Recalling PS2's RDRAM: High Bandwidth, Narrow Path Architecture
lauriewired · x · 2026-08-22
A post discusses the RDRAM (Rambus DRAM) used in the Sony PS2.
- Bandwidth Advantage: PS2's RDRAM offered roughly 3x the bandwidth of typical high-end PCs of the era.
- Design Logic: To increase memory bandwidth on a dense die, there are roughly two approaches: add more wires (wide+close, like HBM) or make wires faster and use fewer of them (narrow, the Rambus approach).
- Practical Experience: The author criticizes RDRAM for being terrible in practice, citing toxic dust, extreme sensitivity to sharpness and height, and slow speeds.
Related event: RDRAM Revisited: PS2's Narrow but High-Bandwidth Memory Gamble(2 posts)→
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