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Is Intel RIMMing i820 mobos?

It's your daily dose of Monty Python's Flying Rambus

Over the weekend we heard from divers sources that Intel was supplying Rambus RIMMs with the i820 and i840 motherboards it is selling its PC customers. Yesterday we reported, and it was confirmed by Intel itself, that there is no difference between the chipset on Intel i820 mobos in their Caminogate™ III rev and Caminogate II motherboards. The reports, both from Intel's channel partners and PC customers, are persuasive. According to one source, as Intel failed to discover why there was a problem with three Rambus RIMM sockets and its i820 platform, its PC customers now want the chip giant to populate the boards with memory Intel's PC customers would thus have a guarantee that boards they bought were guaranteed as qualified to work, reducing the amount of blusher on their faces if they populated the boards themselves. One source said: "Perhaps, even with two RIMM slots, failures could happen with certain combinations of types and sizes. So Intel wants to pre-load the boards to avoid the failures." An Intel representative told us: "We've no specific plans but we're continuing to work with the RIMM suppliers and to listen to our customers." He said his comments referred to boxed motherboards. So when it does happen, which member or members of the Seven Dramurai™ will wake up with a silver spoon in its mouth? Will it be Samsung memory or Micron memory? We think the public has a right to know, so when Intel starts shipping populated mobos, maybe one of our readers could have a dekko at the manufacturer for us. Robert Allen, European technology support manager at Kingston Technology, said: "The problems with Rambus wasn't because of the Intel chipset, which was great. We've been testing it with Kingston memory and it's fine." He said that the problem was to do with inferior modules "not produced to the right quality level". He said: "When they put different RIMMs in the board, there were impedance problems". He admitted that the price of Rambus RIMMs was still a little steep. He quoted a Kingston price of $1,100 for 128MB of ECC 800MHz Rambus memory, $950 for 128MB of 600MHz ECC memory. But, he said, those prices will fall. He estimated that Rambus will have eight per cent of the market early next year and as much as 50 per cent by the end of next year. Quite honestly, we're getting as fed up writing about Rambus and RIMMs as you probably are reading it, but Caminogate continues to roll thick and fast. Populate the mobos, stuffing them with RIMMs, this story has got everything... ® Intel's Rambus mobo may have memory bundled Wave of Intel mobos set to wash over world+dog The quick guide to Register jargon

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