[Warlock]

With the parts I've got laying around ...I can either stick with my current set up,..256 Meg Rambus or 370 Meg SDram...
Both on a 800mHz P III Cpu

[Top Gun]

SDRAM is cheap but fairly slow. RDRAM is bloody fast but expensive. DDR (double data rate) SDRAM is not that much more expensive than SDRAM but a lot faster (although not as fast as RDRAM) although the speeds of the various types obviously vary. Just take a look at the speeds of the memory chips you're about to buy Faster = more expensive = better. If I had to choose between the two I'd go for RDRAM.

[vadar_1]

id say the human brain has the best memory... not neccesarily the fastest though...

[TheCelestialOne]

Originally posted by vadar_1
id say the human brain has the best memory... not neccesarily the fastest though...

A human brain is much faster than a super computer at something like visual recognition. It is much slower at math than a hand calculator because it is built differently.  Neural Network research is starting to look at how the brain works.  One of the big differences is that on a typical computer with linear processors, those processors do one thing at a time. This allows you to count how much it does in a second.  A typical PC has one processor and a lot of memory.  A typical brain has billions of processors (neurons).

[Warlock]

Well least one reply was within the topic

Actually ...I already OWN the 256 Meg of ECC Rambus AND the 370 (somewhere in that amount) of SDRam.

Just trying to figure out which one is the better one to run with since I can't very well run on two seperate motherboards lol

[Redfang]

RDRAM for Pentium III? It's normally used in P4, and I didn't even know PIII motherboards support it also (or at least some of them).
 
I think you should maybe test with a few benchmarks, though I guess RDRAM is faster, even if it's not a P4 which needs fast memory. But if you do things that require not that fast but lots of memory use SDRAM, or buy more RDRAM.

[wEvil]

RDRAM is good for streaming applications cuz its a serial linked memory type instead of a row/column tpye like SDRAM.

Essentially its got terrible latency problems but very high bandwidth.

Really only worth it for video streaming and the like, 3D stuff doesnt get much of a boost cuz thats mostly asynchronous.


Plus for political reasons, I normally shoot people who buy or recommend rambus.  Just read up on what that company is like......bleurgh.

[Warlock]

So then switching back to the 370 or so Meg SDRam would be best for rendering and such ?

[Top Gun]

Originally posted by Redfang
I guess RDRAM is faster

No guessing about it, RDRAM is hugely faster although it's a proprietary technology patented by Rambus, which has since been Rambusted for monopolistic practices