"To DDR or not to DDR, that is the question!"

[Chronical]

If you read my previous post you know that I'm buying a 1.2ghz athlon...
I was also planning on buying a mobo with ddr ram but after reading your replies the questioning of whether or not ddr RAm is worth or not arised. What are your opinions?

[UnseenMenace]

I would NOT obtain DDR at this point as the chipset imature which in turn is causing some mobo producers to have problems. There is also rumours of a faster DDR memory which may be incompatible with previous standards, if this is the case it could make upgrade options limited in the future. SDRAM also continues to get faster all the time with the latest offering I am aware of being rated at PC-180 which obviously reduces DDR's marginal performance gain further.
Considering all that information I will not be obtaining DDR in the near future

[n2]

insight into my mind....

with the future offering very little excitement, at least in the visible horizon...
the one thing that does indeed, have my anticipation...
is the nVidia integrated mobo featuring their first attempt into the chipset market. <note: Ed's articles on front page>
i do expect this to have bugs. i do expect the first version may even be terribly crippled by bugs. LOL but i hope it turns into a second or third revision that will ROCK by all current standards.

i was never excited about DDR. the Nvidia mobo has DDR support.
now, this may provoke a decision to purchase the technology out of necessity. if this is the case, i hope i'll have good things to say.

as far as the current offerings of motherboards that are DDR equipped...
i see NO advantages.
as far as DDR vs. SDR...
i see NO advantages,
at least SDR is very much the "norm" as being a standard. .
i think it will remain standard for some time, until DDR is revamped to realize the expected performance it "should have had"

when it is, if it is... revamped... will this design be fully compatible with these current mobo's?
or will it travel the path of the Slot A... where now we are blessed with socket A instead!
i will wait and see, as it was said... the current SDRAM is REALLY good stuff, and it has become very cheap, and you can use it on any old system...
so it's re-saleable or re-useable if you ever find DDR is in fact, worthy of your hard earned dollars.

now, for a contradiction to myself, i Would buy a vid card with DDR.
because of one thing...
potential performance increase without fear of obsolecence

the card will be AGP and compatible with any mobo... whereas what have you when the DDR form is changed?, or something like support from the chipset that essentially orphans or dwarfs "your stick of DDR" compared to "now" DDR...
i hope my rambling makes sense, and i hope you have great luck and success in whatever you choose...
maybe you have alot of cash and don't mind the possible "tossing" of some ram, later down the line.
but honestly, i'm budgeted and i cannot see the point to buying it.

[Despotes]

There are slight performance gains. The price of 256 meg of Crucial DDR is about $73. That is very economically correct. You wouldn't be wasting your money. Go for it!

[n2]

right, slight performance gains....
on a "type-specific" mobo... with "type-specific" ram
:D :D :D
my 256 PC133 blows away DDR on Sandra benchmarks, comparing a 1gig to a duron 700
nuff said.

[Paul -The Mad Hatter]

n2 (Jun 06, 2001 05:10 p.m.):
right, slight performance gains....
on a "type-specific" mobo... with "type-specific" ram
:D :D :D
my 256 PC133 blows away DDR on Sandra benchmarks, comparing a 1gig to a duron 700
nuff said.

whats your scores?

[castle lager fan]

I guess the answer to the question is not 42 ;-)

I would say it depends on what you want to do. I got DDR cause I want to do graphics and video with my PC. So mem throughput is important. The other thing is that most CPU's can't use this bandwidth anyway. I guess as we start approaching 2GHz CPU's you will see DDR becoming a must. I have not looked at SDRAM performance on my PC, but I'm running at 1.5GHz so I probably wont get the best of DDR. Lets all post some Sandra benchmarks so you can see the dif and hopefully help you decide. It might even be interesting for me andsome other folk to see how well different technologies are doing. I will post mine later tonight, as I was just peeking in from my work machine.

[Chronical]

Any one heard good or bad stuff about the asus A7A-266 that supports both sdram and ddr? AMD PC266,socket-A, ATA100, 3x SDRAM & 2x DDR-PC266 ATX, 5PCI, AGP4x, 4USB

Then I'd have the choice between what ram to use if this board is good that is and won't F*** up

[UnseenMenace]

this is my memory benchmark, consider that this is PC-133 rated SDRAM and not higher.. and when you consider that the fastest currently available SDRAM is rated as being PC-180.. DDR does not appear to have a major performance advantage

[UnseenMenace]

Xeonetic (Jun 06, 2001 07:00 p.m.):
Any one heard good or bad stuff about the asus A7A-266 that supports both sdram and ddr?


