The guts aren't worth more than 750, and that much only because they include a superdrive, otherwise they aren't worth more than 500-600. 19" TFT's (1600x1200) will retail for 999 within a few months. A wide screen TFT is actually cheaper to make than a square display of the same diagnal. 2000USD for a 19" widescreen iMac is entirely possible. Apple is a greedy bitch though, and having such an offering would mean that they would also have to finally put reasonable prices on their sub 20" displays and PM's. So yeah, I guess it won't happen. Too bad, a large display would be the only real reason to consider an iMac, unless they got about 33% cheaper than they currently are (at all price points.)
DDR == double data rate.</strong><hr></blockquote>
But SDRAM refers to Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory. DDR RAM is a type of SDRAM.
The difference between (SDR) SDRAM and DDR SDRAM is this: There is a pulse called a "clock" that you can think of as looking like a sine wave. SDR SDRAM sends data at the peak of every wave. DDR SDRAM sends data as the wave begins to rise, and as the wave begins to fall (whence "double data rate"). Theoretically, this allows DDR SDRAM to double the amount of data it can transfer without doubling the speed of the clock. In practice, it's not quite that good, but it's a significant improvement.
So called clock-doubling is desirable because the faster a clock is, the more difficult it is to implement on a motherboard, so you want to keep them down as low as you can.
Then there's QDR SDRAM (or "DDR II") which has two clocks, both doubled, and timed so that it acts almost like one clock running four times faster - but as far as dealing with the actual clocks, they're still ticking at 100MHz or 133MHz, which makes the motherboard engineers happy.
The most interesting memory technology in my view is QBM.
You take DDR-266 or DDR-333. QBM memory has to have two banks. They both share the command and address lines, but the second bank transmits data at a 90º phase difference. So a varient of DDR, but more data moved.
This means that you can have motherboards which are compatible with DDR and QBM, but you can't have motherboards compatible with DDR and DDR-II.
This would mean for a dual PowerPC 970, you have:
1.2GHz / 4.267GB/s, uses Dual DDR266
1.5GHz / 5.333GB/s, uses Dual DDR300
1.8GHz / 6.400GB/s, uses Dual QBM400
2.4GHz / 8.533GB/s, uses Dual QBM533
You couldn't do that with DDR-II without having two different kinds of motherboards.
Comments
<strong>
Are you joking?
SDR == single data rate
DDR == double data rate.</strong><hr></blockquote>
But SDRAM refers to Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory. DDR RAM is a type of SDRAM.
The difference between (SDR) SDRAM and DDR SDRAM is this: There is a pulse called a "clock" that you can think of as looking like a sine wave. SDR SDRAM sends data at the peak of every wave. DDR SDRAM sends data as the wave begins to rise, and as the wave begins to fall (whence "double data rate"). Theoretically, this allows DDR SDRAM to double the amount of data it can transfer without doubling the speed of the clock. In practice, it's not quite that good, but it's a significant improvement.
So called clock-doubling is desirable because the faster a clock is, the more difficult it is to implement on a motherboard, so you want to keep them down as low as you can.
Then there's QDR SDRAM (or "DDR II") which has two clocks, both doubled, and timed so that it acts almost like one clock running four times faster - but as far as dealing with the actual clocks, they're still ticking at 100MHz or 133MHz, which makes the motherboard engineers happy.
You take DDR-266 or DDR-333. QBM memory has to have two banks. They both share the command and address lines, but the second bank transmits data at a 90º phase difference. So a varient of DDR, but more data moved.
This means that you can have motherboards which are compatible with DDR and QBM, but you can't have motherboards compatible with DDR and DDR-II.
This would mean for a dual PowerPC 970, you have:
1.2GHz / 4.267GB/s, uses Dual DDR266
1.5GHz / 5.333GB/s, uses Dual DDR300
1.8GHz / 6.400GB/s, uses Dual QBM400
2.4GHz / 8.533GB/s, uses Dual QBM533
You couldn't do that with DDR-II without having two different kinds of motherboards.
Barto
<a href="http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=180"; target="_blank">For more information</a>
[ 01-23-2003: Message edited by: Barto ]</p>