Whats better: 128mb GDDR3 or 256mb DDR?

[Pinchy]

Hey Guys,

Just wondering what is better: 128mb GDDR3 memory or 256mb DDR memory?

Thanks in advanced

Cheers
Pinchy

 

[yogurt_21]

on what card? lol, but overall ddr is dual channel, ddr3 is quadchannel so the ddr3 would be better.

 

[andrey_sebastian]

lol , if it were quadchannel it would be QDR...not DDR
Have you noticed some mainboard DDR with radiators reach 600MHz , just like DDR3 ?

on what card? lol, but overall ddr is dual channel, ddr3 is quadchannel so the ddr3 would be better.

 

[Tatty_Two]

lol , if it were quadchannel it would be QDR...

3+1=?

 

[M. Mellough]

Just wondering what is better: 128mb GDDR3 memory or 256mb DDR memory?

GDDR2 was simply the same as DDR (or GDDR, the "G" simply means the ram is being used on a graphics card) but without certain DDR protocols that had become obsolete. Because it required less calculations (iterations) in data processing it was slightly faster (at least in theory) than DDR but DDR2 has always been plagued with heat problems and is now almost abandoned. DDR3 is the same as DDR2 but without heat issues. There is no significant difference in speed between DDR, DDR2 and DDR3 but the latter is "cleaner".

Based solely on this I'd say that 256 DDR is better than 128 DDR3 but DDR implies an older card so it's hard to say which is best unless we know which cards are being compared.

 

[KennyT772]

gddr3 is faster. ddr1 is limited to about 600mhz/ddr2 is about 1ghz/gddr3 is about 2ghz in limit.
post cards to let us know what you are exactly talking about

 

[Deleted member 3]

lol , if it were quadchannel it would be QDR...not DDR
Have you noticed some mainboard DDR with radiators reach 600MHz , just like DDR3 ?

DDR has nothing to do with Dual or Quad channel. Has to do with how often it sends data per clock.

As for the topic, if a program/game uses 256Mb of texture memory it could turn out to be faster to read everything from the slower on board DDR RAM instead of reading half of it from the system memory. (which is the slowest)

 

[M. Mellough]

gddr3 is faster. ddr1 is limited to about 600mhz/ddr2 is about 1ghz/gddr3 is about 2ghz in limit.

In theory that's true but the actual real-life bandwidth limit on DDR2 before it started to overheat was barely above that of DDR, max value varies with sources but it's rarely above 700Mhz. As for DDR3 the initial 2Ghz hype has been toned down to "above 600Mhz" which I guess means there's a wide variation in performance depending on brand, batch and such.

There is an interesting article about DDR/2/3 performance here:

http://www.lostcircuits.com/memory/ddr3/

 

[Pinchy]

Oh the graphics card is an AGP X700 (only thing in my budget that doesnt need a large power supply). Im wondering whether to get the HIS IceQ II X700 w/GDDR3 (only comes in 128mb) or the X700 made by another manufacturer, with 256MB of DDR memory. I cant get an X700 pro with 256mb of GDDR3 due to price.
I know the fan on the IceQ is also a factor with the price, but my case is pretty cool and i the fan doesnt really mean much.

Thanks for all the quick responses!

Cheers
Pinchy

 

[yogurt_21]

on the same gpu I'd say go for the more memory as they should have similar clocks.