I haven't read anything exceptionally positive about any DDR equipped mobo.. however if you want to read a review on that mobo check out Toms Hardware Review Of DDR mobo's including the Asus A7A-266 (http://www6.tomshardware.com/mainboard/01q2/010509/index.html)

The Asus mobo does quite well in the test and is announced as "The Winner In Performance Tests" which sounds good untill you start to read other comments such as "The Asus A7A266 comes in a standard package that doesn't stand out from the other commonplace designs" which is not as bad as this statement in the review. "its unstable operation was a noticeable negative. It was only a second board, brought in later by Asus, in interaction with third BIOS that showed improvement in stability as well as performance." however it does not sound like this is a good overclocking board as the review was finished with "Overclocking fans will be less impressed by this board: An adjustment of the multiplier is not possible, as the board is not equipped with the necessary DIP switch."

Overall the review on all motherboards concludes that the chipset is "Not Yet Fully Developed" which says it all really

[n2]

with my PC133 SDRAM sandra reports 426/480
i cannot post a screenshot cuz i dunno how to take one.
vs. pc800 DDR at 325\345 on a P3 1gig.

[castle lager fan]

Here's my Sisoft scores.

I am using FSB of 133 as I dont have a really good mobo or execptional RAM. I am running at CAS2 although the RAM is rated at CAS2.5. A little tip if you get DDR or even normal SDRAM get CAS 2 stuff. It will allow you to get far better o/c capability. I got mine Samsung 256 MB DDR266 CAS 2.5 for $100 a while back. CAS2 was not freely available and expensive.

As you can see DDR does make a difference and will even more so with newer and faster CPU's.

[_jubei_]

n2 (Jun 06, 2001 08:03 p.m.):
with my PC133 SDRAM sandra reports 426/480
i cannot post a screenshot cuz i dunno how to take one.
vs. pc800 DDR at 325\345 on a P3 1gig.


Obviously you don't know what you are talking about....... PC 800 DDR ??? Pssssssss ... with overclocked PC2100 at 150 mhz you can get ~700/900 scores for RAM in Sandra.... Tell me you don't see increase from pc133..........................................

[Tacoman667]

Why is the ALU scores on 2100DDR the same as mine on PC133 SDRAM at 142FSB? That puzzles me...

[castle lager fan]

Tacoman667 (Jun 06, 2001 10:03 p.m.):
Why is the ALU scores on 2100DDR the same as mine on PC133 SDRAM at 142FSB? That puzzles me...

Well I think it's got to do with how much the CPU can actually deal with. So even if you have ultra fast mem you will still get bad scores with slow CPU. They dont state the CPU used with the default benchmarks. What did you get by the way?

[ken257]

I choose to stick with SDRAM for compatability because thats what all my machines use. Also for stability because the KT133A is solid and the boards are solid and the bios well developed/debuged. When SDRAM is overclocked the differance you see in actual performance, not Sandra but real apps is minimal. I do a bit of video capture with an AIW Radeon and use flask a lot so the whole system needs to be fast.

[UnseenMenace]

castle lager fan (Jun 06, 2001 08:28 p.m.):
Here's my Sisoft scores.

As you can see DDR does make a difference and will even more so with newer and faster CPU's.

If you actually look at your SI-Sandra scores you beat both the AMD 760 DDR chipset and the Ali Magik 1 DDR chipset... All I can see is that you SDRAM beats DDR clearly.. and the only memory which beats you is RDRAM which is different

So where does DDR make a difference ???????

[TheRaven]

UnseenMenace,

Apparently you didn't notice that he has a DDR system

Anyway, I am waiting for the Abit KG7 mobo with an AMD 760 northbridge / Via southbridge, 4 DIMMs for RAM and a mature BIOS.

