Guide to selling Rambus - give it away
The customer never looks a gifthorse in the mouth, say Tech Data
There are reports today which indicate that Tech Date, a US hardware distributor, may intend to offer Intel's Pentium 4 processor (due to debut at an incredible 1.4GHz and as much as 2GHz by next year) for approximately $1000 in the States along with a bundled stick of RDRAM. It recently became apparent that the i850 P4 motherboard chipset would use RDRAM exclusively, so in order to help sidestep Rambus' flagship product's unfortunate adversity in the eyes of the public, Tech Data have opted to bundle it with the processors which should go on sale before the beginning of December. The American e-tailer is stocking the following bundles.. INTEL Manufacturer Part# BX80528JK140GR Description BOXED PENTIUM 4 1.4GHZ 64M 800MHZ NECC RDRAM $900 TD Part# 277420 INTEL Manufacturer Part# BX80528JK150GR Description BOXED PENTIUM 4 1.5GHZ 64M 800MHZ NECC RDRAM $1050 TD Part# 277421 64Mb of RAM alongside a 1.5GHz processor is taking the mickey a little, but nevertheless. The question now arises though; just who the hell is going to pay over $1000 for a processor alone when the nearest AMD chip (a 1.2GHz Athlon) is less than half that for a relatively small performance differential? If Intel are intending to push the P4 as hard as they did the PII (which is a definite possibility) then surely they will need a price tag that endears it to potential buyers. In this country is can cost nearly £800 to buy a PIII-933MHz at the moment, imagine that price scale applied to a P4. So what we're getting at is.. just how much use is 64Mb of RAM going to be to a 1.5GHz processor owner, and just who's going to be thanking Tech Data for this little "freebie". Update: The same website seems to be offering the Intel D850GB P4 motherboard for $210. A snip, you might say.