Does DDR3 Memory Speed Really Matter with Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge?

[kick]

Re: Does DDR3 Memory Speed Really Matter with Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge?

I know I said Id maybe put up a cinebench test..which actually due to its operation might show a substantial difference ,but really couldnt be bothered dloading it and I could only find a 3 year old editon.

This unigine heaven comparison probably shows a realistic expectation for 1600 vs 2133 memory in gaming

gx cards have a v mild overclock in both cases,the same overclock.The gx will take a much larger oclock ,but I wanted to replicate normal gaming(no screaming fans).

same warm up period etc. to all intents and purposes the only difference is the memory speed,and timings.1600mhz vs 2133mhz:

settings in this thread the maxxmem results http://forums.tweaktown.com/overcloc...tml#post448839



Wow!,what a difference eh. the only major one is the min fps..about what youd expect.

[pdxer]

Re: Does DDR3 Memory Speed Really Matter with Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge?

I'll assume that the 2nd pic is the higher frequency memory. Getting a slightly better minimum frame rate is a slight performance gain. What were the timings of the two different speeds?

Your FPS topped at 75, did you have vsync on?

[Arty]

Re: Does DDR3 Memory Speed Really Matter with Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge?

In three weeks I will bye 64 years old and take a lot of medication that slows my mind down, so, I do not care as much about speed as much as I did when I was 58 years old and still playing 1st person shooters. However, just over two years ago I built a Ivy Bridge based computer for a friend, an i5-3570 CPU [not the K series, and not overclocked] and AMD HD 6950 video card - it was FAST, VERY FAST compared to my Intel Core 2 Extreme QX 9650 rig with the same AMD HD 6950 video card I had, and am still using.

We both know my old computer was socket 775 and used DDR2. The speed difference in EVERYTHING was much different, however, that was DDR2, not DDR3 [and yes, I ran benchmarks, however cannot remember the numbers - and it was not benchmarks that were much higher with the Ivy Bridge, it was everything that ran faster and smoother].

It did prove the massive superiority of the sub-systems in an Ivy Bridge build compared to socket 775.

As to can I see any difference with my CAS 8 1866 DDR3 compared to my friend's 1333 CAS 9, The answer is I do not know. His computer was not overclocked and mine is. And, I built my computer over a year after building his, so, the benchmarks for his computer are lost.

I do know that the only time a person will see a real world faster response from faster memory is by using programs that are heavily dependent upon data transfer to and from RAM, and then only with large files. Small files finish so fast that it does not matter what DDR3 you are using.

I have changed RAM speed and see NO difference in game play [all my games are locked at a refresh rate of 60, so no difference found in games]. My SSD plays a greater role in quick online gaming, and then faster is almost completely do to entering different zones or getting into MMO games faster.

[Arty]

Re: Does DDR3 Memory Speed Really Matter with Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge?

I checked out memory prices last week and the high priced stuff is about twice as expensive as the mid priced offerings. I think your best bang for the buck along with performance will be to start with 2x4GB of 1600MHz memory for starters and move up to 16GB (total) if you want to use a RamDisk** setup to speed up your system. Forget the good ol' days when low latency DDR2 memory was best, everything I've seen with Sandy Bridge points to the fact that lower latencies don't really matter. I look at Ivy Bridge as an improvement on Sandy Bridge, but not a quantum leap in performance. I assume that gaming is your primary need for speed/performance.

If you're going for a high cpu overclock, it looks like you'll need to spend a bit more money on a cpu water cooling setup that is better than the Corsair H100 or the Antec 920. Hopefully Boondocks will report soon on how his new w/c setup (~$165) works to tame cpu temps.

If you don't compromise and do it my way, you're gonna be in deep doo-doo
Just how bad does Texas steer manure smell?

** Ramdisk is freeware up to 4GB, if you want a larger ramdisk, you'll have to pay the piper.

Something happened to my last reply, I think it went to Mars or somewhere out there.

Higher quality, lower latency, faster RAM helps overclocks above about 4.2GHz with Sandy Bridge. No need to worry about lock-ups or glitches at higher overclocks. And, some RAM works better on a particular motherboard than another, so, people have to know what combo to use for higher overclocks.

I have ran several AIDA64 runs and example of temps with my system [air cooled CPU], room temperature 70 degrees F: Core 0 = 62C [143F], Core1= 65C [149F], Core 2 = 64C [147F], Core 3 = 59 degrees C [138F].

I have only an average Ivy Bridge CPU at best, so, temps are higher because I have to use a base CPU core voltage of 1.270v, which is increased to an actual 1.284v via aggressive BIOS settings I made.

My CPU can overclock higher with the cooler I have, however, above 4.6GHz the CPU runs hotter than I want - for long life I do not like anything above 65 degrees C.



Note: I edited my post to try to make core temps easier to read, and again to explain the temps I limit myself to for long CPU life.