RDRAM is a waste of money for a desktop machine.  We have some here and they
suck just as much as the Dell's we have without RDRAM.  It's more expensive
if you want to upgrade the RAM, and you'll burn your fingers on it because
it's really hot.

I wanted to build my own AMD Thunderbird system for half the price of a Dell
and just expense it, but the people above wouldn't let me and spent like
$2500 on a Dell instead.  

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charles Fulton [mailto:cf352197 at oak.cats.ohiou.edu]
> Sent: Monday, December 11, 2000 5:00 PM
> To: tclug-list at lists.real-time.com
> Subject: Re: [TCLUG] RDRAM or no RDRAM
> 
> 
> 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
> 
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