by Stan

SDRAM

 If you have purchased a motherboard or computer in the last year or so and are thinking about memory upgrade you might check this out. Most of the newer motherboards have one or two 168 pin DIMM sockets in which you can install SDRAM.

 Synchronous DRAM (SDRAM) is a new technology that runs at the same clock speed as the microprocessor. The clock on the memory chip is coordinated with the clock of the CPU, so the timing of both the memory and the CPU are in sync. This reduces or eliminates wait states, and makes SDRAM significantly more efficient than Fast Page Mode or Extended Data Out memory. Actually FP and EDO memory are becoming a significant bottleneck for the faster processors and SDRAM helps eliminate the loss of performance.

 Because the price of SDRAM has come down it might be worth looking at if you are going for performance and have the SDRAM socket on your board. I have noticed in the new computer ads that a number of vendors are starting to use SDRAM as a standard, including the Dell Dimension computers, which come with 32 megs of SDRAM. Which means, if you are in the market for a new computer I would check out the ones that are installing SDRAM.

 Before running out and buying SDRAM for your MB you need to check the MB or check with the vendor. On some boards if you install SDRAM you will need to remove the other memory and also change a voltage jumper from 5.0v to 3.3v. On some newer MB you can populate both the SIMM and DIMM with FP or EDO memory but need to change the voltage jumper on the DIMM if you use SDRAM.

Stan