Memory Scaling on Core i7 - Is DDR3-1066 Really the Best Choice?
by Gary Key on June 24, 2009 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Memory
The Test
We decided to build an i7 uATX system for testing today. We certainly had our pick of various components for a memory test bed with the EVGA Classified, Gigabyte X58 Extreme, and DFI UT X58 boards coming to mind along with higher end video card and storage selections. In the end, we decided taking a practical approach to the component selection would serve us better in showing memory results on a system considered mid-range in the i7 world from a performance viewpoint. We will follow up shortly to see what differences occur in memory performance when utilizing an SSD, different memory/board timings, and additional benchmarks with Virtualization routines.
We settled on the ASUS Rampage II GENE as our motherboard choice based on the available feature set and BIOS options. You could certainly cost reduce this system and utilize the excellent MSI X58M motherboard. Our processor choice was easy as the Core i7 920 is the best selling i7 product and represents what most users currently pair with an X58 board.
We selected the ASUS ENGTX260 video card for GPU duties. It is a non-reference design that offers improved thermals and acoustics over the standard NVIDIA GTX 260 216 designs. The WD Caviar Black 640GB is our hard drive of choice for primary storage purposes with the WD Caviar Green 2TB drive as a logical choice for backup duty. LG’s GGC-H20L Blu-ray playback capable drives fills in for optical duties.
We purchased several 6GB kits for memory duties. We set the BIOS to the advertised settings for each kit on the primary timings and left the sub-timings on auto in the BIOS. Of course, those who like to play around in the BIOS could certainly improve upon our synthetic results but overall, we found very little if any differences in actual applications when tuning the sub-timings.
We chose the Scythe SHURIKEN Rev B CPU Cooler for air-cooling duties. This cooler features a low profile design with quiet operation and good cooling characteristics, which is perfect for a base SFF setup. For the more performance oriented crowd we highly suggest the Thermalright AXP-140 with a Thermaltake 140mm fan. We are currently testing this combination for a uATX shootout and it works well.
Our standard power supply is the excellent SeaSonic M12 SS700HM 700W modular unit. This power supply also works for SLI/CF testing since it supports the necessary PCIe connectors. LIN LI’s PC-V351B turned out to be an excellent choice for this setup although our loaded system was cramped for space. We had to complete some creative engineering for all the cooling systems to work properly while taming cable management obstacles. We utilized the ASUS VH242H 23.6" 1920x1080 LCD monitor for display duties. Finally, we have dropped Vista 64-bit and moved to Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit for our testing today - it just works better.
Our software choices represent a wide variety of applications and we selected 64-bit versions of the program where applicable to ensure full access to our 6GB memory configuration. Unless otherwise noted, we run each benchmark three times and average the results for our score. We clear the prefetch folder between each test run, defrag, and then reboot when switching to a new benchmark. Our programs are updated to the latest release from the supplier. Turbo mode along with HT is enabled on the Core i7 920 and power management is set to balanced for testing.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
47 Comments
View All Comments
BrianInfo - Thursday, July 30, 2009 - link
1.) The recommended DDR3-1066 Patriot PSD36G1066KH is non-ECC and unbuffered. Will this be an issue for the personal desktop use, mainly for video/audio transcoding/muxing?
2.) The article does not specify how to achieve the CAS5. Does anyone succeed the CAS5 with this Patriot DDR3-1066 and/or overclocked DDR3-1200?
3.) Is it possible to achieve the CAS5 with other brand, such as GeIL CAS7 GV36GB1066C7TC or Crucial CT3KIT25664BA1067??
