P4 and RDRAM

[Guest]

The Pentium 4 and Rambus have a huge memory bandwidth. This is well known. However for MOST home users the most taxing applications are 3D games. So far I know of no 3D video cards that use memory faster than DDR and I have heard nothing about video card manufacturers using RDRAM. Therefore what benefit is having RDRAM on a Quad data rate bus if the video card memory bandwidth will be the limiting factor? Quake 3 benefits from RDRAM but only at the lowest resolutions. I am sure there are some applications that benefit but I would rather save my money now than spend it on premium technology that is currently limited by the video card. The Rambus marketing director says RDRAM on the P4 is the best thing since sliced bread, but the best for WHAT? And don't tell me about future applications. By the time the future applications are out current hardware will no longer be the best or most expensive.

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends...

 

[Guest]

.... Yes, despite 400Mhz bus and DDR RDRAM, the bottom line is, PIV performs like PIII 800 or Athlon 700 most of the time, so its just a big MISTAKE, unless priced accordingly.