ATI 7500 with DDR memory runs SLOWER???

[Tomer]

Have 2 Sapphire cards.

First is a 7500LE
(ATI Radeon 7500LE Chipset, 64MB SDR - 250/166)

Second is 7500
(ATI Radeon 7500 Chipset, 64MB DDR - 270/183)


Have compared the cards performance in 2 of my machines:

A Soyo Dragon+ with AMD 1700+ and 768MB of DDR RAM
and
A ECS K7S5A Pro with AMD 2100+ and 512MB of SDR RAM


What has be baffled is the 7500LE with SDR RAM benchmarks 20-30% higher in 2D and 3D performance over the DDR board.

Have downloaded and installed the latest drivers, etc.

Any ideas?

 

[nan0bug]

more than likely the DDR card has 64bit memory interface, and the SDR card has 128bit

 

[nemesismk2]

Originally posted by: nan0bug
more than likely the DDR card has 64bit memory interface, and the SDR card has 128bit

I agree

 

[Blastman]

Well, I?m going to have to disagree with the last 2 posts here.

I mean they are BOTH Sapphire cards, how could their DDR card clocked faster than a SDR card be slower? Even if they were both on a 64bit bus the DDR version would be faster. There is no way Sapphire put their SDR card on a 128bit memory bus and the more expensive DDR card on only a 64bit bus.

I have a Sapphire 7500 64MB DDR 270/183, and I?m sure it?s a lot faster than a 7500LE, 64MB SDR clocked 250/166.

I don?t know how you tested but you must have messed something up. Sounds like you got your figures backwards as I would expect that DDR version to be about 30% faster than the SDR card.

On my Celeron-T 1.0A @ 1.33 I get ? 4303 ? on 3Dmark 2001se (default 1024x768) which is right about where I would expect to be considering my system.

I estimated my card is only about 7-8% slower than the retail version ATI 7500 64MB DDR which is clocked 290/230.

 

[Tomer]

Thanks for the replies.

The specs, while somewhat vague, are identical

The 7500LE SDR says ?64MB SDRAM, 128-bit memory?
The 7500 DDR says ?64MB DDR, 128-bit memory?

Believe me I ran the tests numerous times and checked and re-check the results, not believing my eyes.
The 7500 DDR continues to show worse 2D and 3D performance.

While it is nice to purchase these Sapphire cards from New Egg for a good price, it is frustrating when both of my E-mails to Sapphire tech ?support? sent on Monday and Tuesday of this week still go unanswered. I have also called them 5 or 6 times a day, everyday this week. Basically you either get a busy signal or "We can't answer your call right now, leave a message" which I have also done multiple times. Frustrating!!!!

I admit to not being a big 3D gamer (Obviously, from my choice of cards) but find the 7500 series meets my needs with the dual heads and all, and I was just hoping for a little more performance for very little more $$ since the DDR card was only like $5 more.

And I?m sure the test I?m using (The performance test from Norton SW Pro 2003) is far from the best one, but I can?t seem to locate the free version of 3D Mark anymore. It appears they have started changing for all versions.

Any suggestions on any other, preferably free, benchmark I could run?

Thanks

 

[Blastman]

Believe me I ran the tests numerous times and checked and re-check the results, not believing my eyes.
The 7500 DDR continues to show worse 2D and 3D performance.

I assume here you tested both cards in the same machine.

I checked Sapphires site and I noticed they make ?

7500 DDR
7500 SDR
7500LE DDR
7500LE SDR

Now maybe that 7500 DDR is actually a 7500LE DDR, you can check the part number on the back sticker and check it on their site site ? my card # looks like this ? P/N 1024-1161-03-SA. The part numbers are at the bottom of each page.

I would think the 7500LE?s would be the same except for memory (SDR versus DDR), but it doesn?t make sense to me that the lowest card ?. an LE SDR, would be faster than either of the DDR versions.

 

[Tomer]

Fresh reboot. Test with 7500 LE SDRAM card.
Shut off. Install 7500 DDR card. Test again.
Several times in both machines.
Same results.

SDRAM card 20-30% better 2D and 3D numbers.

Just the opposite of what it should be.


I am attempting to locate my old 3D Mark 2001 disk, then I?ll try them with it.



The cards are marked:

1024-2147-BB-SA
Labeled on the card as a 7500LE SDRAM, but shows as a 7500 on their site as a PAL???
(PAL,250/166) (EAN# 48951062 0142 2)

and

1024-1146-01-SA
Labeled on the card as a 7500 DDR, shows as a 7500 DDR on their site
(NTSC, DVI) (EAN# 48951062 0013 5)

One interesting note: The 7500LE SDRAM card has a fan.
The 7500 DDR does not.

 

[Blastman]

Your 7500 DDR 270/183 card is exactly the same card as mine, except it?s a newer part number.

Only thing I can think of now is that maybe half the memory bank is defective or something.

On an AMD 1700+ and 768MB of DDR RAM, you should easily beat my 3DMark2001SE score of 4303 (1.33 Cel-T 256MB SDRAM). You should probably be up around at least 5000.