Is Riva Tuner Always Right ?

W

water1

Gawd
Joined
Jan 7, 2001
Messages
726
I just got a low end card to hold me over, it's a 8600GT with 512 of DDR2, BUT when I installed and ran Riva Tuner it says it has 512meg of DDR3. ?
Is it right ?
They do make a 512meg DDR3 Ver. of the 8600GT card. Do you think they just put DDR3 on it and stuck it in the 8600GT 512meg DDR2 box ?
 
They could have put in DDR3 in place of DDR2, but it doesnt really matter. The higher revisions are just faster than the last, manufacturers use whatever is the cheapest to obtain the speeds they need.
 
Yes it is always right, except when its mistaken.

What brand card did you get?
 
Sounds liek they either messed up and sent you the GDDR3 model or more likely rivatuner is showing it wrong.

Get GPU-z and see what it says.

Although i dont know if GPU-Z actually reads the info from the card or recognizes the GPU and adds the info from the web.
 
water1 said:
I just got a low end card to hold me over, it's a 8600GT with 512 of DDR2, BUT when I installed and ran Riva Tuner it says it has 512meg of DDR3. ?
Is it right ?
They do make a 512meg DDR3 Ver. of the 8600GT card. Do you think they just put DDR3 on it and stuck it in the 8600GT 512meg DDR2 box ?
Click to expand...
it would have been much smarter to get the 256mb of gddr3 than 512mb of ddr2. 512mb on an 8600gt is like a heavy-duty towing package on a Honda Civic... its useless. the gddr3 memory is much better.
 
Yes.
256MB seems to be the best balance of memory capacity for the GeForce 8600 GTS, anything more is overkill in today’s games, and a waste of money.
Click to expand...




And DDR2 will cripple the card's performance.
 
pxc said:
LOL

Both 8600GT versions (DDR2/DDR3) run at the same 1400MHz memory speed. :rolleyes:

BTW, the 512MB version of the EVGA 8600GT was/is the cheapest version available for $80 after $10 rebate at outpost.com. http://shop2.outpost.com/product/5410969
Click to expand...
yes but the ddr2 is at its very limit where the gddr3 can be pushed more and doesnt gddr3 use less power than ddr2? also the fact remains that 512mb is useless on an 8600gt.
 
dennab205 said:
yes but the ddr2 is at its very limit where the gddr3 can be pushed more
Click to expand...
False. Both 8600GT DDR2 and DDR3 cards overclock to around the same speed without a volt mod (typically ~1600-1700MHz memory for non-Super OC/XXX cards which ship with faster than stock memory). There is a lot of overlap on DDR2 and DDR3 speed grades.
and doesnt gddr3 use less power than ddr2? also the fact remains that 512mb is useless on an 8600gt.
Click to expand...
DDR3 uses slightly less power at the same speed vs DDR2, but it's not very significant. Useless according to who, you? It's free in the card I linked above and the 8600GTS review linked earlier in the thread shows that 512MB adds a couple % of performance vs 256MB in most of the games tested.
 
pxc said:
False. Both 8600GT DDR2 and DDR3 cards overclock to around the same speed without a volt mod (typically ~1600-1700MHz memory for non-Super OC/XXX cards which ship with faster than stock memory). There is a lot of overlap on DDR2 and DDR3 speed grades.
DDR3 uses slightly less power at the same speed vs DDR2, but it's not very significant. Useless according to who, you? It's free in the card I linked above and the 8600GTS review linked earlier in the thread shows that 512MB adds a couple % of performance vs 256MB in most of the games tested.
Click to expand...
have you tried overclocking them both? mine(gddr3) would go to 1780 no problem but I run my card at stock speeds 99.99% of the time. well I will call the 512mb basically useless and its mostly marketing just to grab the noobs. there are tons of people with even 8500gt and older vanilla 6600 cards with 512mb and thats just plain silly. :cool:
 
Guys guys guys... If Evga's site says they only sell DDR3, then its probably just a typo on neweggs site.

What does it say on your box? DDR2? DDR3?
 
Fry's was selling the same card. It was DDR2, but advertised as DDR3 on their website. I actually received it and sent it back without installing it.
 
jmackay said:
See above. Dunno how newegg can sell a card that Evga doesn't make.
Click to expand...

EVGA makes both GDDR2 and 3 versions i dont know why they dont list both of them on the product page but they make them. The GDDR2 part number is 512-P2-N756-TR the GDDR3 part number is 512-P2-N757-TR.

All of EVGA's product specc pages can be found here. And sure enough there is one for each model number.

GDDR2 product sheet


GDDR3 Product sheet


A simple google search would have told you this but you decide that because its not on the main product page it dont exist.

Not to mention the card that was linked by dennab here has a picture of the box that clearly shows GDDR2
 
Hi everyone, Sorry for not getting back to my thread, I posted it yesterday and never got back to check on it.
First I am not a total TARD just a Half Tard :)
I only got this card as a stop gap. I was useing a 128meg 9800pro that I had to give back so I needed somthing cheep and fast.
This card was $80 and has a $10 mail in rebate.
I do know 512meg is of no use on this card it was a money thing($70 buck's);)
Yes EVGA does make a 512megDDR2 Ver. of the 8600GT it's printed all over the box my card came in.
I have not been able to check further to see if this does realy have DDR3 yet but I will and post back.
Is there a way to read info on the MEM Chips to know for shure ?
 
