Which to buy, RDRAM OR DDR 400?

[DJDJ]

OK, here's a question--I've decided on a P4 based system, but I have two matching computers (the only difference is the type of RAM.) Which one should I get--the DDR400, 800Mhz FSB system, or the RDRAM 533 Mhz FSB system?

The DDR400 System:

ASUS P4C800 i875 CHIP 800 FSB 8X AGP MAIN BOARD W/LAN/AUDIO/IEEE-1394/USB2.0
TOWER CASE WITH 420W POWER SUPPLY
800 MHZ FSB INTEL PENTIUM 4 3.2 GHZ HT TECHNOLOGY
DDR400 1024 MB PC3200 MEMORY
MAXTOR 200GB 7200RPM ULTRA ATA-133 8MB CACHE HARD DRIVE
8XAGP ATI RADEON 9800 PRO256MB W/DVI+TV OUT
16X DVD-ROM SONY
CREATIVE LABS SOUND BLASTER AUDIGY 2 PLATINUM 6.1
KLIPSCH PROMEDIA 5.1 500 WATT THX SURROUND SPEAKERS + SUBWOOFER
1.44MB FLOPPY DRIVE
WIRELESS OPTICAL INTELLIMOUSE EXPLORER
KEYBOARD
XP PROFESSIONAL

TOTAL COST: $2787.00


The RDRAM System:

533 MHZ FSB + HT READY ASUS P4T533 C i850E CHIP 4X AGP MAIN BOARD W/USB2.0-10/100LAN
TOWER CASE WITH 420W POWER SUPPLY
533 MHZ FSB INTEL PENTIUM 4 3.06 GHZ HT TECHNOLOGY
RDRAM 1024 MB PC1066 MEMORY
MAXTOR 200GB 7200RPM ULTRA ATA-133 8MB CACHE HARD DRIVE
8XAGP ATI RADEON 9800 PRO256MB W/DVI+TV OUT
16X DVD-ROM SONY
CREATIVE LABS SOUND BLASTER AUDIGY 2 PLATINUM 6.1
KLIPSCH PROMEDIA 5.1 500 WATT THX SURROUND SPEAKERS + SUBWOOFER
1.44MB FLOPPY DRIVE
WIRELESS OPTICAL INTELLIMOUSE EXPLORER
KEYBOARD
XP PROFESSIONAL

TOTAL COST: $2809.00

 

[addiarmadar]

Better yet. Setup a system with dual channel ddr and it will blow away both, especially RDRAM. Anywho I would pick the DDR 400 option.

 

[DJDJ]

Thanks for the reply!

Dual Channel DDR? How will I know if a motherboard supports it? Do you know if any computer resellers (Dell, Alienware, IBuyPower, Voodoo, Falcon, etc.) offer Dual Channel?

 

[ytoledano]

Yeah, Dual-Channel DDR is better. But since I see that money is a minor issue, maybe you should go with Serial ATA, first you need to check if you motherboard supports it, if it doesn't consider switching boards or getting a S-ATA conroller, I think it's worth it.
And something about the mouse, I feel that since wireless mice have batteries they are heavier and so cause more friction with the pad/table. Just because something is expensive doesn't mean it's the best - Do you really nead a wireless mouse?
About the memory, make sure you take a pc3200 with good timings, or that gig or RAM won't improve performance as much as you'd like. If you yourself are building the system put the sticks of DIMMs which use different channels to get the performance boost that the Dual-Channel gives.

Coppermine, Banias, Opteron, Prescott, Barton... How 'bout investing less in the CPU and more in its name?

 

[Crashman]

875P and 865PE chipset boards support Dual Channel operation, to make your two "DDR400" modules have the same bandwidth as a "QDR800" CPU bus. They do this by making the two modules parallel to each other, so the bus is twice as wide.

RDRAM only wins on the "533" bus CPU. The don't make fast enough RDRAM for an "800" bus CPU, and you do get better performance from the faster CPU bus. So your best performance will come from the Dual Channel PC3200 (aka DDR400) on 875P/865PE platform, with an "800" bus CPU.

Right now you can save a bunch of money without loosing performance by using the P4P800-Deluxe board (865PE chipset) instead of the P4C800-Deluxe board (875P chipset). The P4C gives you the ability to use ECC memory, but I don't see where you'll ever do so.

Also you can save a lot of money without loosing noticeable performance with the 9800 Pro 128MB. Most programs can't even take advantage of 64MB of video RAM yet, by the time you actually get any use of the extra RAM, the card will be outdated.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[msnook]

I would have to agree with the s-ata statement, if your going to go for the best might as well go all out.

thiers lots of awesomely fast serial ata hard drives,
such as the seagate cheetahs,

as for a manufacturer, i know falcon north west has the serial ata setup on all thier top ends, thier simple system rigging makes this pretty easy to setup (www.falcon-nw.com)
also i believe the f-5's over at voodoo have a similiar setup, and if not, they should (www.voodoo-pc.com)

i would definetly go with the 800 mhz frontside bus, but if at all possible wait for the memory clockings to become more stable, DDR 2 is a relativley new manufacturing process that imho is growing to quickly, with to many sticks being touted as "highly clocked", at a sacrifice to stability and lifetime of the product. I would also consider the fact that rambus is definetly on the way out, and is an expensive choice. The performance is good, but the times are changing for rambus, i would stick with the new technology, but be careful not to be cut by the bleeding edge.

 

[pIII_Man]

I don't see what the big hype of sata is...you find me an ide drive that can have a 100mb/s sustained transfer rate and i will buy you dinner...that being said no drives currently or in the near future use all the badwith of ultra ata 133 let alone sata...so do not buy a hard drive just because it uses sata...save your money...unless you have your heart set on a raptor then PATA could save you some money.

The only reason servers and other high end systems have very high bandwith drive interfaces (scsi) is because they "daisy chain" many drives off of one channel...in that case the extra bandwith is necissary and actually used!

There is no smell better than fried silicon

 

[DJDJ]

Thank you very much for all the responses--I think I may opt to cut back one notch on the CPU, get the matching mobo and RAM as Crash recommended, and get the 128MB version of the Radeon. That alone knocks off $500. Money isn't necessarily an object with my setup; I do want as good performance as possible, but it seems that after a certain point you're paying in spades for small performance gains.

 

[NateKingCole]

weird man. The P4P800 has 5.1 surround sound on board. Unless your getting 6.1 surround speakers I'd ditch the sound card. Onboard sound has come a long was in the past few years, you'll be fine with it and you'll save some money.
Another thing, if money is not really a concern, go for a RAID setup, that'll enhance your preformance more than anything else really.