Should I go to 1600 memory speed?

[Deke09]

Hi,

I have the Corsair TW3X4G1600C9D G, 2 sticks of 2 GB for a total of 4GB.

When I post it shows DDR3 unganged, 1066 Mhz

Now I looked in the BIOS and see that I would have to change to 8.00X to get up to 1600 Mhz, and may even have to up the voltage.

My question, is it worth it to go to 1600 Mhz, has anyone posted results of there rig at 1066 and then at 1600? What kind of % boost in performance would be common for this?

Thanks,
Deke

[Psycho101]

Re: Should I go to 1600 memory speed?

It all depends. If you're running the modules at 1066 using Cas9-9-9-24 then moving to either 1333 or 1600 will show a straight performance increase. It won't be all that noticeable in the real world, but yes, the RAM will be "faster".

From Corsair's spec sheet:
- Tested together at 1600MHz, Vdimm = 1.80V, at latency settings of 9-9-9-24
- SPD programmed at: JEDEC standard 9-9-9-24 values at 1333MHz

They should run perfectly fine at 1600 with 1.8V and 9-9-9-24 timings. Note that if your RAM is currently running at 1066 with timings such as 7-7-7-21, the performance increase by going to 1600 will diminish, however 1600 @ 9-9-9-24 will probably win by a modest margin.

[Deke09]

Re: Should I go to 1600 memory speed?

Wow Pyscho101,

Dude, you know so much! Your Awesome! :)

I'm gonna give it a try then, first I'll do a benchmark of where I'm currently at, then I'll make changes and see what happens.


hmmm...what benchmark(simple one) that would work for this?

Thanks,
Deke

[Psycho101]

Re: Should I go to 1600 memory speed?

Purely synthetic? I'd use Everest Ultimate's RAM bench. For something a little more real world, play a game, encode a movie, run WinRar's built in benchmark etc.