One of the advantages of being a Òtech industry insiderÓ is that I get to see new computer stuff before anyone else does. Bound by all the standard non-disclosure agreements that writers like me are subject to, I only get to tell you the most general information about whatever new PC product I see. This may seem unscientific without the hard numbers, but new product evaluations are a privilege I take very seriously.

The new technology I was privileged to work with last week will be of particular interest for new PC buyers and performance hardware enthusiasts. The new Intel 845D is the new low cost/high performance chipset for IntelÕs Pentium 4 line of processors. Previous iterations of Intel chipsets for the Pentium 4 required the use of high cost/high performance RDRAM memory chips or low cost/low performance SDRAM memory. With the i845D, the Pentium 4 will finally utilize the low cost/high performance DDR SDRAM memory used by performance-oriented AMD Athlon owners for the past year.

Until September, the high-end Pentium 4 processor boards only used expensive RDRAM memory modules licensed from the litigious Rambus Corporation. Intel, adapting to consumer demand, stepped back from their dependence on Rambus memory and introduced the i845 (codenamed ÒBrookdaleÓ) chipset for the Pentium 4. The i845 Pentium 4 chipset specs have always accommodated both SDRAM and DDR memory, but no i845 boards were released with DDR support. ThatÕs where the i845D comes in. According to their legal agreements with Rambus, Intel cannot release their own DDR chipset before 2002. This only meant that Intel could not sell DDR-enabled i845 chipsets. The agreement did not bar Intel from developing DDR-enabled chipsets. During this development process Intel has been able to work out the bugs with the i845D and qualify various DDR memory chips with their new chipset. Intel knows this all too well after the embarrassment they suffered when they initially chose RDRAM for their i820 and i840 chipsets for the Pentium III.

The i845D is the bridge between the RDRAM performance and SDRAM prices. Although memory chip prices for both RDRAM and DDR/SDRAM have plummeted, Intel realizes that they cannot be so proud as to thumb their noses at the PC buyers. Computers are cheaper than ever, but by saying: ÒWeÕre Intel and people will pay extra for Intel qualityÓ they would quickly be the victim of market forces and smarter competitors the way Apple and IBM were crippled in the past. The i845D promises to give PC buyers high performance for a low price, like their competitors at AMD have enjoyed for the better part of this year (AMDÕs Athlon processors have supported DDR memory since at least October 2000).

Because of the NDA, I cannot give you names and numbers of my experience with the i845D. I can tell you that I used a pre-release Intel reference motherboard running the Pentium 4 1.8GHz and 256MB of a major memory makerÕs PC2100 DDR memory. Under Windows XP Professional, the i845D was very stable and visibly faster than an identical i845 configuration running 256MB of the same memory makerÕs PC133 SDRAM memory.

When I say Òvisibly fasterÓ I donÕt mean that ripping WMA music files in Windows Media Player 8 from a CD or burning a data CD took half the time it normally does. I found that the time Windows XP booted up on the i845D system, the application start times (3D games and large apps like Office XP Professional) and the responsiveness of the PC in general was noticeably quicker than its older sibling. I ran a few memory bandwidth benchmarks to confirm if what I was experiencing was just in my mind or the real deal. All the benchmarks confirmed that the i845D was considerably better about memory bandwidth and use than the i845. However, when I ran the same memory benchmark against an identically configured Pentium 4 1.8GHz system using 256MB of NEC PC800 RDRAM memory, the RDRAM system destroyed the DDR system. RDRAM might be over three times what comparable DDR memory costs, but I cannot deny that the memory was easily three times as fast as the DDR on an identically configured system. This is not to say that the RDRAM system was visibly three times faster overall than the DDR system. Windows XP Professional with the same applications on the RDRAM system ran with the same speed as the DDR-enabled i845D system. 3D games were not visibly faster or smoother on the RDRAM system when compared to the DDR system. The only difference in performance I could see was when running the synthetic benchmarks ø in terms of Òreal worldÓ performance I saw no difference between the DDR and RDRAM systems.

The bottom line is the bottom line. Real world performance rarely equates to benchmark performance. If benchmark metrics are what you rely on to make your tech purchase decisions and are willing to spend an average of $4 (US) per megabyte on your memory for three times the memory benchmark performance, then buy any of the numerous PCs presently available with RDRAM. If you are less worried about taking home the gold in the High Tech Urinary Olympics and more concerned about buying a system with the best price and performance, go with an Intel 845D/DDR solution. Expect Intel-based PCs with DDR memory to materialize from large OEMs like Dell and Compaq worldwide in January 2002.

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