After the responses I've seen, I was hesitating to add a reply because I've already been proven wrong, but here it is anyways. I'd also like pxc to read it because I take it personally when people LOL at me.

This is not my first time replying to such topic (512MB DDR2 cards).
In a previous thread (probably been lost in the rollback) I correctly stated that the guy's card (which had a similar price to the 256MB GTS by then) was a waste because 512MB doesn't add performance, and DDR2 has limited overclockability. I saw the memory frequency was 700MHz so I didn't comment about performance.In that very thread, however, it was added that DDR2 is slower than GDDR3, so I decided to research more:

Browsing notebook forums indicated that memory frequency is crippled in the DDR2 version of 8600GT
Then I read Newegg reviews, (all of which complaining about DDR2 performance vs GDDR3) among which I found this one (on the exact same card he bought), which made me confident that DDR2 was indeed crippled:

Pros: 512mb's of RAM and low cost make this a decent entry level card. The VPU is actually the same that they use in the 8600GTS and it can overclock like a madman.

Cons: DDR2 RAM. I was also very dissapointed in Newegg because they listed the Memory Clock at 1400mhz when it is infact 800mhz (or 400mhzDDR2). To compensate I tried to overclock the Memory Bus, but it would only increase by around 120mhz.

Other Thoughts: Overall i'm dissapointed in Newegg for the mis-information given. If I had known it had 800mhz memory bus as opposed to 14000mhz I would have gone with something else.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16814130292
Click to expand...

Edit: BTW, water1, the 8600GT outprforms more expensive cards alike the X1950PRO specifically at low-res gaming. Read this and stop calling yourself a tard.
 
jmackay said:
See above. Dunno how newegg can sell a card that Evga doesn't make.
Click to expand...
so do did you think the OP as well as the retailers are all making stuff up? heck even the exact 7600gt and 8600gt models that bought from Circuit City are not listed on their site but they exist. that being said EVGA should list all models on their site. :cool:
 
Abu Som3a, I hope I did not say anything that made you or anyone else mad.
I don't think I "LOL" at you or anyone else.
I am more of a :)))smiley face over using whore..LOL;)
I was not fighting with any of you.
In my OPpost I just wanted to know if I got DDR3.
Like I said, I did not buy this card for the 512meg ram, I just got it because I am cheap(A cheap Smiley Face whore:D)
I will open the case soon and post the mem chip code on them.
Abu Som3a, you are right, the mem on the card is clocked at 400(800)DDR2 speed but I got it from Fry's and that is what they said it would be so I knew before I ordered it.
Abu Som3a,I will not call myself the "T"word anymore :) but I did take one of those online IQ test and they said I was one:D
 
So the answer is..Riva Tuner can be wrong.
Took out the card and read the RAM chips's.
They are the same as the ones on pxc's card. They read: K4N51163QE, as pxc posted above this is DDR2.
 
Wait why is the mem clocked at 400(800)?
The Fry's website does say it should be 700(1400) and so does the link pcx posted to the EVGA site..?
I miss spoke above when I said the site listed it at 400(800) it does say 700(1400).
pcx what is the speed of your card's mem ?
 
DDR2 and GDDR3 are very similar. Under the right conditions, both may clock equally.

Im suprised, a page and a half and no ones brought that up? I expected better of you [H]. 1.1ns GDDR3 and 1.1ns DDR2 will clock almost identically while maintaining almost identical latencies. 1.1ns DDR2 arrived late, while 1.1ns GDDR3 arrived sooner, as such high performance parts used GDDR3 for a long time.

Of course, just because 1.1ns DDR2 is available, and is able to clock all the way up to maybe 1600Mhz, doesn't mean manufacturers have to use it. It's certainly more expensive then the much cheaper 1.3/1.5ns DDR2.

Now we've moved on to GDDR4 and 1.0ns GDDR3, both of which seem to be able to clock well into the 2Ghz range.

edit: I was going to comment on how 512mb is a waste on a 8600GT, but its actually got 16 TMUs (as does the 6800 and X1900/50 series). So the cripple is definatly that 22Gb/s mem bus. Get that mem bus superclocked ASAP plz, you will see a drastic improvement.
 
MrWizard6600 said:
So the cripple is definatly that 22Gb/s mem bus. Get that mem bus superclocked ASAP plz, you will see a drastic improvement.
Click to expand...

EVGA is releasing a superclocked 8600gts 512meg DDR3 card with 2000MHz(effective)mem and a32gb/s Memory bandwith.
In the future if this card droped to a low price could it use the whole 512meg in a useful way ? Or is it still too much memory on a too slow video card or too narrow mem bus ?
 
water1 said:
EVGA is releasing a superclocked 8600gts 512meg DDR3 card with 2000MHz(effective)mem and a32gb/s Memory bandwith.
In the future if this card droped to a low price could it use the whole 512meg in a useful way ? Or is it still too much memory on a too slow video card or too narrow mem bus ?
Click to expand...
2000MHz is the normal memory clocks for the GTS and 512mb is still basically useless on that card.

"256MB seems to be the best balance of memory capacity for the GeForce 8600 GTS, anything more is overkill in today’s games, and a waste of money."

http://hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTM4OSw5LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top