In this paper, we present a comparative performance evaluation of the sampling frequency synchronization method that eliminates the initial sampling frequency offset (SFO) to reduce the overall synchronization time in Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) receivers. To satisfy the advanced synchronization performance requirements of DRM receivers, we introduce the conventional DRM synchronization method (Method 1) and another method (Method 2), which does not perform the initial sampling frequency synchronization in the conventional synchronization method (both methods are mentioned later in this paper). To demonstrate the effectiveness of the performance evaluation, analytical expressions for frame detection are derived and simulations are provided. Based on the simulations and numerical analysis, our result shows that Method 2, with a negligible performance loss, is robust to the effects of the initial sampling frequency synchronization even if SFO is present in the DRM signal. In addition, we verify that the inter-cell differential correlation used between reference cells is robust to the effect of the initial SFO.