Difference between 300mhz RAM-DAC and 360mhz RAM-DAC...

[SPSUguy]

Hey,

Just a question that i've been wondering about. I know the G400 vanilla have a 300mhz RAM-DAC and that the MAX has a 360mhz RAM-DAC, but what I don't know is what that extra 60mhz does? Is it higher res? Better colors? Higher frame rates? Higer refresh rates? Is it really noticible?

thanks all

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Abit BH6, Celeron 450, Matrox G400 32mb "MAX", 256mb ram, IBM 10GB, DVD 5x, MX300

[JAZZ]

Hi,

All in all the extra 60mhz will give you higher performance (about 15%) in most applications. It will also give you higher refresh rates in high resolutions... and it's also a little pricier...

J

[Nuno]

I can be wrong, but I disagree with higher clocked ramdac giveing higher performance. Being a digital-analog converter, a few Mhz more will allow higher refesh rates and higher resolutions. Maybe an extra crisp display at hi res, compared with the 300 Mhz.
More performance, no. The max has better performance in 2d than the vanilla only at very hi res, and I think it´s because the core/mem is clocked higher.

From my point of view, a 360Mhz ramdac is overkill and only pays if running above 1600x1200.

[JAZZ]

The memory on the card being faster will give the 15% or so increase I was mentioning. I shouldn't be up this early

[Zwisch]

Indeed, the RAMDAC will let you achive higher refresh rate at higher resolutions and color depth. Speed increase is only related to the clock speed.

[gbm]

Go to my website (address in profile) for RAMDAC parms explanation. In short: 360 MHz only matters at 2048x1536.

[IceStorm]

"Extra Crispy!"

"Need a jump?"

Eh, I like having the MAX so I can tell those GeForce babies that my RAMDAC is better than theirs. :-)



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Primary System: PIII-540 (450@4.5x120), Soyo 6BA+ III, 2x128MB PC100 ECC SDRAM CAS2, G400 MAX in multi-monitor mode. V2 SLI rig. Two Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 900u monitors, 3Com 3C905, SoundBlaster Live!, DeskTop Theater DTT2500 DIGITAL Speaker System (Sweeeeeet!), WD AC41800 18GB HD, WD AC310100 10GB HD, Toshiba SD-M1212 6x DVD-ROM, HP 8100i CD-RW, Epson Stylus Pro, OptiUPS PowerES 650, MS SideWinder Precision Pro USB joystick, Logitech 3-button mouse, Mitsumi keyboard, Win98 SE, Belkin OmniCube 4-port KVM, 10/100 5-port Linksys Ethernet switch (30~40MB/min under Win98SE)

Secondary System: PII-266, Asus P2B BIOS 1008, 1x128MB PC100 ECC SDRAM CAS2, Millennium II, 3Com 3C590, ADSL Modem 640kbit down/90kbit up, 3Com 3C509, Mylex BT-930 SCSI card, Seagate 2GB Hawk, NEC 6x CD-ROM, Linux distro S.u.S.E. 6.1 (IP Masquerade works!), Sharp JX-9400 LJ-II compatible

Tertiary System: DFI G568IPC Intel 430HX chipset, P200MMX, 4x64MB EDO Parity RAM, Millennium II, Intel Pro/100+ client NIC, SoundBlaster 16 MCD, Fujitsu 3.5GB HD, WD 1.2GB HD, Creative Dxr3 DVD decoder card, Hitachi GD-2500 6x DVD-ROM, Win98 SE

All specs subject to change.

[Snake-Eyes]

LOL Ice. Sounds like me and my buddy. He has a TNT2U though. He's actually considering a Max since seeing mine (even after reading reviews of GeForce), especially with the newer drivers. 'Course, then he'll need to get a P3, unless Matrox hurries up and gets the rest of its folks support through the TurboGL real soon.

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Ace

[IceStorm]

And people back in March told me that buying an SSE-capable CPU was a foolish move. I spit on their PII's and Celerons now. :-)

Seriously, make sure your games don't use OpenGL before sticking the G400 MAX into a NON SSE or K7 system. The TurboGL is sweet - no disabling of the second head for gaming, no wierd rainbows in GLQuake. It really makes the card come into its own.

Now if Thief would run at something higher than 1024x768x16, I'd be a happy camper (It's Thief's fault).

[JC]

There is virtually no difference in 3DMark99 between the 32MB Max and Non Max at 800 x 600.