I am about to buy a system and I am tryingg to save money with a 2.26 system and I can't find a decent answer to my problem!!! the 845E chipset or the 850 chipset. The motherboards stack up like this: 845E - Asus P4B533 or 850 - Intel 850MV. Is there really that big of a difference between DDR PC-2100 and RDRAM PC-800? I just can't figure out a definative answer. Everyplace I go has a different review!!!! Will one of you nice folks please give me your opinions! Especially if you are using any of these components!!

Asus or Intel Motherboard? Which is better for P4 2.26 - the 845E chipset or the 850 chipset? DDR or Rambus? PLEASE HELP!!!!

The RMDRAM will give you, on the whole, better performance as far as applications that require good memory throughput are concerned.

The question where the opinions differ is how much you, as a user, NOTICE this in various applications. I would say that a few applications, such as rendering software (i.e. encoding DVDs to DivX or actually, heaven forbit, you do REAL work on your computer ) it will make a difference. We are not talking 400% faster, but a bit faster. You may not notice it staring the the progress indicator, but the FPS or benchmarks will give you better numbers. There are a few things where RMDRAM may actually be slower, but only very marginally (if at all).
Now, DDR is a lot cheaper and more available than RMDRAM. Only you can decide if the the extra performance you will experience doing certain things is worth the extra price or not.
My honest opinion: Unless you are doing heavy work on that machine, DDR will probably be sufficient. If you really intend to work on that machine or just want to show off, then RMDRAM. Even though I dont like RMDRAM, mostly because I dont like RAMBUS.
Just bear in mind that the P4 is a memory starved processor; faster memory is that the P4 needs.

Hey, thanks for the info!
Now my connundrum is this: Is the Asus P4B533 a good board for DDR memory. Some say it is the best out there? Any opinions on that?
Thanks!!!