Possible performance hit after adding memory?

[CRRacer]

I'm trying to get ideas for why my system with the Sabertooth Z77 is giving such poor performance scores in passmark.


The two systems in my sig were assembled over a year ago and both performed relatively close to one another with the older passmark 7, last night I tried passmark 8 and saw a major difference.

Originally both systems had the GTX 560Ti FPB cards, the ASRock was assembled with the ripjaw memory kit that contained 4 sticks of ram (16GB). The Asus was assembled with sniper ram, but only 8GB (2x4GB). Last month I added another two sticks of ram to the Asus board, bought the exact same model of ram, which is; G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Model F3-14900CL9D-8GBSR.

Is it possible that there is too much tolerance difference from the two separate batches of memory, or could it be that this board just doesn't like having all four slots filled? The only other two updates to the Asus PC since it used to benchmark right with the ASRock are that it now holds both GTX560Ti FPB in SLI and I updated the BIOS to the most current (I did this recently on the ASRock as well, skipping several version from both vendors). The processors are set at a multiplier of 44 for each system. Using the XMP profile and the Asus board shows 1867 MHz for the memory, (CPUz shows 933, which I assume to be correct).

My concern came when the over all score with passmark was roughly 2000 points lower on the Asus now and the CPU score was almost 6000 difference alone. The CPU score for the ASRock system was over 10000, while the CPU score in the Asus system was under 5000, near that of an i7 920.

I'm going to double check my BIOS OC settings, but I'm sure they are set to what I always have used. I'll also pull out two sticks of ram and see what happens.

[G.Skill - Matt Wang]

Re: Possible performance hit after adding memory?

Hi, adding memory should not effect that much for the performance(even hardware incompatible)
The problem could be software or hardware issue, you could try:

1. Re-test it again with passmark 7 to see how it works
2. Switch the memory from two computers/Test the two memory kits individually
3. Re-install the latest BIOS and tweak the memory frequency/timing/DRAM voltage manually. (Disable CPU Speedstep/C1E)

Let us know if you have feature question about it.

[CRRacer]

Re: Possible performance hit after adding memory?

I can't re test passmark 7, that was done over a year ago, I just used it for the trial period and its well beyond the 30 days. I was going to see about a license for 8, and maybe that would let me run 7 again, dunno.

I don't believe it is the RAM as I removed the two new sticks and the benchmark remained the same. Bios is showing 1867 MHz on the ram. I will try reinstalling the previously installed BIOS and see how that goes. I am leaning towards an issue with passmark 8 and this PC. I will contact them about what I am seeing, such as it doesn't show my SLI setup for video, and the video is benching about where a single GTX 560 would bench, however, when I game, the SLI 560's actually perform a tick better than the GTX 670. CPUz does show the CPU hitting 4400~ MHz during other testing and passmark does show the turbo to be 44, as it does with the other PC. I may first remove passmark 8, and reinstall it, just to make sure there isn't something going on there.

[CRRacer]

Re: Possible performance hit after adding memory?

Had I not experienced it myself, I wouldn't have believed it. I uninstalled passmark 8 and reinstalled it. The system in question now scores where it should, along with the memory.

[jaggerwild]

Re: Possible performance hit after adding memory?

Had I not experienced it myself, I wouldn't have believed it. I uninstalled passmark 8 and reinstalled it. The system in question now scores where it should, along with the memory.

Being that your running four sticks and SLI on the same board, you may need to adjust PCH voltage. I'd also suggest reading the Intel spec sheet for your CPU as extra voltage needed to run extra memory can cause issue's with the CPU(just a warning) as Intel only approves certain speed memory for each CPU(also voltage) if you go to RMA it and tell them you had X v on the CPU for the memory running at out of spec's speed for the CPU(A no no) Intel will not cover the chips. The memory IMC is on the CPU, again(suggested). many run it out of spec without issues as long as there cooling is good and temps are kept in check.

[CRRacer]

Re: Possible performance hit after adding memory?

All was good after uninstalling and reinstalling the Passmark 8 software.

[jaggerwild]

Re: Possible performance hit after adding memory?

All was good after uninstalling and reinstalling the Passmark 8 software.

I don't understand why you would run parrmark 8? You want to know how your system stacks up use 3D mark 11, they let you compare your system to other systems.....My score NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i5-3570K Processor,ASRock Z77 Extreme6

[CRRacer]

Re: Possible performance hit after adding memory?

To my knowledge, passmark8 compares to other systems as well. Users can upload their passmark scores and you can compare.

[jaggerwild]

Re: Possible performance hit after adding memory?

To my knowledge, passmark8 compares to other systems as well. Users can upload their passmark scores and you can compare.

But nobody uses passmark........................

[CRRacer]

Re: Possible performance hit after adding memory?

ok, so I'm nobody, really, it's ok

[jaggerwild]

Re: Possible performance hit after adding memory?

You come here for help? Go play with Passmark then, enjoy!

[CRRacer]

Re: Possible performance hit after adding memory?

WTF is your problem? I solved the issue myself