Northwood B + i850E or SiS R658 chipset

RDRAM RIMM4200 P4 chipsets will be somewhat cheaper than DDR PC2100/PC2700 P4 chipsets.

According to DigiTimes of Taiwan, i850E's quoted at 40 USD. R658, the first RDRAM chipset from SiS, will cost about $20 or $18.

Quote:

http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/ [...] s=01&seq=2

Charles Chou, Taipei; Christy Lee, DigiTimes.com [Monday 8 April 2002]


The Rambus architecture has reentered the Pentium 4-platform arena with Intel to launch its latest RDRAM-based chipset 850E in April and Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) planning to introduce its Rambus PC-1066-supporting R658 chipset in the third quarter, at the earliest.

Supporting the 533MHz FSB (front-side bus) standard, the 845E and 850E are set to hit the market in the second quarter, according to Intel’s roadmap. Volume shipments of the DDR-based 845E boards are expected to start in May, while 850E products are estimated to begin shipping as early as the end of this month. Chipset designer SiS is said to be certain to launch a new RDRAM-supporting product, the R658, in the third quarter to strengthen its P4 chipset portfolio.

The 850E is now quoted at US$40 per unit, slightly cheaper than the 845E’s price of US$41. Given this benchmark, the price of SiS’s R658 is also expected to be lower than those of the company’s SiS645 series. Meanwhile, as DDR and SDRAM memories continue to take center stage in the market, the price of the usually expensive RDRAM has also been dropping to a more moderate level. The retail price differential between 128MB RDRAM and DDR modules is now around NT$200.

Motherboard makers have said that Rambus PC-1066 memories are indeed the best companion for the new P4 processors, as they can truly match the greater transmission bandwidth of 4.2GB/s. At present, the bandwidth of DDR266 memories reaches only 2.1GB/s, with that of DDR333 at 2.7GB/s.

With the more mature platform and more competitive price/performance, the RDRAM-based P4 chipset is expected to stand a good chance in the high-end market, industry sources said. However, given chipset designers’ complete DDR chipset lines at present, RDRAM-supporting products are unlikely to become the new mainstream in the near future.

Related stories:

Intel to launch 845G, 845GL and 845E together in May (Feb 6)

SiS and Rambus expand technology licensing agreement (Nov 13)

SiS to launch DDR400-based chipset in 2002 (Nov 2)

Intel’s roadmap change makes motherboard makers wary (Oct 10)


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