RDRam...WTF?

[Slam'n Systems]

Lol,

First off I must say that in the PC World, I haven't searched every nick and crany about PC Hardware but I know enough to build computers for a lifetime. Now, a friend who knows *NOTHING* about PC's excepting sitting down and playing PC Games comes up to me and tells me he is getting 512 Megs of RDRam. I corrected him saying SDRam or DDR but he said NO, RDRam! I have no clue what this RDRam is and he said its 2x better then DDR which I had to smack him for saying! He payed like 170 for 512 Megs for this RDRam!

Is RDRam truley that great? I've found out Gateway and Alienware and sometimes Dell uses RDRam, but how good can It be for such a non-popular ram?

 

[Martin]

Unless I were using a P4 with HT technology, I wouldn't pay extra for RDRAM - maybe he just bought from purely looking at the specs. :\

 

[Slam'n Systems]

He said his computer only supported RDRam...and then bringing it to Best Buy spending $25 to install the ram! I mean...common sense here, it doesn't cost $25 to take of the side and pop in ram! Then, his PC Crashed and didn't work! Haha, I don't know who Im laughing at more...him or BestBuy guy...

So...whats so great about RDRam anyways?

 

[Ecniv]

Theoretically, RDRAM is faster, as it has a 400Mhz bus speed, but considering it has much higher heat generation, and the price increase, and the fact that the Bus speeds on the mobo, PCI, etc, will bottleneck it, i dont see how its worth it.

 

[Martin]

High latency is also one of its biggest problems... which is a reason why it wasn't really adopted as a standard for graphics cards... except in a couple instances.

 

[Shroud]

RDRAM now has a FSB of 1066MHz.. so it is actually quite a bit faster and works great with a P4.. problem is it is uber expensive and in my opinion is not worth the extra cash.

 

[Ecniv]

thats funny, since the bus speed of the P4 is only 400Mhz, what good is that?

 

[Shroud]

Yes I know.. but hey, if you gotta have the newest stuff then there you go..

I personally have a AMD XP 2400+ with 1 gig DDR 3200.. so I am fine with that.