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Will Intel be able to drop Rambus?

Forum Motherboards & Memory : Memory - Will Intel be able to drop Rambus?

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Intel has positioned itself to rely hevily on RDRAM. The P4 needs the huge bandwidth that only duel channel RDRAM can give. Not even everyone's favorite DDR-SDRAM can feed the bandwidth hungry P4 enough to keep it alive. So, does the success of Rambus not heavily depend upon the success of Intel and the P4. And, on the other side of the coin, does the success of the P4 (if not Intel itself) heavily depend upon the success, cost and availability of Rambus Direct DRAM?

Edited by Ulysses on 11/27/00 10:45 PM.

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Mostly, the success of P4 depends on RDRAM prices, which, in years it has been out, haven't dropped the slightest bit.

Reply to Anonymous

I read somewhere on the web that RAMBUS only had an 8-bit data bus. Is this true?

Reply to Anonymous

supposedly Intel are trying to get out. Next year when their agreement expires they are releasing a DDR motherboard and chipset etc. And yes i would say that Rambus is one of the reasons why the P3 and 4 will do badly as its too damn expensive

Please dont hurt me.....please

Reply to Killerkris

The 8 bit is true. However... everyone hang on to your money. Flash ram is getting ready to hit the market and drop in price. EVerything is going to that. I work in the semiconductor industry and I KNOW. Like I said.....HANG ON!!!!

Reply to Anonymous

Bandwidth is only part of the problem, the other being latency. RDRAM isn't exceptional with latency, in fact in the majority of situations, it's worse than SDR SDRAM. I wouldn't say or even imply that bandwidth is the sole characteristic of a good memory type. RDRAM has proved itself to be impractical in price to performance when compared to SDRAM, and I doubt that when to compared to DDR SDRAM it's going to fare any better

Reply to Anonymous

I understand the latency problem with RD-RAM, but it DOES OFFER SUBSTANTIAL BANDWIDTH! BANDWIDTH that the quad pumped P4 needs. I don't recall the exact numbers but duel channel PC-800 RD-RAM offers a lot more BANDWIDTH than DDR-SDRAM. Don't get me wrong, I am one of the original Athlon owners and I LOVE DDR and hate Rambus, I will soon be running Linux and only buy ATI video cards (I am Canadian), but I doubt that the P4 can hold on to what proformance it has if it didn't have RD-RAM.

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RDRAM offers 3.2 gigs of theorical bandwidth, whereas DDR SDRAM only offers 2.1 gigs of theorical bandwidth. It is true that bandwidth is a concern for most modern processors, but latency also plays a BIG part in performance. The reality of the situation is that although it might be nice to have 3.2gigs of bandwidth in the future, it really isn't all that necessary with today's processors, or even those expected to come in next year. RDRAM has shown itself to be difficult to make, and as a result it is very expensive, even without counting the license fees that you have to pay to Rambus. Obviously there is no way to tell for sure which memory would be better at serving the P4, as there is no DDR SDRAM chipset yet, or even in the near future. But considering the Athlon smokes the P3 with pc800 RDRAM when using DDR SDRAM on an unrefined chipset, I think that DDR SDRAM would at least have a pausible chance of being on par with RDRAM on a P4. Mere speculation, but I look forward to the future. It is doubtful that anyone's software or hardware now, or even a year into the future is going to benefit from this higher bandwidth ceiling, one that we are still at a respectable distance from hitting. The advantages of lower latency can be recognized and utilized today; there is a rather large performance difference between CAS2 and CAS3 SDRAM, 5-10%, or so I've read.

Reply to Anonymous

whats the use of this huge memory bandwith if p4 cannot perform 200% of p3 or athlon? with all these goodies (new netburst (or netbust) architecture, deeper pipelines, quad pumped dual cahnnel 3.2 gig mem b/w etc) and hell high cost p4 DOES NOT deliver the goods and fails to overpower even the old p3 let alone athlon.

ddr might not provide this high bandwidth, but certainly high enough for its cost. we might see it rising in course of time (and cost coming down). with intel adapting ddr in its newer chipset it will certainly boost its demand and reduce the cost.

i cant stop remembering the IBM MCA (Micro Channel Architecture) going dead that IBM had kept it closed. rdram will go teh same way unless rambus significanlty reduces or takes off its royalty demands and makes the standard open. otherwise a very much potent and superior standard will go dead waste.

girish

Reply to girish

Who wants to support a company that sues everyone in the industry! This is their business model! And we all think Microsoft is bad! I hate Rambus!

Reply to Anonymous

We can only hope. However Rambus is hooking it's claws and will go down kicking and screaming. I personally hope the justice department gives rambus a fatality.

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