Creative GeForce2 MX, the new Celery of videocards! $89, benchmarks!!

[abracadabra1]

no they don't.
i have personally tested them.

they are better than the geforce2mx sdr.
i have a leadtek @ 225(core)/190 memory
and tested a creative agp ddr geforce2mx and the creative outperforms my leadtek by a fair margin.

 

[ss284]

are you sure?

the DDR memory is limited by a 64 bit bandwidth, which translates into half the memory bandwidth.
I dont know how you got your results, but at 333 mhz memory, the creative is just as fast as any other out there.

Steve

 

[RoadRuner]

here's the jist dudes.

the geforce 2mx SDR uses 128 bit sdr memory.

the geforce 2mx DDR uses 64 bit DDR memory.

lets do the math, DDR memory is twice as fast, in theory, yes.

HOWEVER by reducing the datapath from 128 bit to 64 bit, it is also
TWICE AS SLOW.

So the DDR memory is both Twice as fast, and twice as slow as the SDR
memory. hence = same performance.

you'll notice at the benchmark link above the geforce DDR still spanks the geforce 2mx DDR, just as bad as the geforce 2 mx SDR.

Marketing ploy. The geforce 2mx chipset cannot use 128 bit DDR sdram like its big brothers. I bought a used DDR geforce a few months back for $125 shipped off the forsale/trade forum. It's quite fast, quite faster than any geforce 2mx i've seen.

Don't expect this card to be any faster than any other geforce unless the memory is some real good quality overclocking material.

now i'm sure if they put some of that geforce 2 ultra ~4ns DDR on the geforce 2mx it would be a bit faster. but i doubt it.

200 mghz 128 bit SDR == 400mghz 64 bit DDR in actual performance.

Think about it.

 

[ss284]

thank you road runner for supporting me.

I was getting annoyed at soo many people craving this MX when it was actually slower at its default and overclocked speed than other geforce MX's that have come out 3 months ago.

same situation with the g400 compared to the g450.

the newer g450 with DDR is slower cuz of the 64bit bandwidth,

STeve

 

[ss284]

the geforce MX could have supported 128 bit ddr ram, but then it would take out the gTS,

Steve

 

[abracadabra1]

i know the theory, i'm sure we can all do the math.
but the card i tested outperformed my leadtek geforce2mx.

 

[huh!!]

abracadabra1,

Can you give stats on how much faster your ddr mx was over the sdr mx? Games? resolutions etc? I think I read an interview with some guy from creative and he said in some cases the DDR MX would be faster and in other cases it would be slower. It depended on the situation.

 

[zhensel]

abracadabra: did the two cards have equal memory and processor clocks?

ss284: people could desolder the ddr chips from the mx and put them on a sdr geforce and vice versa and end up with a ddr and a mx of equal performance eh?

Either way I'll still look to real world results to see how they compare.

 

[swayinOtis]

The card reviewed at tbreak doesn't have DDR ram like the Creative card. Too bad because I'd like to see the benchmars for that.

buy.com link to creative

 

[lifeguard1999]

To quote the article:

"The MX overclocked very well! We were able to take the core as high as 210MHz and the memory all the way upto 360MHz."

360 MHz DDR on a 64 bit bus ~= 180 MHz SDR on a 128 bit bus.
360 MHz DDR on a 64 bit bus ~= 2.88 GB/s Memory bandwidth.
(The "~=" means approximate, and not exact.)

A non-overclocked GeForce 2 MX DDR is 286 MHz DDR (143 MHz doubled; 7ns chips routinely hit 143MHz). An SDR version has
a 166 MHz clock with a 128 bit bus.

286 MHz DDR on a 64 bit bus ~= 2.3 GB/s Memory bandwidth.
166 MHz SDR on a 128 bit bus ~= 2.7 GB/s Memory bandwidth.

All that being said, it looks like at default the Creative GeForce2 MX card will be slower than a stock SDR card due to the memory bandwidth limitations at higher resultions. I do not expect it to be a concern at lower resolutions (640x480x16).

Of course, I have one on backorder at Buy.com. If the coming reviews prove what I think, then I will cancel the order and find another one.

 

[SuperFreaky]

I didn't think I was missing anything

 

[RayW69]

I think its pretty smart of Creative to market a DDR MX card. It'll dupe a bunch of people into thinking that the performance will be much better than other MX's on the market. Same performance, but it just sounds cooler to have a DDR card lol.

 

[Trifecta]

hmmm,

Well, maybe my DDR still has a little life left in it after all...

IT BETTER @#!%$!@$ its ONLY 6 months old!! Dangit!

 

[vinnyracer]

Which would you go for "ATI Radeon DDR 32mb" or "Creative Blaster MX DDR 32mb?"

I need a new video card pretty soon.

 

[RoadRuner]

no question the ati DDR would be faster than the geforce mx ddr

 

[BadBrad]

One thing.... at $89 this card will be the best bang for buck!!!

