First post, by s.mouse
- Rank
- Newbie
Hey Guys,
Just sharing my experience and thoughts I've pondered brought about by my year 2000 pentium 3 voodoo 5 build
The star of the show is the gorgeous Asus P3C-E featuring the infamous intel 820 chipset. This is the version of the chipset without the additional MTH chip so utilises RD ram which is the preferred configuration for this chipset as the optional MTH chip which allowed the use of SD ram brought with a myriad of problems and was recalled. Asus actually supplied an optional adapter with the MTH chip and sd ram slots which i also have
According to a toms hardware archive as of december 1999 a 128mb 600mhz rambus module cost $900-950, 700mhz $985-1029 and 800mhz $1025-1107 some months later from April 2000 a Computerworld article mentions the cheapest Kingston 128mb module cost $722 while a 128mb sd ram module costed $179 for a negligible performance difference.
Due to the prices of RD ram its clear why the 820 chipset was never successful. Testing of the platform myself using RD ram i have found it to be excellent; fast and very stable
I cant help but feel it isn’t a very typical build of the time as you would have to be very uninformed or be an extreme enthusiast with boat loads of cash to burn to obtain such a setup at the time
It really was a blunder on intel’s behalf and makes for an interesting curiosity
I would be very interested to hear if you or someone you know went out and built/ bought a rambus pentium 3 if so please let me know