4.) According to Tom's Hardware, not all the X58 motherboards support CAS5 http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cheap-x58-moth...">http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cheap-x58-moth...
so does it mean I cant obtain the ideal performance with the combination of "ASRock X58 Extreme" motherboard with "Patriot PSD36G1066KH" Tweaked-CAS5 DDR3? I really like the Asus P6T SE but the layout of the two (blue) PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots, too close to each other is killing me:(
iwodo - Sunday, June 28, 2009 - link
Spend the extra money on an SSD rather then faster Memory. Although i would love to see how Tri Channel differs from Dual Channel. ( Same results? )And how integrated Graphics differs in memory speed.
lemonadesoda - Friday, June 26, 2009 - link
Gary, you obviously get paid by wordcount. Too much waffle. Get to the meat faster.And what about this $200 between cheap and expensive DDR3 kits? How about seeing WHERE that $200 could have been spent in OTHER upgrades, ie. CPU or GPU, and running benchmark comparisons against THAT setup vs. the first.
Otherwise, thanks for running all the tests and creating the data for us to review :-)
PrinceGaz - Thursday, June 25, 2009 - link
As soon as I looked at the chart on the first page of the article, it was clear that the DDR3-1600 C9 memory would represent the best bang for the buck. It was only marginally higher priced than the DDR3-1066 C7 (and the DDR3-1066 C5 doesn't count as you overclocked the DDR3-1066 C7 for that purpose), and was sure to perform at least as good, and probably better than significantly higher priced DDR3-1333 modules at C8, and almost as good as the DDR3-1333 C7.Given that faster memory modules only ever have a negligible effect on real-world performance (unless you are a pirate and spend a lot of time using PAR2 checkers to rebuild damaged files from newsgroups, or WinRAR to then extract the original files, the sort of stuff I certainly won't say I do), then you may as well get the cheapest brand-name memory available. If you're spending in the upper mid-range on your CPU, then go for slightly faster (like the 1600 C9) but still quite cheap memory-modules. The only people who should be getting those top-of-the-range modules or anything close to that price level are those who have already decided on the fastest Core i7 CPU avilable (i7 975 currently), as otherwise they're wasting their money on the wrong bit of hardware.
Souka - Thursday, June 25, 2009 - link
I'm more confused than ever... what to buy?Putting together a new system...
Win7 or Vista x64
i7-920 CPU
x58 MB
ATI 4890 video
Memory? I'd like to go with 6GB (3x2gb), thought I had my choices narrowed down to:
Opt1: $138 mushkin 6GB(3x2GB) 1333(PC3 10666) Model 998706, Cas6, 6-7-6-18
Opt2: $175 mushkin 6GB(3x2GB) 1600(PC3 12800) Model 998691. Cas6, 6-7-6-18
But after reading this article, and your comments... I'm very uncertain....help!
PrinceGaz - Thursday, June 25, 2009 - link
Given a choice between either DDR3-1333 or 1600 memory with identical timings (6-7-6-18), but a $37 price difference, I'd probably go for the 1333, especially as you have decided on an i7-920. If you want to spend a little more to improve yours sytem performance, the memory speed is the last place to look at to do so.SiliconDoc - Sunday, July 5, 2009 - link
I took just the opposite from it - he has a 4980 there - overclockable nicely, is saving quite a bit with lower cpu, and what else can get him another 2,5,7,14 % in framerates, especially minimum in some cases ? I think the higher ram is much better and worth it after seeing this articles results.He will OC the 4890 and the cpu likely, so that fast ram will give it that great finisging kick and make it awesome.
Spend the $37 and be happy - definitely.
Hrel - Thursday, June 25, 2009 - link
G.Skill 1.5-1.6v 1333 Cas 8-8-8-21 = 65Crucial 1.8v 1333 Cas 6-6-6-20 = 64 (sold out right now)
OCZ 1.9v 1600 Cas 7-7-7-24 = 54 (after 20 mail in rebate)
Patriot 1.9v 1600 Cas 7-7-7-20 = 95 (free shipping)
Patriot 2.0v 1600 Cas 7-7-7-20 = 100 (Green, which I like)
So basically, it really ONLY makes sense to buy the OCZ 1600 Cas 7 for 54 bucks, why pay more for less?!!!
sonci - Wednesday, June 24, 2009 - link
Really boring for me,lucky, I didnt read it all
StraightPipe - Wednesday, June 24, 2009 - link
cough * troll*