> Personally - although this is distinctly unfashionable - I far prefer Rambus > memory - so far as GIMPS is concerned, a 2.53 GHz P4 using PC1066 Rambus > memory (implying the i850E chipset) will outperform _any_ system up to 2.8 > GHz using DDR memory. The point here is that the total memory bandwidth of > the Rambus system is 4200 Mbytes/sec, whereas even using 400 MHz DDR memory > (just as rare & expensive as PC1066 Rambus memory) you are only going to get > 3200 MBytes/sec.
I'm just curious, were those RDRAM vs DDR benchmarks done using the newer 512K cache P4 chips? The larger cache should, at least in theory, serve to partially mitigate the slower memory bus. Also, DDR has lower latency than RDRAM, which somewhat offsets the slower burst rate. pricewise, again using the local cloneshop I got the previous prices from, replace the motherboard and ram like so... -$133 Asus P4PE/L (i845pe chip, integrated ethernet and audio) -$158 Samsung 512MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM +$173 Asus P4T533-C/Lan (i850e w/ sound and ethernet) +$308 Samsung 512MB PC1066 RDRAM for a net difference of ~ $200, pushing the total to $1230. btw, lotsa folks will disagree with me, but I find onboard sound to be more than sufficient for 99% of users actual needs.... unless you are hooking this system up to a goldenears audiophile system, you aren't gonna hear the difference, and I've had *SO* much trouble with the proprietary drivers for the likes of Sound Blaster Live and Audigy cards that I will never touch another one. btw, I left out an important piece of the whitebox system... $148 Microsoft Windows XP Professional OEM (if you buy this WITH the system, you save $100 over the retail version) There is two key features of PRO vs "Home" that makes it worth the extra $50 to me... A) Remote Desktop, and B) Security. XP Home's security model is way too braindamaged. XP Pro's Remote Desktop Services is far superior to 3rd party remote control packages such as PC/Anywhere, or VNC. The 3rd key difference is dual processor support, which won't matter on a single CPU system like this. _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
