The baseband and intermediate frequency (IF) frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar receiver topologies are compared on the bases of receiver nonlinearity, time domain interferometry, receiver noise and demodulator port isolation. It is shown that an IF receiver is capable of suppressing distortions, where the same nonlinearity would result in a baseband (or zero-IF) receiver detecting false targets. Due to flicker noise at low beat frequencies, an IF receiver has better noise performance than an equivalent baseband receiver. This is assuming the receiver's IF is higher than its noise corner frequency. It is demonstrated that IF receiver's are immune to false targets that result from demodulator local oscillator (LO) to radio frequency (RF) port leakage.