meanwhile the RDRAM makers (Toshiba and Samsung) never promised us that RDRAM would be as cheap as SDRAM, and wouldn't make any unless they had the orders in hand. To design engineers that spells "niche memory", and specifying niche memories is how hardware design engineers end up being forced to write software (or drive taxis) for a living, so we designed in DDR instead. Only a few companies went with DDR, and it was due to their management making the mistake of ordering their engineers to use it or walk. The companies that designed in RDRAM recognized their error and used DDR or SDRAM for their next products (the one you've heard the most about is Nintendo). New companies showing up with no baggage chose DDR over RDRAM (Microsoft, nVidia, ALi, SiS, VIA, ATI, Cisco, IBM, Agere, AMD, Broadcom, PMC-Sierra, Transmeta, ST-Microelectronics, etc.) because DDR was widely supported by lots of industry stuff like the FPGAs available from Xilinx and Altera, while RDRAM was hardly supported at all. This convinced us to use DDR instead of RDRAM, and that made DDR the standard. The memory makers left RDRAM as a niche memory to die on the vine. They never manufactured it for the spot market, never gave pricing on it comparable to SDRAM, and just to make sure that RDRAM never got out of niche status, they further broke the RDRAM chip market into 6 different sub markets each with incompatible pinouts. By comparison, JEDEC standard DDR comes in only 3 pinouts (x4, x8, x16), and those three pinouts differ only in the width of the data bus. Get over it, the RDRAM story is over.
For a description of why design engineers chose DDR over RDRAM see: #reply-15751210 The thing to remember is that there is a delay of about 1 to 3 years from when design engineers decide on what memory to use in a chip to when actual products using that chip are available for sale. The engineering decisions as to what memory types will be used in 2002 were decided in 2000, and at that time RDRAM was horribly expensive. The fact that RDRAM has dropped in price is great, but it's too late for the RDRAM designs that instead used DDR last year. And DDR is still a lot cheaper than RDRAM, so none of those engineers who chose DDR is having any problems keeping his job (at least for that reason).
-- Carl |
