Mother Load
Over a year ago, the PC Authority Labs team was speculating about the possible union of DDR-RAM with the Pentium 4 processor as an alternative to the problematic pairing with RDRAM. While many of the
Over a year ago, the PC Authority Labs team was speculating about the possible union of DDR-RAM with the Pentium 4 processor as an alternative to the problematic pairing with RDRAM. While many of the performance woes of RDRAM have been ironed out with successive iterations and higher clock speeds of the Pentium 4, it is yet to really live up to its touted potential. Enter DDR-RAM, initially with the Intel 845D motherboard chipset, and quickly replacing the Pentium 4 SDR-RAM versions which dont really provide the Pentium 4 with the required bandwidth.
The Labs are chock full of Pentium 4 motherboards supporting DDR-RAM, with four different chipsets handling the combination: the Intel 845D, Intel 845E, Intel 845G and the outstanding maverick chipset from VIA, the P4X333. It seems that DDR-based Pentium 4 motherboards have hit the sweet spot: sufficient bandwidth to keep the Pentium 4 fed; performance; price; and availability factors that RDRAM has never achieved. Intel has also developed the latest i850 chipset (i850E) to redress the situation, and its in the Labs this month too so there is hope for RDRAM to meet its potential.
AMD has well understood the advantages of DDR, and for quite a while has held the performance advantage with the Athlon/DDR combination. While the VIA KT333 chipset featured in the Labs for Athlons offers excellent computing power per dollar, Intel has pulled ahead with the new Pentium 4 based on the 533MHz quad-pumped Front Side Bus. The bottom line is DDR-RAM has taken the well-deserved role as the standard RAM technology.
To get an accurate picture of where everything stands, how all these permutations and combinations compare, and to provide you with the grounding needed to make a choice, the Labs team took the best available CPUs, the Pentium 4 2.4GHz 533MHz FSB, and the new Thoroughbred Athlon XP 2200+, and coupled them with 256MB of DDR-RAM or RDRAM on 18 of the latest motherboard offerings.
So, read on to find out which motherboard will breathe new life into your worn-out computer. . .
LABS EDITOR Ashok Zaman
CONTRIBUTORS Daniel Gardiner
This article appeared in the August, 2002 issue of PC Authority.
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