 

[sammykun]

man, i am so tempted to rid myself of my current mx card just because this is such a great deal..got my msi mx card for 113 about a month ago. it's nice...but hot damn, this creative one sounds waaay sweet.

 

[Trifecta]

vinnyracer.

That question has been beat to death.


No, the ati will not be "faster" than the mx. I had an mx, but then I returned it to best buy and got myself the radeon for the same price.

End result:

better looking 32bit graphics
almost as fast overall performance (geforce is hands down faster except for 32bit)
better looking 2-d picture

however, SUPER CRAPOLA drivers for win2k

The mx is superior in:

bang for buck
16bit speed
drivers

overclockability

you decide.

I really liked my hercules mx board, but I would trade it in a heartbeat for a Radeon. The image quality of the Charisma engine is very nice. The mx is a speedy board though and you really need to go up to high resolutions at 32bit to see slowdowns.

I do not agree that the DDR version of this board is a marketing ploy. That is the single most assinine comment I have ever read. That is like saying they used solid gold plating on the box to sell more cards. The DDR board IS faster. there is no question. Creative did however put bottlenecks on this board so as not to kill the market. Imagine what they would have done to the graphics market with a ddr mx board going full boar!!

They would have killed the desire for all GTS2 cards!

They are doing the same thing that all video card manufacturers are doing with this chip (NV20) i.e., restricting its abilities. Have you ever heard of the Elsa Gloria2 (quadro)? This is a geforce chip with super high quality memory and all chip features let loose! and it simply kicks arse. But who can afford a 600 video card?

read this about the gloria2

 

[gellfex]

Trifecta,

That Quadro2 may be closer than you think. Have you seen this site about hardware hacking ANY Geforce2 into a Quadro, including the MX? It's pretty compelling.

http://www.geocities.com/tnaw_xtennis/G-Quadro/E-G-Quadro.htm

 

[ss284]

TO ALL THAT WANT THIS MX:

ITS SLOWER

i dont know where abra gets his results, but the maximum mem bandwidth for the MX is slower, resulting in a slower card.

creative is using DDR because it looks good, and 7ns ddr ram is cheaper than 6ns or 5.5ns SDram.
other SDR MX's will be faster, so dont be tempted by this one.

and the price is great, but who really cares if its not going to be in stock for another month.
if it was in stock, it would be a warm deal, as other MX's are hovering around the same price, with the lack of creative brand backing.

if you can find it in stock, at this price, its a warm deal.
remmeber, its still a slower card, and at their maximum mem bandwidths,
the SDR will come on top.
if this ddr memory on the creative was using 128 bit, over clocked it would compare to the gTS.

but then nvidia would be loosing money. they need a low end competitor that offers good performance at a good price. the same can be seen in intel's celeron and AMD's duron.


so please stop making a fuss on a slower card thats not in stock, AT buy.com

regards,


Steve

 

[RoadRuner]

dude if you think a ATI Radeon DDR is slower than a geforce 2 mx, you must be on krack.

The radeon DDR (retail) nearly puts the smackdown on the geforce 2 gts in some cases.

The radeon SDR might be slower than the mx, but certainly not the DDR

get your facts together.

this DDR geforce 2mx is a waste of time and money.

 

[ss284]

Trifecta,

the DDR Mx is slower.
Creative didnt put any bottelnecks on the card
NVIDIA did. THEY cut the memory bus in half.
Tt has a 64 bit mem bandwidth, the same as on the g450, and we all know how sh*tty that performed.
This is similar to the vanta/tnt2 m64.
It has horrible mem performance, so this is why they added DDR ram, which doubles the transfer.

This is reduced to 0 because of the 64 bit bandwidth.
ITS slower at the present clock speed
even with both board overclocked, the SDr still kills the Ddr.

regards,

Steve


.....it was not an assinine comment. I think you using the goldplated box analogy is assinine.

 

[ss284]

concerning the Radeon:

it whips ass in 32 bit
it gets it ass whipped in 16 bit because the numbers are 5% faster than their 32 bit scores.
It has great DVD decoding



Steve

 

[Trifecta]

LOL

I love flaming

Great, will someone please tell me what the price difference is between SDR and DDR

This makes no sense at all. The DDR performance with restricted bandwidth is like spitting into the wind. What sense does it make to use faster ram on a smaller pipe?

If the performance of a game is limited by this design, I would love to see proof.

on crack?

My Hercules card was definately faster in almost every situation other than 32bit

The mx is faster and I tested it on Q3, Unreal, MDK and several other benchmark programs.

The Radeon looks better on screen though, so I enjoy the *slight* speed loss for image quality.

 

[ss284]

trifecta:
yeah, I havent gotten in a flaming war in a long time, it think last was when the old forums were still up =)
anyways, concerning the creative, nvidia limited it because it would compete with the geforce 2.
if you read my previous previous thread, you can see my point.

the process of entering a slightly crippled version of their flagship product into the low end market is done my many companies.

they dont want competition from their OWN product.



steve