# Intel Chipset Question

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intel-chipset-question/112729>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 6, 2002, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intel-chipset-question/112729 "2002-06-06T20:06:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![High\_Deity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9a140/32.png) [@High\_Deity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/High_Deity)\
**Post date:** [June 6, 2002, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intel-chipset-question/112729/1 "2002-06-06T20:06:55Z")

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I haven’t been keeping up with their technology, so can someone give me a refresher… which intel chipset is newer, the 845 or 850? what are the pros/cons of each (other than them being intel)?

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**Author:** ![Alereon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@Alereon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alereon)\
**Post date:** [June 6, 2002, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intel-chipset-question/112729/2 "2002-06-06T21:21:59Z")

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They were launched rougly simultaneously. i850 is Intel’s Pentium 4 chipset that uses Rambus DRAM, or RDRAM. i845 is Intel’s Pentium 4 chipset that uses PC133 SDRAM or DDR SDRAM. I would suggest that you go with DDR for a P4, as RDRAM is now dead technology that will not likely be usable if you upgrade. You can find some information on the newest Intel i845 chipsets at [Anandtech.com](http://www.anandtech.com/chipsets/showdoc.html?i=1624)

Of course, I’m also biased towards AMD, so my overwhelming suggestion would be to go with a nice Athlon XP based system. But if you’re determined to go the P4 route, an i845 **E** -based motherboard would look to be your best bet.