Typing this reply on a Dell Dimension 8200 (Socket 478 with RDRAM).

Installed a better video card in it yesterday. I actually really like these Rambus P4 systems. In fact, this Dimension 8200 is now my main Windows XP desktop system.

This 8200 runs better than my Socket 423 Dimension 8100 does. The 8100 is very slow with XP, while this 8200 runs XP very well. They are both Willamette P4s though. The 8200 will be getting a 3GHz Northwood soon though, if I can figure out what I did with that damn thing. I may just have to breakdown and buy another one.

A Socket 478 with RDRAM is actually my favorite type of P4 system. Call me crazy or whatever, I don't care. I'm also one of those "crazy" people that collects IBM PS/2 Microchannel systems. In fact, one of my main DOS machines is an IBM PS/2 Model 80. I always seem to have a soft spot for the unloved/hated computers.

And yes, I am aware that both of these companies shot themselves in the foot by trying to create a monopoly. But I still like these systems!

Right, I was reading about the history of Rambus. They got greedy. They thought they were going to lock down memory the way Intel and Microsoft had locked down microprocessors and operating systems. They began charging monopoly prices... before they actually had their monopoly.

Have thought about upgrading to 2ghz cpu?
I had a similar build some time ago and XP SP2 was running well on that cpu.
Just a thought.

Nexxen wrote on 2021-11-10, 10:53:

Have thought about upgrading to 2ghz cpu?
I had a similar build some time ago and XP SP2 was running well on that cpu.
Just a thought.

Those are rare and expensive, unfortunately. It seems that by the time the 2GHz model became available, people moved on to S478.

I have since turned it into a Y2k system - Windows 2000, SB Live 5.1, Geforce 2 GTS and it runs quite well.

Jokes aside, that is a very nice build!

Zack_H wrote on 2020-03-05, 14:49:

Typing this reply on a Dell Dimension 8200 (Socket 478 with RDRAM).

Installed a better video card in it yesterday. I actually really like these Rambus P4 systems. In fact, this Dimension 8200 is now my main Windows XP desktop system.

This 8200 runs better than my Socket 423 Dimension 8100 does. The 8100 is very slow with XP, while this 8200 runs XP very well. They are both Willamette P4s though. The 8200 will be getting a 3GHz Northwood soon though, if I can figure out what I did with that damn thing. I may just have to breakdown and buy another one.

We just had one of those Dimension 8200's come through Free Geek, complete with matching keyboard, mouse and CRT monitor.. didn't last more than a day.

As bad as they are I feel like the socket 423/Rambus combo is pretty iconic and are on track to be collectible later in life. I managed to acquire a slot-1 mainboard with RDRAM support that will end up in a build some day, seemed like an interesting enough combo that shows how little benefit RDRAM has even against PC133 SDRAM.

MN_Moody wrote on 2021-11-13, 17:32:

We just had one of those Dimension 8200's come through Free Geek, complete with matching keyboard, mouse and CRT monitor.. didn't last more than a day.

As bad as they are I feel like the socket 423/Rambus combo is pretty iconic and are on track to be collectible later in life. I managed to acquire a slot-1 mainboard with RDRAM support that will end up in a build some day, seemed like an interesting enough combo that shows how little benefit RDRAM has even against PC133 SDRAM.

I am on your page with regards to being collectible ..

I had an ABIT i850 rig for most of the 2000s. I really wish I hadn't thrown it away. By the end of its life it had a 3 GHz Northwood, 2 GB RAM, Audigy 2 ZS, and GeForce 7600 GS.

never had rambus i imagine the magic schoolbus rocketing

Obviously I'm not a fan of P4s, but I approve of this build. If you're going to go P4, you'd better go FULL RETARD with Socket 423 and RAMBUST.

These machines pretty much represent a dumpster fire of choice and circumstance for Intel, RDRAM was a terrible decision that not only cost them market share due to cost, but financially to deal with the replacements of defective 820 chipset/SDRAM boards... and then there was the initial round of Netburst arch processors being rightly panned in reviews for being slower than the Pentium 3 procs they replaced that ran on cheaper platforms using SDRAM.... Finally, factor in the capacitor plague of the early 2000's that makes them particularly complicated to restore, assuming you find examples that were not outright hate scrapped. Perfect recipe for a retro collectible darling. 😜

MN_Moody wrote on 2021-11-15, 16:23:

These machines pretty much represent a dumpster fire of choice and circumstance for Intel, RDRAM was a terrible decision that not only cost them market share due to cost, but financially to deal with the replacements of defective 820 chipset/SDRAM boards... and then there was the initial round of Netburst arch processors being rightly panned in reviews for being slower than the Pentium 3 procs they replaced that ran on cheaper platforms using SDRAM.... Finally, factor in the capacitor plague of the early 2000's that makes them particularly complicated to restore, assuming you find examples that were not outright hate scrapped. Perfect recipe for a retro collectible darling. 😜

fo sure i'd love to run a museum with collectables on display and youtube videos about benchmark comparisons.

People are free to love the P4 all they want.
As long as I never have to own another one.

The truth is a Slot A thunderbird overclocked to 1190MHz with super bypass is faster.

While NetBurst microarchitecture isn't good overall (poor x87 FPU performance and attempting to reach 10 GHz at all costs), it did introduce SSE2 which is where they really shined, made MMX instructions obsolete and its usage eventually became much more common afterwards: notably handling floating-point operations in 64-bit x86 Windows versions.

Good to see this post getting a bump.
I reread it every now and again cause it's so well written