DDR2
"I dont understand the need for DDR2 memory, in fact that may be a mistake as DDR2 is quite rare at the moment and most is being used only with High end graphics boards like 5700Ultra/5950Ultra. There is DDR1 memory currently at 533MHz sold by high end memory companies like OCZ and Mishkin, which could be used in these systems and would be much more resonably priced."
While DDR II isn't common in systems now, Intel's chipsets are going to move DDR II later on in 2004. Also, DDR II may be resevered for the Xserves as it would be more beneficial there. They don't know exactly how it's going to perform in comparison to DDR, since DDR exceeded expectations. DDR II doesn't have the same latency times that ultra fast DDR chips have, but the way the data is transmitted is also slightly different. The core clock of a DDR II 400Mhz chip is only 100Mhz, making it cheaper to produce. The slight differences expand on the way DDR works in comparison to SDR. I don't know it well enough to explain it, but DDR has its advantages over DDR II and vice versa. However, DDR II slots should be backwards compatible with DDR chips. This could mean a couple different things for the ram configurations in the next power mac and Xserve updates.
Also, in reference to another comment, RAID refers to different configurations of multiple harddrives, not CPUs nor distributive computing setups (aka clusters). Apple is using HyperTransport technology for the CPU interconnect I think.
My only hope for Apple is that they keep up this faster pace on the motherboard architecture. Hell, maybe they'll even have built in Serial Attached SCSI and SerialATA II channels eventually. I'm sure they'll pick up PCI Express and the new graphics card offerings. With that kind of bandwidth and speed one could probably play PC games at decent speeds through VirtualPC.
I don't see why people are yawning at this rumor of speed up dates, or complaints for that matter. 2.4GHz?? Apple was stuck at 1.4GHz until IBM saved the day. Now there's talk of a 4Ghz machine a year and a bit down the line. Let me remind you that with the chip upgrades from G5 to G6 there will be quite a few changes and clock for clock those chips will be even faster than their predecessor. At least Apple has a definite future now. The closest chip to compare a G5 with would be an AMD64 chip. They've just reached 2.2GHz. By the time the G5 updates come out, it'll be on par with that speed. I could care less about Intel's inflated speeds and prices.
