1066 ram question

[nunchalnaomi]

Hi

I just thought I'd throw this out there. I'm building a system for video capture and editing based on the matrox rt.x100. I will be using a asus p4 533c motherboard. I'm going with expensive rambus for the bus speed. Is the 232 pin 32 bit 1066 much better then the 184 pin 16 bit 1066 ram? What are the pluses and minuses? Thanks Nunchal

system basics
p4 2.53
asus p4 533c
1 gig rambus 1066
80 gb system
120 gb a/v
80 gb export
40 gb audio/extra
cl audigy
matrox g550
matrox rt.x100

[DGhost]

i would avoid the 232 pin stuff (or the 32bit/ PC4200 iirc), as the only motherboard that takes it is the asus board, and it has been having problems with high speed P4's

plus, it only has two RDRAM slots and the largest size memory module it can take is 256MB...

edit: to clarify, it could take larger modules, but the largest module i have seen for PC 4200 is 256MB...

[DGhost]

oh, and to answer the question... its the same memory and uses the same protocols and has the same latency and performance... the only difference is in the physical packaging.. the 32bit/ PC4200 dimms are the exact same thing that 2 16bit/PC1066 dimms are... instead of having 4 dimm slots on the motherboard and requiring pairs, they made it so you have 2 dimm slots and can install them 1 at a time... they simply doubled the amount of data that a memory module can transfer each cycle, so instead of requiring 2 16bit memory modules installed, you can get away with 1 32bit...

[WyWyWyWy]

Is there such thing as 16bit/PC1066?
I've seen many 16bit/PC800 but not any 16bit/PC1066...

[DGhost]

yeah, there is such a thing. pretty much any PC1066 memory is 16bit... the 32bit memory is technically not considered PC-1066 at all, as the modules are different

game pc had a fairly good overview on this stuff recently, page is here.

[rylan]

All I can say is.. ugh Rambus

[DGhost]

the P4 combined with rambus provides the highest performance memory on any desktop platform... you cannot get faster on the P4 platform...

[Novdid]

Just wait a month or two...

[mutz]

...I have no complaints, see sig. This rig is smooth, fast and stable with all the features I'd want. I would recommend the Gigabyte board over the Asus. Test reports confirm this.

[Wombat]

the P4 combined with rambus provides the highest performance memory on any desktop platform

Depends what you're doing with it.

[borat]

rambus provides better performance than any other p4 platform, the chip is opimised for it and it has massive bandwidth.(my 2p's worth)

[DGhost]

yeah... it is not the best desktop solution (especially from a price/performance ratio) - DDR333 does offer reasonably close in performance with a fairly lower price tage on it.... but it is still the fastest....

and whats funny is that iirc, the Alpha 21364 chip was gonna have multiple RDRAM controllers integrated into the die....

edit: oh yeah, dual channel DDR will probably provide better performance... hopefully...

[nunchalnaomi]

Hi,

Thank you for your info. I will look into the gigabyte board. You guys are great. Nunchal

[borat]

dont think dual channel ddr will be that good for the p4 as it seems to make little difference with the nforce and p4 is rambus optimised.

[rylan]

Intel optimised the chip for rambus.. and they seem to be regretting the decision.
Anyway, intel is switching to optimise for DDR for future versions of the chip, since rambus is a major pain in the ass to design around.
Rambus is better at streaming data, but really slows down with random access and is also load dependant, so the more ya have, the slower it all runs.. gotta love that :P

Plus Rambus corp is evil.. they remind me of some of microsoft's illegal buisness practices. snicker