[Len]

For me the decision was easy. I'm building a new PC and needed a new mb, CPU *and* memory. I chose DDR. If I had memory to reuse I would have gone with KT133A. DDR may not be that much faster (everyone says 5-10%) but it IS faster in most cases and it seems that newer mbs and BIOS upgrades are improving the performance all the time. As far as there being new DDR chipsets right around the corner and maybe even a new DDR spec a year away, I see this as the norm. With PCs, new technology is always obsoleting what you have now.

I must admit it was a little tough finding a decent DDR board with good performance until I stumbled on the Epox 8K7A (AMD 761). According to reviews its the fastest board currently available and has excellent stability. Price is good too at around $135.

Cost isn't really much of a factor. Crucial 256MB PC2100 is only $56 shipped now. Mbs might be $20-30 more expensive depending on features. I consider price to be close enough not even to be a consideration unless you are looking for a real low end budget system.

I'm still waiting on the mb but I have all the other parts. This will be new system.

Epox 8K7A DDR motherboard
AMD Tbird 1.2 Ghz (AVIA-9 factory unlocked)
Crucial PC2100 256MB DDR RAM
Leadtek Geforce2 Ultra 64MB 4ns
Antec SX-830

[castle lager fan]

UnseenMenace (Jun 07, 2001 05:10 a.m.):
castle lager fan (Jun 06, 2001 08:28 p.m.):
Here's my Sisoft scores.

As you can see DDR does make a difference and will even more so with newer and faster CPU's.

If you actually look at your SI-Sandra scores you beat both the AMD 760 DDR chipset and the Ali Magik 1 DDR chipset... All I can see is that you SDRAM beats DDR clearly.. and the only memory which beats you is RDRAM which is different

So where does DDR make a difference ???????


Just to set the record straight. I am using DDR memory!! It is not overclocked at all, as I explained. Only my CPU multiplier is o/ced. It does show an improvement of at least 10-25% over normal SDRAM, also not o/ced. What you should also notice is that i'm reaching less than 1GB/s. This means the reason why DDR is not outperforming SDRAM by 100% is that the benchmark uses latency (which DDR does not improve) as well as the power of the CPU. SO as we get faster CPU's DDR will come through more and more. The latency issues is going to be interesting as I do not see anybody working on that.

[UnseenMenace]

TheRaven (Jun 07, 2001 05:41 a.m.):
UnseenMenace,

Apparently you didn't notice that he has a DDR system

Anyway, I am waiting for the Abit KG7 mobo with an AMD 760 northbridge / Via southbridge, 4 DIMMs for RAM and a mature BIOS.

ohh yea your right.. hehe

This Benchmark however does not display a noticable gain considering that the benchmark is of the memory sub system (CPU-Chipset-Memory) and when you compare the benchmarks of this 1536 mhz Tbird against my 1050 mhz Duron.. I think most of the difference would come from the additional 534 mhz speed and extra cache of the Athlon rather than DDR performance.. which is comfirmed when you compare it against Ken257's Tbird running at a similar speed.. the differences are minimal.

Therefore the difference is performance or reliablility.. minor performance in the advantage of DDR.. reliability in the advantage of SDRAM

I think your waiting for the right mobo TheRaven.. Im waiting for the reviews on that one as well :)

[taz1004]

I agree that DDR will not give you huge performance edge over SDRAM. But with Epox DDR board (one of the best DDR board so far I might add) at only $130 and Crucial selling DDR at the price of PC133, what would be the reason not to go with DDR? Extra performance of DDR is not worth the extra cost? What extra cost?

--BrianC

[castle lager fan]

Ken 257, what is your memory clocked at FSB speed?

Unseenmenace, Ken 257 is running a higher clock speed than I am. Lets see what his FSB speed is. I agree that the difference between SDRAM and DDR is less than what all the marketing people will make you believe, actually a lot less 100% versus 10-25%. As the mobos and bios's improve you will get a bigger difference between DDR and SDRAM. The question is whether we have CPU's than make use of it? I chose DDR knowing that the difference will be small, but the price difference was also small at the time. I probably have to do some work on my bios to get better results, as I took a chance with the FIC AD11 and I think I got burned. Where do you guys get the BIOS updates? How can I save my current BIOS, before I upgrade?

