Hi Cimmind
Sorry about the delay. I've been busy doing things.
I will do my best to reply to you question by question. You might have guessed that I’m firstly a hardware tech. In fact, I think I might start a thread in the forum specifically on hardware.
Whats 'rambus'?
I dont really know where to start here - probably best I just post a link to answer this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDRAM - the story of Rambus, rdram, RIMMS.Edit - link disappeared !
! Try this one -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambus My system is an Intel server board. At the time of manufacture, sdram was still most commonly used ram. Rambus were considered to be very fast technology. Compared to DDR, however, they are not. But they are stable. The two PCs I've got with RIMMS are identical - one runs an even set(= all exact same brand) of 4 x 64mb, the other, 2x 128mb and 2 x64mb and the two sets are different brands. In which case, I'm lucky they do run. That not all brands of ram will run together, is even more true with Rambus.
The purchase of 4 x 512mb Rambus was on local trade and exchange website - trademe.co.nz - about a year ago, and well before the market slowdown. The sticks were an even set. Very rarely do you see even sets Rambus of that size. With 2 GB of Rambus on my PC I would need to tie the machine down to the desk.
I don’t know what price the 4x512mb would fetch today. I think perhaps a little less, but there will always be enthusiasts who will bid the price up, regardless of a depressed market. Here is a current auction item for Rambus though the memory is EEC, which is not much use to people whose mainboards only support NON-EEC (which is the majority who has Rambus, in this country anyway).
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Computers/Components/Memory-RAM/1-GB-or-more/auction-222409444.htm. More realistic pricing.
These Rambus that I have were discontinued about 6 or 7 years ago. DDR were simpler, cheaper to make, and compatible across most motherboards. But people still do run Rambus machines as servers. They are not just hobby projects. The person who bought the 4x512 set will likely be putting the rambus to work, which is what they re good at. I always thought they make a good hardware firewall.
Here in India, 2GB DDR2 RAM stick costs the equivalent of US$25.
I buy DDR 1GB brand new from a retailer for bout $NZ50, and bit cheaper from within the trade. DDR2 a bit more expensive. And there's loads of sdram around. But like you say, not that cheap to buy.
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/SearchResults.aspx?searchType=0002-0359-0164-&searchString=SDRAM&searchregion=100&type=Search&pay=paynow&buy=now&Y=0
i am running on 256MB RAM! And till a few months back, on 128 MB RAM!!
384mb is not much memory. check out some of the profiles in the avast Forum for some real big rigs.
Hell, i ran XP SP2 WITH AV WITH A FIREWALL on 128 MB RAM for nearly seven years!!! And played GTA III on it!!!!
I used to run P3's with sdram with avast for years (first introduced to avast 2006 and never looked back). Actual just finished a machine to go out to a client - small form factor IBM NetVista with two IBM 128mb sticks, 677 CPU, tiny 10GB hard drive with 5GB spare, No Office installed, Adobe Reader, Player, Shockwave installed, and of course avast Home, in this case a new avast installation. This PC has been used by so many people over the last three years, while I work on their machines, and the PC has always been well protected by avast Home, without incident, despite being such a tiny unit by today's standards. The lady who gets this PC is the one who only uses internet to bet on the horse races. She will probably keep it for good this time, and return my laptop to the company, and I now use P4's for lending out as courtesy service, while I repair. All these people such as her, my clients, have accepted avast and often remark how much they like it. Thats whats most important. And surprising how many people round here know about avast. I get good feedback, avast Home works good across many different platforms.
I just observed your siggy.. You have a very good defence set up.
My defense setup is good, but likewise I dont think its foolproof. I am using Firefox, I just hadn’t brought my profile up to date.
As for Rambus 2009, they look like they might possibly sort out the legal issues they have had with lots of different chip conmpanies, like Nvidia and Hynix, that have kept them tied up for years. Whether things go their way or not, we dont know yet.
http://news.google.co.nz/news?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=s&hl=en&q=RAMBUS&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=etsnSujTOZaIkAXHzKDoDQ&sa=X&oi=news_group&resnum=4&ct=titleRambus are now looking for their XDR line to take the PC market beyond DDR3 memory. I have a feeling we will be hearing a lot more about them in future.
http://www.rambus.com/us/products/multicore.html?utm_source=rambus&utm_medium=link_home_page&utm_campaign=beyond_ddr3As for the cricket, India always lose their warm up matches, then come out blazing in the real games. But New Zealand are very tenacious and hard to get on top of when they're on their game. Plus we play the short game well. I pick NZ to win the tournament (but then I would, wouldn't I?).
Best regards