Rdram worthless? Please help me.

[Possumking]

I have a custom built computer --my brother built it for me in 2002, and basically everything was top-notch about 4 years ago.

I have 2.8 Ghz P4
Radeon 9700 Pro graphics card
Asus p4t533-c Motherboard
and 512 Rdram.

I really need to beef up my ram, but I've noticed that rdram and rdram compatible motherboards are hard to come by. So my issue is, what motherboard should I upgrade to? I do play games, but I won't be doing any super overclocking? Just a pretty good motherboard but nothing too intense.

Is rdram worth the hassle? Should I get a motherboard that also supports it, or should I just get a regular one and buy a 1 Gb stick --and ditch the 512 rdram stick?

I'd really appreciate your help!! Thanks!!

 

[vimka]

Ditch the RDRam. You can probably sell it to a local computer shop for a decent amount. As you said, it's hard to come by and therefore fetches quite a big price.

Get a board that supports dual-channel DDR, and get either 2x512 or 2x1GB. DDR is pretty cheap stuff, especially when compared to RDRAM.

 

[theaxemaster]

What's your budget?

RDRAM is fast but prohibitively expensive (I had a similar setup as yours). If you got the setup ~4 years ago, I'll assume you're on socket 478. So for the same money to upgrade the ram, you could easily get a new motherboard and some fast DDR. Abit's IC7 is a good suggestion (don't buy the VIA chipset, I have it, its not very stable).

Also, and this is my recommendation if budget permits, sell the processor and get an LGA775 chip (if you want to stick with intel, at this point you can choose either). The same speed chip will cost you approximately the same money either way (within ~$30) so you could sell the one you've got and not have to pay much difference to get the newer chipset.

 

[Alpha4]

I concur with Vimka's suggestion to just ditch your RDRam and Mobo.

In any case, if you find a buyer for your 512MB RDram and they still want more than point them in my direction!
I have a pair of 32-bit 256MB PC1066 RDRam modules collecting dust thanks to my crapped out Asus P4T533-R ><.

I suspect individual 512mb modules are even harder to come by, even though Rambus offers the luxury of using a continuity chip to provide a complete circuit.
However, if you decide to follow the path of rambus and you can't get your hands on a pair of 512mb sticks than you can consider scoring a mobo running the SiS R659 chipset, which boasts 4 232-pin Rambus slots, allowing you to couple four 256mb modules to provide 1GB. GL with whatever u decide.

 

[JonathanDeane]

No no no keep your RDRAM in 20 years it will be uber collectable heheh I have some old old computers from the 80's and they are starting to go up in price on Ebay hehehe

 

[WoodenPupa]

How does RDRAM 800 or 1066 compare to modern DDR though...I always thought DDR was much faster...is this correct?

 

[losmeme]

Ditch the RDram. Old/expensive technology. I pulled two 128MB modules out of a computer someone was throwing out, and made 55 bucks for it on eBay.

Sell the RDram, and buy DDR. Much less expensive, so you can really DRAM up a new motherboard. Abit is a good choice, as mentioned above.

 

[JonathanDeane]

How does RDRAM 800 or 1066 compare to modern DDR though...I always thought DDR was much faster...is this correct?

Actualy at the time it was faster of course at the time DDR was at 266Mhz or something and since then it has gotten alot faster the other thing that killed of RDRAM was the price.... Wayyyy too much $$$ you could get like 2-4X as much DDR memory for the same money. That and Rambus didnt want to liscence out its tech. I also seem to recall that while RDRAM had high bandwidth it had horid latency (something like CL16 or some other crazy high number compared to DDR wich good sticks have 2's) I guess it was good for processing video but bad for things like games.

 

[Possumking]

Wow, thanks for all the help! Well I looked at the Abit IC7 and it looks like it'd be perfect. I'm going to ditch the rdram...soo if anyone wants a 512 stick + continuity chip......

Just to make sure, as long as I get a new motherboard and ram I will be fine for now, because I don't plan on upgrading my graphics card right now. The radeon is compatible right?

I'm guessing that I'll most likely have to find a compatible case for the motherboard, though...am I wrong?

I really appreciate your help!!

 

[vimka]

Just to make sure, as long as I get a new motherboard and ram I will be fine for now, because I don't plan on upgrading my graphics card right now. The radeon is compatible right?

I'm guessing that I'll most likely have to find a compatible case for the motherboard, though...am I wrong?

Yes, a new motherboard with DDR support and the same socket as your current CPU and you will be fine. Your video card is AGP so just make sure to get a board with that and not PCI-Express (don't think there are any 478 boards that support PCI-Express anyway).

As to the case, they're pretty standardized so a new one should not be necessary.

 

[sojrner]

that IC7 is agp, so you will be fine w/ the 9700 card. It is also atx, and I assume that b/c your old system was home-brew you have an atx case so you should be fine there too.

EDIT: oops, just looks @ your specs and see that your old mobo is fine; it's atx so you are good.

just get the mobo and ram and all is good.

 

[bweir]

My parent's have a crappy little Dell with 256mb of RDRAM running WinXP. I've looked into upgrading it for them, but seeing the price of 512mb RDRAM soar above the price of 2Gb DDR memory, I nearly choked on my own disbelief.

