What is the point of DDR MX cards if the memory bandwidth is the same?

[NFS4]

http://www.digit-life.com/

 

[Sephiroth_IX]

1) Chill out on the oldschool links (i do it too... sigh)
2) Less expensive to build - I.E. G450.

 

[ltk007]

<< So which is faster?

The honest answer to this is that they are about the same. In some applications DDR will be faster and in some applications the SDR will be faster. There is also an issue of overclocking where I believe that the DDR will have more headroom and should produce faster results. >>




Here's your answer, its the overclockers delight

 

[Adul]

less traces are need so it is less to manufacturer the baord.

 

[NFS4]

Then why'd they even bother with SDR boards in the first place?

 

[Leo V]

I don't see any significant performance difference due to DDR/SDR (although DDR version is indeed cheaper to implement). There may be latency/timing issues, but I don't think they'll noticeably affect performance.

What I find very intriguing is: 2.8GB/sec = 175MHz/350MHz DDR mem clockspeed. Are they really using 350MHz memory instead of 333 (which only yields 2.67GB/s)? That's 5% faster!

 

[Noriaki]

less traces so it's cheaper would be the main reasons.
Less power requirement on DDR SDRAM to I think...

 

[Leo V]

Do you guys think they're using 350MHz memory? That's necessary for 2.8GB/sec.

 

[StickHead]

NFS4, you wouldn't be anti-nVidia by any chance would you?

 

[NFS4]

<< NFS4, you wouldn't be anti-nVidia by any chance would you? >>


I think that 99.9999999% of this BBS would say quite the opposite

 

[Gunbuster]

When did DDR get less traces? Rambus had less traces.

 

[Leo V]

Gunbuster: not the memory itself, rather the 64-bit interface which replaces the 128-bit interface of the SDR version (keeping the actual bandwidth about equal).

 

[Muerto]

I said the same thing when I saw the post. If the bandwidth is the same then you're going to run into the same problems.

I suppose that having less traces would improve stability but then why didn't they just do that in the first place? If it's more stable then you might be able to overclock it a bit higher but will that be enough to see a difference? Personally I don't think so but we'll have to wait for some benchmarks to find out for sure.

 

[Leo V]

&quot;I suppose that having less traces would improve stability but then why didn't they just do that in the first place?&quot;

Simple, lack of DDR availability. Now that memory makers have pulled their collective head out of their collective arse it'll be a different story.

 

[ViRGE]

NFS4, they probably went SDR at first for 2 reasons. First and foremost, they were still building their stockpile of DDR for GF2 GTS cards; as up until now, there's never been enough DDR to truely satisfy everyone's needs. The other reason is design, as it's much easier to mod a GF/GF2 board for the GF2 MX then it is to design one from the ground up in order to use half the traces. Either way, it hasn't seriously hurt Nvidia, it's CL that's been shafted up until now.

PS Anyone know when we'll see some benches, I have this gut feeling that it'll still be slower than SDR

 

[Sunner]

Gunbuster, they drop the bus width to 64 bits vs the 128 bit wide bus on the SDR MX's.
That lessens the number of traces needed by a good amount.