Hexus has posted another i845 review. This time it is the Asus P4B with some interesting features.
The Pentium 4 processor likes memory bandwidth. RAMBUS gives it a possible 3.2Gb/sec and it loves it. PC2100 DDR gets close at 2.1Gb/sec and the new DDR333 chipset from SiS gives it 2.7Gb/sec (DDR333 = PC2700). But what about the i845? Using PC133 SDRAM makes for a maximum memory bandwidth of 1.06Gb/sec.Read more
So why starve the P4 of what it craves? Price is the main reason. The chipset is available very cheaply in volume from Intel. Manufacturers can create solutions based on the chipset without worrying about the high resulting price tag. PC133 SDRAM is also cheap allowing you to stuff a system full of memory (chipset maximum is 3Gb) for little outlay (although prices are on the up from this years all time lows!).
