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Despite the hype surrounding it, EDO RAM is no more than another type of FPM RAM. Essentially, it recognizes that most of the time when the CPU requests memory for a particular address, it's going to want some more addresses nearby. Instead of forcing each memory access to start afresh, EDO RAM hangs onto the location of the previous access, thereby speeding access to nearby addresses. EDO RAM speeds up the memory cycle, with improvements in memory performance of as much as 40 percent. But EDO RAM is effective only up to a bus speed of 66 MHz, and that's quickly being bypassed by the most recent crop of AMD,Cyrix, and Intel processors.

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Published as Tutor in the 10/21/97 issue of PC Magazine.