Radeon 32MB SDR vs DDR

[Philly C]

What's the performance difference between the two. And is $108 TOO good of a price for 32MB DDR? I think I heard OEM Radeons are actually clocked lower. Is this true?

 

[MGMorden]

Big performance difference, go DDR. $108 is gonna get you a slower clocked one w/ no fan (only heatsink), but I have one like that and w/ Powerstrip it overclocks fine to 175/175 (standard clock for the retails is 166/166, so that is faster than a retail after overclocking). I'd go for it. $108 for a card of this calibur is an incredible deal. Better than the similiarly priced Geforce 2 Mx . . .

 

[Biggs]

You'll notice a significant performance improvement with the DDR.

 

[Philly C]

So all I would have to do is remove the heatsink, slap on a blue orb or something and then use PowerStrip to overclock as high as I can go? Neato.

 

[Biggs]

The blue orb will let you overclock your card much higher than the default cooler.

 

[hjs]

When oc'ing the mem will stop you and not the core
so maybe a Blorb is a little overkill, but it will never hurt ofcourse

so ideal will be a blorb, with a Cardcooler and some heatsinks on the ram

 

[MGMorden]

My card does 175/175 with only a heatsink. I'm gonna keep it that way cuz I don't want to add another fan to the box.

 

[Lawton]

There's no question that DDR is the way to go. While ATI has some seriously superior approaches to handling the problem of limited bandwidth (on chip, in hardware), the SDR cards are weaker performers with current drivers & current software.

Also, the comments above are right on about the memory being the hindrance with o/c-ing the card. The cooling fan on the retail Radeon cards is pretty much cosmetic--the heatsink will do as well. The Radeon isn't a super-hot chip (like some competitors chips, which will incinerate themselves given the chance). Putting extra cooling on your chip really won't help you much anyway, since with the Radeon you'll have to do sync'd o/c-ing. The chip & memory need to be o/c'd together, at or near the same frequency. The card gets unstable pretty fast if you push the chip and memory too far from each other.

I run my retail 32DDR at 183/183, and have no problems at all. I've not tried any higher, and probably won't. Testing results posted on the Rage3d Radeon forums seem to indicate that once you hit 185 you've gotten most of what you can get from the chip. A particular forum member o/c'd his 64DDR card, if I am remember correctly, to 215/215 successfully--but he only got 10 more points from 3dMark than he'd gotten at 183/183 (retail 64DDR default). With such meager o/c performance gains it's just not worth the risk, IMO.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

You may consider $130+shipping+tax retail DDR.

 

[snow patrol]

<< The blue orb will let you overclock your card much higher than the default cooler. >>

.

In point of fact, the Blorb is overkill on the Radeon, as I found out when I put one on mine. I perhaps got a 1 or 2Mhz increase, if that. I only put the thing on because I had one lying around and fancied sticking it in my case

The Radeons tend to run very cool, and the memory speed is the limited factor when it comes to overclocking one. The blorb doesn't cool the memory (which runs cool any way) so I'd say it's not worth putting a blorb on a Radeon at all.

 

[AmbitV]

my oem radeon came at 148/148

but then i simply loaded up powerstrip and went to 180/180