Memory Performance: 16GB DDR3-1333 to DDR3-2400 on Ivy Bridge IGP with G.Skill
by Ian Cutress on October 18, 2012 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Memory
- DDR3
- Ivy Bridge
- G.Skill
At the lowest end of our testing, we have a 16GB DDR3-1333 9-9-9 kit on hand. When DDR3 was first released, the main speed available was DDR3-800, but enough time has passed that this has phased out and now 1333 MHz is the new ‘minimum’. With the prices of memory as they are, this kit from G.Skill currently retails for $75, meaning that a massive amount of memory is available for all at a reasonable level. To put this into contrast, I remember spending ~$240 on a 2x2 GB Kit of DDR2-800 5-5-5 about 5-6 years ago – we can now get four times the capacity for less than a third of the price.
DDR3-1333 sits at the bottom end, but within months we can imagine DDR3-1600 taking that spot – as we will see with the next kit, for $5 more we get a faster product.
Visual Inspection
Our first kit features G.Skill’s Ares branding – the Ares kits that G.Skill sell are essentially meant to be the lower profile but colored heatsinks. These heatsinks in all honesty may not be entirely necessary for cooling, but they are firmly bonded to the memory modules and removing them would be a large task and more than likely damage the module. I have seen horror stories of chips being removed along with the heatsink, making the memory unusable. As a result we cannot directly observe which ICs are being used in our kits for this review. A quick word in the ear of G.Skill and they will not tell us the information, under the guise that it is classified and if the competition wants to know what G.Skill are using, they will have to buy a kit and break it themselves. Given how small the margins are in memory sales (as well as potential market stagnation after the credit crisis), I’m not surprised with the level of secrecy.
Anyway, back to the kit:
The standard packaging at G.Skill is a rather efficient plastic container holding each of the modules. The packaging is easy enough to open, though I also found it fairly brittle, meaning small shards could break off and be easily lodged in feet. Inside the box itself is a piece of card to advertise the kit and protect the modules from each other. We also get a small G.Skill sticker for the computer case.
JEDEC + XMP Settings
| G.Skill | |||||
| Kit Speed | 1333 | 1600 | 1866 | 2133 | 2400 |
| Subtimings | 9-9-9-24 2T | 9-9-9-24 2T | 9-10-9-28 2T | 9-11-10-28 2T | 10-12-12-31 2T |
| Price | $75 | $80 | $95 | $130 | $145 |
| XMP | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Size | 4 x 4 GB | 4 x 4 GB | 4 x 4 GB | 4 x 4 GB | 4 x 4 GB |
|
|
|||||
| MHz | 1333 | 1600 | 1867 | 2134 | 2401 |
| Voltage | 1.500 | 1.500 | 1.500 | 1.650 | 1.650 |
| tCL | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 10 |
| tRCD | 9 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| tRP | 9 | 9 | 9 | 10 | 12 |
| tRAS | 24 | 24 | 28 | 28 | 31 |
| tRC | 33 | 33 | 37 | 38 | 43 |
| tWR | 10 | 12 | 14 | 16 | 16 |
| tRRD | 4 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 7/6 |
| tRFC | 107 | 128 | 150 | 171 | 313 |
| tWTR | 5 | 6 | 8/7 | 9/8 | 10/9 |
| tRTP | 5 | 6 | 8/7 | 9/8 | 10/9 |
| tFAW | 20 | 24 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| tCWL | - | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 |
| CR | - | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
107 Comments
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Ian Cutress - Friday, October 19, 2012 - link
Those were linked to different types of memory chips at the time - the Elpida 'Hyper' ICs (http://www.anandtech.com/show/2799). Nice speeds, but high fail rates and low yields. They have been replaced by chips that are slightly slower, but a lot more reliable. Also to note that those Elpida Hyper kits worked great with Clarkdale and Nehalem, but are poor with Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge.Ian Reply
CherryBOMB - Friday, October 19, 2012 - link
Can you explain why you say Hyper' IC's are " are poor with Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge."As I stated "I have 16gb of the fastest money could buy around that era running on x79 @ 1666 6-6-6-18-1t right now."
This was a tri channel run >
http://www.overclock.net/t/872945/top-30-3d-mark-1...
post #1054 Reply
Ian Cutress - Saturday, October 20, 2012 - link
Because Hyper ICs fell out of favor, motherboard manufacturers are now reluctant to spend time in optimizing the Hyper IC kits to work with their systems. Thus the kits often have to fall back onto default settings, and they sometimes do not work. As one set of ICs is phased out, and new ICs come in, the newer ICs get priority.Ian
PS. You'll find me on the overclock.net HWBot team :) Reply
CherryBOMB - Friday, October 19, 2012 - link
I have 16gb of the fastest money could buy around that era running on x79 @ 1666 6-6-6-18-1t right now.well over $1000 invested. Each 6gb kit was over $450 - bought the extra to future proof to quad lanes today.
