Caminogate recall – read the small print
All Rambus is equal, but some is more equal than others
Posted in Business, 24th May 2000 16:05 GMT
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The news that Intel is to offer either PC700 or PC800 Rambus to Cape Cod mobo owners would appear to be a generous offer, as cynics have been claiming only feeble PC600 RIMMs would be available.
However, reading the small print on Chipzilla's Web site, you will discover that the supplied Rambus memory will be "128MB of PC700 or PC800 RDRAM based on availability". [Our italics]
No prizes for guessing what the answer will be if you ask for PC800, then.
But PC700 is better than that crappy PC600 stuff, though, isn't it?
Er, no, it isn't actually. Consider this footnote from the Supported Memory section of Intel's VC820 (the mobo Intel is supplying to replace faulty Cape Cods) product guide: "The BIOS configures the Rambus interface to a memory bus frequency of 300MHz for PC700 memory when configured with a host bus frequency of 100MHz. This is equivalent to PC600 performance."
In other words, if you use a 100MHz FSB Pentium III, it makes absolutely no difference to performance if you use PC600 or PC700 RIMMs. 'Proper' PC800 Rambus will run at 400MHz with either 100 or 133MHz FSB processors. ®
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