It seems as though my choices are a DDR set up on a dual-channel motherboard or Rambus.
RAMBUS's major supporter, Intel, left RDRAM out in the dust when they transitioned away from their NorthwoodA design. Virtually all the major chipset makers have also shunned them (with the freak exception of SiS ... I think the chipset was 650 but dont quote me). Personally I think Intel left RDRAM in favor of DDR because AMD systems, using DDR were getting "more than comparable" (or in many cases, better) performance from a system that costed $1000 less (intel had enough PR/marketing trouble dealing with the fact that the AthlonXP processors, despite a ~1Ghz disadvantage were in many cases keeping up and beating the Pentium4 chips ... that was enough to deal with and they probbaly didnt want the marketing nightmare that came with RAMBUS).
History lesson in one sentence: nobody likes RAMBUS because (a) their actual performance versus theoretical performance was dismal, (b) DDR is much cheaper and it's actual performance is quite close to it's theoretical performance and (c) RAMBUS screwed itself when it tried to act as a monopolative force in the memory industry.
whereas PC4400 DDR RAM runs with 550MHz. With dual-channel technology the latter should be equivalent to 1100MHz, correct?
Kinda but not quite, dual channel isnt as big a real-world performance jump as marketing people hype it out to be (but by all means go for it, a 30-50% performance jump is nothing to balk at)
Is dual-channel DDR RAM the way to go? Any other recommendations?
1. If you've got a small budget, just go for sheer quantity: it's better to get 1GB of "stock" memory than 256M of premium memory.
2. If you do get premium memory and it doesnt come with heatspreaders -- get them. I'd advise you get aluminum heatspreaders unless you are getting the Thermaltake active cooling kit which comes with a fan (ive done a couple rants/explaination on when and where to use copper vs aluminum)
3. If you budget permits, get the high end Mushkin, or Corsair memory -- either hunt down high clock speeds or hunt down low timings -- dont try to compromise unless you have something in particular you specifically need that for. For most people, high clock speeds work best although realistically the difference in performance is almost unnoticeable
4. I have heard (from OCz fans at that), that some of the OCz performance memory comes pre-OCd. Meaning you buy PC3200 and you expect to OC it to PC3500 but when you get the memory you find it's actually PC2700 and OCd to PC3200 and you cant OC it to PC3500. This may or may not be true but I've heard it from enough people to warrant me not getting OCz memory.
5. If you're using a mobo that supports DDR and/or Dual Channel -- you will most likely have to do a mobo upgrade to to able to use (Dual)DDR. While you're at it, you might consider upgrading the CPU since the NorthwoodA is quite old.
