Yet another Dell

[quinterro]

One more Dell is getting retired from work. It's a Precision 340 with no memory (uses RIMMs), a 40GB hard disk, a 52x burner and a COA for XP Pro.

The nice thing about it is the ATI Radeon 7000/VE AGP card with a ROM supported for flashing to the Mac. Even if I can't get some memory for it cheap my G4 will get a video card upgrade.

 

[LCGuy]

Ew, Rambus. Best of luck with it. :-/

*is glad I bought my Dell after they switched to DDR*

 

[SiliconValleyPirate]

RAMBUS RAM is actually better performing than older DDR that was around at the time. The issue was the speed made it prohibitively expensive. Intel tried to make it stick but in the end customers voices drowned out any reason, and they switched to DDR in the wake of falling sales. As a result of the original cost, and low sales of RIMM based machines, RIMMs are harder to find and more expensive. Being shackled by DDR RAM was one reason earlier P4s performed so woefully I think, they were not designed for such low RAM speeds, meaning there is a big step between the FSB and RAM.

If you need a decent, solid performing P4 workstation, I'd say it's probably worth finding a 1GB in RIMMs and getting it working. The Precision workstations have always been really nice machines. They are made for industry and heavy duty usage, not as glorified typewriters, so they perform well and are rock solid for the most part. No consumer crap there.

Although generations apart, I use a Precision 390 at work (same class, but the Core 2 Duo version released in 2006) and it's by far the best PC I've ever used. Thankfully for the companies wallet I got 2GB of RAM with it and it takes DDR2 not DDR2-FBDIMMs like the higher spec machines.

Regardless, it's not 'just another Dell'. It's 'just another very nice Dell'

 

[LCGuy]

I know that Rambus did provide good performance, its just that Rambus RAM is bloody hard to find these days, and as you say, expensive. Whereas I can go into any PC shop, and pick up RAM for my PC (which uses DDR) brand new, and dirt cheap.

 

[quinterro]

Locally nobody sells RIMMs. The online stores I look at for things don't sell them either. The only place I see that has them is eBay. There was an auction for a 512MB kit for $40 a few days ago. Too bad I didn't go for them. Until I can get the machine home I don't see the point.

Even if memory is out of the question, I'll get a burner, a 40GB hard disk and a Radeon 7000/VE AGP card to put in my G4. After seeing what the Rage128 does in there at times, it would be a welcome upgrade. Of course it has that dual-cable thingie that connects to the back of the card for Dell's video cards.