What do you guys thing about the P4

[Josip Loncaric]

Greg Lindahl wrote:
> 
> I don't
> recall, but I assume that the P4 has bigger bandwidth but higher
> latency?

That's my understanding too.  The P4 chip has a much higher FSB
bandwidth than a PIII, so even a single CPU can take advantage of higher
memory bandwidth.  Intel has locked itself into the P4/RDRAM
combination, which does deliver high memory bandwidth.  Unfortunately,
RDRAM costs about 40% more and has somewhat higher latency than DDR
SDRAM (another high bandwidth product).  Cheaper DDR SDRAM is AMD's
choice.  Since DDR memory delivers about 1/3 higher bandwidth than a
single Athlon can use, you may want a dual Athlon motherboard to fully
exploit DDR memory.  Dual Athlon motherboards are on the way, but they
are not to be discussed yet.  By this summer, the picture ought to get
clearer.

Sincerely,
Josip

-- 
Dr. Josip Loncaric, Research Fellow               mailto:josip at icase.edu
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