2x CMT6GX3M3A1600C6
1x CMT4GX3M2A1600C6
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8... Reply
saturn85 - Friday, October 19, 2012 - link
how about adding a folding on cpu benchmark with different memory speed? ReplyRayvinAzn - Friday, October 19, 2012 - link
You got a Core 2 Duo E6400 back in '05? That's rather impressive.Typo aside, good article, gives me quite a bit to think about as I plan to migrate to IB after a solid 6-year run on my P965/Q6600 setup. I'll definitely be sticking with a DDR3 1600 C9 kit after seeing these results, as anything faster doesn't really seem to affect most of the things I do. Reply
mapesdhs - Saturday, October 20, 2012 - link
I just bought 64GB of DDR3/2400 more to make it easier to achieve the desired 2133 target
speed with a CPU oc rather than any expected performance gain from using 2400. Although
CL10 at 2400, it should be CL9 at 2300 (GSkill TridentX). It's for a system running After Effects,
3930K, ASUS P9X79 WS. Quadro 4000, RAID, SSDs, etc. Plus, the price was basically identical
to 2133 kits, so I figured what the heck, why not.
Ian. Reply
Senti - Saturday, October 20, 2012 - link
From the beginning it looked like great article, but then it become less and less meaningful.First of all, who in sane mind will get 4x4 for dual channel 1155 cpu when there are 8x2 kits available? If you want to test 4x4 so badly – use 4 channel 2011 cpu (but there is no igp there, duh).
Second major problem is overclocking tests. Even if we put aside that Linpack is no memory stability test (for example Prime95 is far better for this), rising frequency without adjusting timings is completely meaningless if module already can't handle more aggressive timings at the same frequency.
What would be really interesting is can we run DDR3-1600 9-9-9-24 module at DDR3-1866 9-10-9-28? Or at least DDR3-1866 10-10-10-28 and what is the difference to base settings and module that officially rated DDR3-1866. Reply
Ian Cutress - Saturday, October 20, 2012 - link
-With 2x8GB kits, you often pay a premium (the next kit up for review is a 2x8GB kit). 4x4 GB kits apply both to 1155 and 2011, and represent the bulk of the kits advertised on Newegg, hence their inclusion here.- OCCT has a version of Linpack specifically for memory that requires high memory usage (as stated in the review, but I'm sure you read that). The overclocking tests are designed to show if the kits were higher binned parts rated lower - and in some circumstances they were. For example, the TridentX kits are getting rave reviews on overclocking websites, and the kits I have in all seem to easily push up another memory strap on Ivy Bridge. As always with overclocking, your mileage may vary. I could spend a week overclocking each kit, dealing with voltages and sub-timings then testing thoroughly for stability. But the truth of the matter is there is little point baring in mind the severity of not even applying XMP among gamers, and going by the actual improvements you see moving up from 1866C9 and beyond (unless you are an extreme overclocker looking for a higher number in a synthetic benchmark).
Don't forget this is a review of the kits themselves more than just looking at what different speed memory does. I rarely run any memory kit out of specifications - only if the kit is not that compatible with the board I am using do I bump voltages, or competitive overclocking when I want a higher number. Everything else is XMP.
Ian Reply
Senti - Saturday, October 20, 2012 - link
Well, my life taught me that it's well worth reducing number of memory chips on each channel as there are cases when 2+ modules per channel won't run without errors even on native speed while there are no problems with 1 module per channel. There is also concern of extensibility, but I guess it's less relevant now when you are already getting 16GB of ram in desktop.I don't have experience with "tweaked" Linpacks, but I see no much reason for such tweaks as Prime95 already does the job well and in practice it's easier to get stability when different tests stress different parts.
About overclocking – there is difference in my case. 48% faster memory (from native DDR3-1066) can be felt in practice without synthetics and games in unpractical settings.
As for gamers that can't even apply XMP, I seriously didn't thought it was the primary intended audience of Anandtech... Also, gamers with 5 fps in Metro2033, lol.
For review of the kits themselves it was ok, but again quite useless for me as besides overclocking what is really interesting is how well do chips of different brands do compared with each other on equal price points.
Overall, take my comments not as nitpicking about particular things, but rather that I hope to see here more in-depth articles. Reply