Rdram

FireMogle · May 8, 2002

Does one have to use two sticks of this stuff for it to work? I have one, and don't want to buy another, so I hope not.

iihrjin · May 8, 2002

Sorry, you have to have a pair.

RnPgrosz · May 9, 2002

Yep, you have to use a pair like ihrjin said but I have a question also, can use two modules that are different sizes??

iihrjin · May 9, 2002

Yep, you have to use a pair like ihrjin said but I have a question also, can use two modules that are different sizes??

That should be a matched pair. But since i850 has two banks (each bank has two slots), two banks can have dissimilar sizes.

CyberFed · May 10, 2002

yea its kinda bad you have to run it in pairs but the upside is you'll have more ram this way

David · May 11, 2002

Can you not just use one stick and get a 'dummy' stick for the empty slot?

trey_w · May 11, 2002

you could just have 1 stick and 1 continuity stick (dumby stick) if it was a single channel board

I have worked on some SONY P4 Systems that this was done.

Some very early board designs were single channel.

Anyways, if you wait a little, there are some RDRAM sticks coming out that are designed to work in singles

Darkpie · May 11, 2002

How does RDRAM banking work

How does Banking work for RDRAM. Like With SDRAM is easy I stick is a full bank. But when it come to RDRAM i am lost so can someone explaing it to me pleas thank you .

David · May 11, 2002

Re: How does RDRAM banking work

Darkpie said:
How does Banking work for RDRAM. Like With SDRAM is easy I stick is a full bank. But when it come to RDRAM i am lost so can someone explaing it to me pleas thank you .

I'm not sure if RDRAM works like SIMMs or not:

SIMMs had a memory bus of 64bits, but each stick made up 32bits, so two sticks were needed.

I think RDRAM may be the same but 2*64 to give 128.

will_perdikakis · May 11, 2002

Re: Re: How does RDRAM banking work

David said:
I'm not sure if RDRAM works like SIMMs or not:

SIMMs had a memory bus of 64bits, but each stick made up 32bits, so two sticks were needed.

I think RDRAM may be the same but 2*64 to give 128.

RDRAM is 16 bit

Does one have to use two sticks of this stuff for it to work? I have one, and don't want to buy another, so I hope not.

Yeah, the i850 chipset uses DUAL channel RDRAM, so far there is no way around it.

The sticks should be of the same size and quality.

EDIT: Sorry, I replied to the wrong person...

ninthebin · May 11, 2002

I have seen pics of it - and it was in the first of each bank...

I.E

bank1 bank2 bank3 bank4

RAM CRIMM RAM CRIMM

if you get what my shady diagram is about... it looked like you couldnt have the first two slots full and have crimm in the other two....

or was this just a dodgy pic, or doesnt it matter where you put them?

DaddyB · May 12, 2002

yeah you need 2 sticks for the i850 chipset because, as will said, it is dual channel but I think the older RDRAM chipset only needed one stick (i think it was the i840 chipset). RDRAM's latency is higher then ddr sdram and the idea of using dual channel RDRAM was to lower the latency and make rdram more competetive with ddr sdram. so even if you could use only one stick I think you would see a large performance drop.

on a side note my dell came with 2 continuity modules for the 2 RDRAM slots that aren't being used...why, i dont know.

will_perdikakis · May 12, 2002

DaddyB said:
yeah you need 2 sticks for the i850 chipset because, as will said, it is dual channel but I think the older RDRAM chipset only needed one stick (i think it was the i840 chipset). RDRAM's latency is higher then ddr sdram and the idea of using dual channel RDRAM was to lower the latency and make rdram more competetive with ddr sdram. so even if you could use only one stick I think you would see a large performance drop.

on a side note my dell came with 2 continuity modules for the 2 RDRAM slots that aren't being used...why, i dont know.

Yes The i850 chipset also requires two CRIMMs if the slots are not being used. As far as I know, you need One pair of sticks per channel and a maximum of two channels are available. If the second channel is not used CRIMMs are totally nesscessary.

FireMogle · May 14, 2002

The board has the 820 chipset, does anyone know about that one? Its a Dual P3. Thanks

iihrjin · May 14, 2002

The board has the 820 chipset, does anyone know about that one? Its a Dual P3. Thanks

Your board shoud have only two slots for RDRAM (compare to 4 slots for P4 board).
You can use just one real memory and one C-RIMM together.
Check this review.

http://www.tomshardware.com/mainboard/99q4/991005/i820-03.html

DaddyB · May 14, 2002

yeah i just spent some time at the intel site checking the specs on that chipset and he is right, you can use one stick of ram but you need a continuity module (crimm)

FireMogle · May 14, 2002

Ok, thanks for all the help

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