cheap DDR systems

[Velocet]

Well whatever corollary of Moore's law that talks about prices of
technology dropping exponentially has struck:

PcChips M817 LMR board for around $145 CDN. On board 100BTX ether, but
unlike the M810, no on board video (dang!).

And, according to the confusing website at www.crucial.com they supposedly
have DDR ram for very cheap, like 256Mb DDR PC2100 for $65 US (but I cant
confirm this - what's a 'memory upgrade', do I buy something from them
then upgrade it?).

Putting these two together with a 1.2Ghz Tbird and a cheapass videocard
(I havent tested wether the board boots without a videocard, would be
nice, but is unlikley) gives you a diskless node with 512Mb for around
$700 CDN (build yer own cabinet out of sheetmetal).

Not a month ago people were talking about full 512Mb DDR systems for
$1700 CDN (depends on the HD you throw in - these boards have at least ATA66
on them).

I found about a 1.5x speed increase of the 1.2Ghz Tbird w/512Mb DDR over
the 900Mhz Tbird w/512Mb PC133 for our Gaussian98 work. Now that this
1.5x advantage is no longer a 2.3x cost premium (but more like 1.3x if
all these prices pan out), and the addition of videocards to my design
isnt a huge cost increase (Im searching the net to order 1Mb PCI vidcards
to just boot these things - cost ~ $15 CDN), then this is seemingly viable.

Price estimates subject to bogosity as the CDN$ falls into the toilet...

If anyone can confirm crucial.com's ordering stuff, let me know. I might
just order 512Mb just as a test for the company and see where I get...

/kc
-- 
Ken Chase, math at velocet.ca  *  Velocet Communications Inc.  *  Toronto, CANADA