The noise performance of the sawtooth phase detector when demodulating a sinusoidal subcarrier plus direct data modulation is studied. At predetection signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) levels of about 10 dB or more, significant improvements in the postdetection SNR of the subcarrier can be obtained using the sawtooth detector rather than a linear multiplier. Below predetection SNR levels of about 10 dB, significant improvements can still be obtained; however, a threshold occurs and the performance degrades until leveling off at 3.2 dB worse than that of a linear multiplier. The predetection SNR level where the sawtooth detector performance becomes worse than that of a linear multiplier depends upon the subcarrier and direct data modulation indices. Performance curves are given between predetection SNR levels of -20 dB and +20 dB for various values of subcarrier modulation index and direct data modulation index.