SDRAM vs. RDRAM, Facts and Fantasy

Many have doubted Intel's decision to keep supporting Rambus Direct RDRAM in both its current and upcoming chipsets. Early benchmarks of the Intel i820 chipset platform did not show much of an improvement over existing SDRAM technology. However, our benchmarks with Asus' latest offering show beyond shadow of a doubt that overall it does perform better than any other chipset currently on the market.

We've gone to great lengths to make sure this article is well researched and an accurate, comprehensive and objective representation of current memory technologies, describing their advantages and disadvantages, and addressing any misconceptions. Our benchmark configurations and software used are documented in such a way that the results can be easily reproduced by anyone wishing to verify our findings. We feel that this article has more than adequately discussed most misconceptions about Rambus, SDRAM, RDRAM and why both Intel and Rambus keep backing the technology. Our benchmarks clearly show the performance edge the Intel i820 chipset equipped with Rambus memory has over the other chipsets.

In summary, we're confident that Rambus will continue work on improving the performance of its technology and lowering the price of RDRAMs. Due to the growing demand in memory bandwidth, the arrival of GHz CPUs, Gigabit Networking, real time audio/video and the ever-growing demands of today’s software, we'll soon run into memory bandwidth problems. RDRAM is not perfect, but it is currently one of the most promising solutions to bandwidth, latency and propagation delay problems, and it is scalable, a distinct advantage. It still is expensive, but that's partly because it's new and the market has not caught on yet. Once more manufacturers start producing RDRAM and it becomes as readily available as SDRAM now is, we will see its prices dropping, too.

We think it is about time to step away from the endless price/performance discussion and open our eyes to the potential Rambus Direct RDRAM has to offer. We're not saying you shouldn’t keep an eye on good value, but due to all the negative press Rambus and Intel have gotten for adapting this new memory architecture, the focus hasn't been on the performance potential of Rambus, but on the price and supposedly poorer performance of Rambus modules.

Given the technological advantages Rambus Direct RDRAM offers over current and upcoming memory technologies and its scalability we're confident that once prices start dropping and the technology becomes more commonplace we'll value its performance, bandwidth, robustness, and above all its scalability.

--Sander Sassen

Skip To Page 1 Introduction 2 Rambus Direct RDRAM 3 Conventional Memory Systems 4 RDRAM Benefits 5 Reducing System Cost 6 RDRAM Pricing 7 RDRAM Pricing Continued 8 RDRAM Performance 9 RDRAM Performance Continued 10 System Performance 11 RDRAM Power Consumption 12 Benchmark Applications 13 BAPCo SYSmark 2000 14 Benchmark Setup 15 Benchmark Results Intel 440BX 16 Benchmark Results VIA 694X Apollo Pro 133A 17 Benchmark Results Intel i820 18 Benchmark Evaluation • 19 Conclusion

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