Michael Bresnahan wrote:

> Dell will sell me a Dimension 4100 with 133Mhz SDRAM and a ATA-66 hard
> drive for $2178.  For $400 more, they will sell me a Dimension XPS B
> with RDRAM and a ATA-100 hard drive.  Can you tell me what the extra
> $400 buys me?  How much better is RDRAM over SDRAM and ATA-100 over
> ATA-66?

The ATA difference is nill... at least if you only have one drive
attached to it.

RDRAM... well.  It technically has some advantages over SDRAM.  It's able
to move much more data in once clock cycle. and for EXTREMELY data
intensive work (MPEG encoding for example) you will see some improvement,
but by and large it doesn't offer much to the typical user, or even the
avid gamer.

Pretty much $400 pays the licensing to Rambus... I wouldn't personally go
for it (but then I wouldn't go for an PIII either) But it's really a
matter of what are you going to use the computer for whether it
worthwhile for you.

Charlie