whats the best external ramdac chip? \ VOGONS

whats the best external ramdac chip?

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First post, by noshutdown

Posted on 2025-08-11, 02:08

noshutdown Offline

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the concept "best" means high pixel clock, sharp analog output with accurate colors and brightness.
there was the ibm 37rgb528, and the texas tvp3026, and others?
i think nvidia made their domestic external ramdac chip for use with the gtx280 and probably some other modern 3d cards, not sure about ati.

Reply 1 of 4, by dominusprog

Posted on 2025-08-11, 03:15

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I believe Edsun was one of the higher end DACs along with the Sierra. But the Samsung 66MHz (KDA0476CN-66) on my Trident 8900C producing very sharp and clean image.

A-Trend ATC-1020 V1.1 ❇ Cyrix 6x86 150+ @ 120MHz ❇ 32MiB EDO RAM (8MiBx4) ❇ A-Trend S3 Trio64V2 2MiB
Aztech Pro16 II-3D PnP ❇ 8.4GiB Quantum Fireball ❇ Win95 OSR2 Plus!

Reply 2 of 4, by The Serpent Rider

Posted on 2025-08-11, 04:12

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Nvdia NVIO2 chip is probably the most advanced, but it's not a simple RAMDAC, but an input/output device, so it also has functionality of chips like Rage Theater.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 3 of 4, by noshutdown

Posted on 2025-08-26, 01:35

noshutdown Offline

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are there other nominations? especially those high end cards before everyone have ramdac integrated?

Reply 4 of 4, by asdf53

Posted on 2025-08-26, 07:54

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One that stood out for me was a Western Digital WD90C30-LR (RAMDAC: Winbond W82C487P-80). I didn't use it a lot, but noted that it had the brightest, most saturated output of all cards. I measured an output voltage of 548 mV on the RGB channels, which might even be slightly overdriven. Sharpness I could not test because the card has only 512 KB RAM.

I have one card with a TI TVP3026 and it has disappointing brightness, did not use the card because of this. One card with a Brooktree BT485AKPJ135 had fantastic brightness, but slightly washed out colors.

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