SO back to the question of DDR vs SDRAM. If you're going for a new setup I vote GO DDR!!!! It does have an improvement and will only get better over time. Everything SDRAM does DDR can do only better!

[ken257]

The memory benchmarks I posted were taken from a Abit KT7A-Raid. It was running at 9x150fsb which puts the cpu at 1350mhz. This is my portable system well more like luggable :) It is cooled by ambient temp water. I just got a new 1.33 AYHJA for this machine and I plan on having it up am running this weekend. Going to try it with and without a 172watt tec Also going to trash the stock cooler on the chipset in favor of a Intel P3 HSF I hope to get the fsb up to 155 by doing this. The chipset tends to heat up to much when the i/o voltage is increased to gain much but with better cooling it may work. I will post new benches when I get it up and running.

For somebody just wanting a new system why not go DDR It will be the way of the future. From what I have read about the Athalon 4 it should take better advantage of memory speed then current cpu's. But for now I have 6 PC's set up here all with PC133 so I am going to stick with it until the performace boost of DDR demands that I move on. If you push PC133 hard, real hard and make it squeal it will deliver the goods. The true potential of DDR lies in what it will do overclocked with an Athalon 4. It will be interesting to see the way things unfold in the next couple of months. Abit is comming out with a new DDR mobo the KG7-Raid based on the AMD 761 chipset, this looks very intersting as I love their SoftMenu3 for Overclocking. This may be the board that makes me get into DDR although I will wait and see untill after the Athalon 4 comes out.

[n2]

[Oc]..jubei.. (Jun 06, 2001 09:50 p.m.):
n2 (Jun 06, 2001 08:03 p.m.):
with my PC133 SDRAM sandra reports 426/480
i cannot post a screenshot cuz i dunno how to take one.
vs. pc800 DDR at 325\345 on a P3 1gig.


Obviously you don't know what you are talking about....... PC 800 DDR ??? Pssssssss ... with overclocked PC2100 at 150 mhz you can get ~700/900 scores for RAM in Sandra.... Tell me you don't see increase from pc133..........................................

YEA.... look at posts 9 + 12 and try that statement again.
nuff said.

[Flanagun]

This is my screenshot.... not very good ill admit it a athlon 1.3ghz 256mbs of ddr1600 im sure 2100 is better

[badgers]

I do not understand the technology as well as everyone else here but I do understand money.
PriceWatch has 2400 DDR for $94 bucks! for a 256meg stick.
That is not even close to 256meg PC150 Cas2 ram $55 bucks

[Len]

badgers (Jun 07, 2001 10:58 p.m.):
I do not understand the technology as well as everyone else here but I do understand money.
PriceWatch has 2400 DDR for $94 bucks! for a 256meg stick.
That is not even close to 256meg PC150 Cas2 ram $55 bucks

You don't really need PC2400. 256MB of Crucial PC2100 is selling for $56 with free shipping. Crucial DDR overclocks like crazy. Check out this review of the Epox 8K7A (http://) where they took it all the way to 166 Mhz.

[taz1004]

"PriceWatch has 2400 DDR for $94 bucks!"

Oh sure, when did 2400 DDR came out? Couple weeks ago? Newest technology always has premiums. And considering that, 94 bucks is not that bad. Don't be fooled by the number game. Mushkin's PC133 easily outpaced those PC150.

Len is right, you don't need 2400 DDR. It's just better quality 2100 DDR. You can probably overclock Crucial 2100 DDR to 2400's spec. And Crucial delivers in 2 days!

--BrianC

[AZZKICKER]

my sdram ( mushkin Rev.3 ) runs fast

look

[AZZKICKER]

and better yet

[AZZKICKER]

and%20better%20yet

[AZZKICKER]

and better yet

[castle lager fan]

AZZKICKER (Jun 09, 2001 01:27 a.m.):
and better yet

I use a 133 FSB on PC2100. You can see my post earlier of my benchmark.

I think we have already established that DDR is superior, by how much is the question. Please go the memory section and you will see guys with a better DDR rig than mine doing a lot better than I can.

Everybody in the market for a new system should get DDR. If you already have SDRAM dont worry its still got a lot of life left.

Besides DDR is what will take the new AMD chips forward. Noticed the new AThlons is DDR architecture and the nforce chipset as well.