Current Guide?

[Guest]

Sorry if this question has been answered elsewhere, I've only done a little searching... (flame suit on)

Anyways, I'm looking to build a new system. Its been 5 years now, and I've intentionally avoided looking at hardware since then as I have not wanted to get sick from watching the value of my equipment drop.

So right now I'm playing catchup trying to get up to speed with memory evolution since '97. Looking at the market, I'm seeing a multitude of new types.

Can anyone provide a pointer to a guide that will get me up to speed on current memory types? Tom's page is giving me plenty about most everything else, but I don't see a guide younger than late '00 on the site.

I'm one of those guys who only rebuilds every 5 years, so I go ahead and put in max memory in a board, so this is kinda important to me.

TIA

chjrb

 

[lhgpoobaa]

allright. quick rundown.
3 types of ram

1. SDRAM - getting obselete, but still good for budget systems. speed is measured in Mhz i.e.
PC100, PC133, PC150 for 100,133 & 150Mhz.

2. DDR - sdram replacement...twice the bandwidth
measured in 2 ways, PC1600 (DDR200), PC2100 (DDR266), PC2700 (DDR333)
PC1600 runs at 100Mhz double pumped.

3. RDRAM - somewhat controversial new ram type. only usable with the P4 (and some p3's)
runs at 800mhz or soon to also be 1066mhz.

should u want to get an AMD system, the solution is DDR ram for max performance.
prices are quite cheap now for DDR.
for a athlon motherboard, look for one based on the following chipsets SiS735, SiS745, Via KT266A, KT333, Nforce 420-D or 415-D

if u want a Pentium4 the best performance is got from a RDRAM system... at a price premium of course.
but at all costs, avoid SDRAM with the pentium4 and also avoid the socket423 chipset...its gonna be obselete... get a 478 for a better upgrade path.

MasterPoo@mybeast.myhome.melbourne.vic.au.sothernhemisphere.3rdplanet.sol.milkyway.universe