At that point, I gave up on upgrading that little POS. So to answer your question, RDRAM is not worthless, but it is ridicolously expensive (4x that of DDR) and not worth upgrading with, IMHO.

 

[the_taker]

I say replace it with a different mobo and get DDR, and as far as the stuff you have, see if someone you know has an RDRAM system and have pity on them, and sell it to them real cheap.

I have a P4 1.8 running on an intel board with RDRAM (423 pin) it does okay for what i do with it. it started at 128MB, which was dog-slow, then I added another 128MB that I got from my dad who had the same system. This was killing me, when I tried to multitask (bit torrent, MP3, games, etc) so i bought 2x256MB off Ebay, and was able to up my total RAM to 640MB. this is going to be my workhorse/server, once I decommission it as a desktop, and reload the OS. the RAM purchase wasn't to bad, at about 80 bucks, it's still not sky-high like it was a few years ago (in the multi-hundred range). now I have 128MB that I'll keep around in case any part of my RAM fails. (since i'll be keeping the system as a server, i decided it's worth more to keep and have backup parts than to sell and make a few bucks)

 

[Possumking]

Well with your help I've decided to ditch/sell the ram. But what motherboard should I get? I looked for the Abit Ic7 but it seems to be discontinued. I'm looking for something that will really improve my PCs performance but will still support my graphics card and CPU. Any recommendations?

 

[theaxemaster]

Not exactly cheap, but not expensive:

http://www.pcprogress.com/product.asp?m1=pw&pid=ABIC7

And look at all those PCI slots! Don't get that with them SLI boards

 

[Possumking]

Not exactly cheap, but not expensive:

http://www.pcprogress.com/product.asp?m1=pw&pid=ABIC7

And look at all those PCI slots! Don't get that with them SLI boards

Is that the Abit IC7 or the Ic7-max3? What is an SLI board?

http://www.pcprogress.com/product.asp?orderid=44250637681280153989791&PID=ABIC7%2DG

Looks exactly the same but is $164 instead of $109. <EDIT> It looks like the $164 uses the 875 chipset. But anyways, is the first one the IC7-Max3? If so then I think I've found my match thanks to all of you!!

 

[sojrner]

take your pick here.

try to stick w/ the intel chipsets and not via, but anything there will work fine for you.

lots of choices/prices.

 

[Possumking]

Alright. I'm just going to go with the $109 IC7 off of PCPROGRESS and I'm going to get either 1 gb or 2 gb DDR off of eBay. Thanks for all of your help.

By the way, wtf are chipsets --I have i850 now...does it matter what I upgrade to as long as it's intel ?

 

[sojrner]

the chipset is the main chip that controls the entire mobo. everything goes through it, and it controls all...

for your processor, yes: as long as its intel. via was not so good back then.

 

[butitoy]

ASUS P4P800SE Socket 478 Intel 865PE ATX Intel Motherboard

solid performer!!!! period

no firewire though.

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=P4P800SE-DT&cat=MBB

 

[sojrner]

true. The only issue I have w/ that board it that 2 of my friends got it a few years ago and the chipset fan went out on it about a year after purchase. Once that happened things went very bad. agp issues etc. Not even a new fan fixed it.

That is only 2 cases of badness though, all else I heard was good for that board. and reviews were stellar.

 

[WoodenPupa]

This is somewhat off topic, but while we're discussing RDRAM I have a RAM question in general.

First off, I replace my computer about every 3-4 years. I don't upgrade piecemeal, I just swap out the whole thing. Basically every time I buy I get hardware that is multifold faster than the previous. Especially when performance was a MHz race, I could always bank on getting at least 2X the real-world speed of my last comp.

However I have never been sure about RAM and how much "real world" impact it has on a system. Given two systems that are otherwise equal, how much difference is this area going to make? I've read a little bit of literature on-line about aggressive CAS timings, throughput, and all of that. Personally, I don't care about any benchmarks if they don't have a noticeable impact on performance. And I haven't yet read anything that has explained to me the real-world difference between DDR and DDR2, for example.

So what's the story? Does my MP3 encoding get faster because I have better RAM? Do my photoshop transforms really speed up with any noticeable effect?

Thanks in advance for any answers.

 

[sojrner]

Given two systems that are otherwise equal, how much difference is this area going to make?

well, if the systems are equal then you have the same ram too. Each processor is married to a particular ram. in the case of newer pentium 4's you are stuck w/ ddr2. On current amd chips you are using "regular" ddr. You cannot change that. For performance differences you need to look at the whole system.

within a given system, ie: the amd system w/ ddr, you can run faster/slower ram. optimal is ddr 400 (pc3200) to match what the processor is built for. If you run slower (ddr 333, pc2700) you would get much lower performance. Faster ram would not benefit at all as it would default down to the processor memory controller speed. (overclocking is where you need the faster ram)

on the same system, the latency/timing affects performance more on amd systems than intel, as ddr2 has slower timings to no detriment. That said, the delta is minimal, and only enthusiasts that overclock for every last tick of performance really notice it.

basically:
if you overclock or try to wring out every ounce of performance then spend the $ on higher end ram w/ the tight timings and faster speeds. for all else (read: normal operation) stick w/ the ram the system was built for. on current amd that is ddr400, on intels it is ddr2 800.

 

[WoodenPupa]

Okay, that makes sense. Thanks!

 

[sojrner]

nprb, rock on.