[KLUG Members] Building a PC - recommendations

[Bryan J. Smith]

Bruce Smith wrote:
> NOT FOUND.  Should that be http://www.antec-inc.com/  ???

Yes.  Sorry.

> Also, what's the performance difference between the
> High Density SDRAM and the Low density SDRAM memory?
> (which is faster?  how much faster?)

I see more and more vendors using it.  I have no idea what they
mean.

If I had to "guess at it," I would say "High Density" means fewer
ICs on the DIMM and "Low Density" means more ICs on the DIMM.

The more ICs, the fewer DIMMs you can use.  Most chipset memory
controllers have a maximum number of total ICs they will allow
(e.g., if you use ICs that total 128-bits, "double" the normal
64-bit width of a DIMM which requires additional
multiplexing/banking).  At the same time, other chipsets have a
maximum IC capacity/size, meaning you might need to use more ICs to
reach the same memory size because the controller doesn't support
the larger IC sizes -- e.g., only supports 256Mbit ICs, but no
512Mbit ICs 

I made a detailed post on ICs, DIMMs and chipset support back in
February on ELUG-HARDWARE (after reading about 4 hours of spec
sheets and technical standards):
   http://www.zepa.net/hypermail/elug/hardware/2001/02/0008.html

I "updated" some of this in June:
   http://www.zepa.net/hypermail/elug/hardware/2001/06/0019.html

Since then I've heard reports of people being able to use "512MB
'low density' PC133" DIMMs on a ViA KT133 chipset -- at least one
DIMM (not sure about two).   So I'm going to assume that means there
are a lot of DIMMs with lower IC technology (e.g., 256Mbit) instead
of less DIMMs with higher IC technology (e.g., 512Mbit).  Frankly, I
sure wish vendors would list all the specs so I can find out for
sure.

-- TheBS

-- 
Bryan "TheBS" Smith  mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org  chat:thebs413
Absolute Value Systems, Inc.        http://www.linux-wlan.org
SmithConcepts, Inc.              http://www.SmithConcepts.com