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Radeon 7200 64MB SDR or Radeon 32MB DDR?

GustySoul

GustySoul

Senior member
Hey All,

My buddy needs a new video card but can't decide between the following two. Thought I might be able to help out a little and get your opinions if you have time.

1) ATI Radeon 7200 64MB SDR

2) ATI Radeon (Original) 32MB DDR

They are both very reasonably priced at Newegg. My friend doesn't do 3D games much so super high frame rates aren't important, just a nice card in terms of video quality and dvd decoding. The ATI website says the 7200 is simply the new name for the original Radeon chip, so I guess it boils down to what's better, 64MB SDR or 32MB DDR. Any input or opinions appreciated.

Thanks much,
obispo21

 
Hey Thanks for the quick response palominon00b,

I think that helps push us in the right direction. 🙂

obispo21
 
for price and performace, hard to beat the 7200's specs but the drivers are sometimes an issue (but that normally is associated with gaming, not dvd decoding)
 
bigger number = higher performance.
original 32MB DDR or LE with hyperz re-enabled and overclocked back to 163 should be between 7300 to 7400.
 
Hey Thanks for the opinions everyone.

But now I have advice going both ways 😕 🙂

Both the cards retail at Newegg for just about $60. And what it seems is that they would both be just fine so
my friend probably can't miss eitherway.

Right now I think I should advise him to lead a little toward the 64 MB SDR 7200 Model since it is slightly newer and has
twice the memory - but I'll look into the original as well like Kingofcomputer advised.

Newegg doesn't list the item as an LE version, but both cards are OEM. Unfortunately Newegg doesn't state the core or memory clock rates 🙁

Thanks again for the opinions - helped out alot.
obispo21
 


<< get the 7500. the jump is performance is worth the $40 price diff >>



WORD! It is DEFINITELY worth saving up 4
 
Over here in Canada, the price difference is almost $100 (which is definately NOT $40US).
The 7200 vs a DDR - well, the DDR is faster. Quite honestly, I'd get whichever one of those two is a RETAIL BOX version. 😉 They both perform within inches of each other - the DDR being faster. (If it's an **LE** however (DDR) then you have to do some hacks that an amateur may do something silly with.)

I'd choose in order:
Radeon 7500 Retail OR OEM
Radeon 32MB DDR *Retail*
Radeon 7200 SDR Retail
Radeon LE *always OEM*
Radeon 7200 OEM
 
I'd take the 32DDr Radeon, I believe the 32 DDR is going to be faster than the 64 SDR.

With the extra ram the 64SDR might be able to surpass the 32DDR on higher res gaming.


Here is abenchwith the 32 SDR & the 32 DDR

Toro 🙂
 
this is the one to get:
ATI Radeon 32MB DDR 4X AGP Video Card - OEM Powered by the ATI RADEON graphics processing unit (GPU) Featuring ATIs CHARISMA ENGINE, PIXEL TAPESTRY and VIDEO IMMERSION technologies - NO TV OUT Click Here for the TV Out Version Fedex Saver Shipping $5.00
- Product Link - Chipset Info -See It! (N82E16814102157)
(avg rating out of 5 reviews)
$59.00

it's not LE, it's the original Radeon DDR, but an oem version clocked at lower speed, hyperz is enabled at default, but not so overclockable as LE reported by many users.

if you need dvi or dual output, you should get 7500:

ATI Radeon 7500 64MB DDR AGP OEM Powered by the RADEON 7500 graphics processing unit (GPU) High performance 3D graphics featuring ATI?s CHARISMA ENGINE PIXEL TAPESTRY and HYPER Z technologies RADEON 7500 display engine enables many combinations of CRT (VGA), digital flat panel (DVI), and TV displays.Hydravision Multiple Monitor anagement Software provides a flexible, user-friendly interface for multiple display settings Supports DirectX 8.0® and openGL Fedex Saver Shipping $7.00
- Product Link - Chipset Info -See It! (N82E16814102186)
(avg rating out of 12 reviews)
$101.00

price is alsmost double, performance is just about 10% more, not a good deal unless you must get dual output or dvi and tv-out.

or all the way to 8500 if you want dual output, dvi, tv-out, and most important - dx8 for longer life of usage:

ATI RADEON 8500 LE 64MB DDR - OEM/White Box Powered by the revolutionary RADEON? 8500 world?s fastest and most advanced graphics processing unit (GPU) Features ATI's TRUFORM. SMARTSHADER SMOOTHVISION?, and HYPER Z II technologies The only GPU to support DirectX® 8.1 Supports OpenGL® 1.3 features 64MB of (DDR) memory Dual monitor and Video output support Industry-leading DVD video playback w/tv cable only - Core: 230MHz, NO DVI to VGA Adaptor! Free Fedex Saver Shipping
- Product Link - Chipset Info -See It! (N82E16814102198)
(avg rating out of 21 reviews)
$179.00


look from the category "ATI", these are "built-by ATI" products which have same warranty as retail.
don't look fromt he category "ATI OEM - Powered By ATI", these are "powered-by ATI" products, made by 3rd party, warranty by the 3rd party.

newegg used to have a 7200 oem from "ATI" category at even lower price than the 7200 oem from "ATI OEM - Powered by ATI" category.

also, benchmarks show that there is not much improvement on 64M over 32M for Radeon, so 64M SDR is not a better buy than 32M DDR, the extra 32M is quite useless. Go for the original 32M DDR, it's still faster than 64M SDR.
 
Avoid the 7000 VE card. Its only a 64-bit DDR card. I got it because of its TV-out function; it sucks for gaming. Go with the LE versions if you want inexpensive yet powerful.
 
Uh, the regular 32 MB DDR card will be faster than the 64 MB SDR one. I would have thought that this fact was painfully obvious.
 
I have both of those cards in 2 different machines. I can't tell the damn difference between either of them for DVD playback & video editing.
 
Woah! :Q

Thanks a million for all the replies everyone! I had not expected to get so many to such a simple questions. Props to you all - and Kingofcomputer thanks so much for doing all that research for me - above and beyond the call of duty I must say. 🙂

Well I've spoken with my friend and he has decided to go ahead and get the original Radeon 32MB DDR card. I think that he will probably be happy with it. He doesn't game much and says he mostly uses his computer to watch DVDs, write email, do work, and surf the web so I think we're all good. The card is really just a replacement for a video card in an old P3 600 MHz Dell that went belly-up. I think the old card is a TNT2 or something along that line so even this $60 OEM Radeon should be quite a performance kick.

Thanks again for all the input everyone - you guys are the best 🙂

obispo21
 
LE is DDR so there is no confusion but as above. There is the Radeon LE 32DDR and the Radeon 32DDR OEM. The former is the Radeon 32DDR chipset produced oversea's based on slightly out of spec chips. It was had Hyper Z disabled for OpenGL via the registry and it is underclocked to 148 mhz. It has no TV output also, just a standard monitor output. With a few tweaks it can be set up as the Full Retail Radeon 32DDR performancewise. See the AT article on Radeon LE for indepth info on that.

It sounds like you want the Radeon 32DDR OEM tho like BlueMax said.
 
The Radeon VE (i.e. 7000) is DDR, too, but only half the datapath. The half-width (64-bit vs. 128-bit) of the datapath really cripples the performance. SDR versions actually have better performance than the crippled-DDR versions for games, contrary to someone saying DDR is better than SDR. (DDR is only better than SDR if it has the 128-bit datapaths!) The VE does sport S-Video TV-Outs, though, which matches what he wanted.
 
The DDR will be faster, but if he plays anything with a lot of texture detail, it might overflow the card memory, and if it does, the SDR will be faster.
 
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