Memory Scaling on Haswell CPU, IGP and dGPU: DDR3-1333 to DDR3-3000 Tested with G.Skill
by Ian Cutress on September 26, 2013 4:00 PM ESTFor our single discrete GPU testing, rather than the 7970s which normally adorn my test beds (and were being used for other testing), I plumped for one of the HD 6950 cards I have. This ASUS DirectCU II card I purchased pre-flashed to 6970 specifications, giving a little more oomph. Typically discrete GPU options are not often cited as growth areas of memory testing, however we will let the results speak for themselves.
Dirt 3: Average FPS
Dirt 3 commonly benefits from boosts in both CPU and GPU power, showing near-perfect scaling in multi-GPU configurations. When using our HD6950 however there seems to be little difference between memory settings with no trend.
Dirt 3: Minimum FPS
Minimum frame rates show a different story – Dirt 3 seems to prefer setups with a lower CL – MHz does not seem to have any effect.
Bioshock Infinite: Average FPS
Single GPU frame rates for Bioshock has no direct effect for memory changes with less than 2% covering our range of tests.
Bioshock Infinite: Minimum FPS
One big sink in frame rates seems to be for 1333 C7, although given that C8 and C9 do not have this effect, I would presume that this is more a statistical outlier than an obvious trend.
Tomb Raider: Average FPS
Again, we see no obvious trend in average frame rates for a discrete GPU.
Tomb Raider: Minimum FPS
While minimum frame rates for Tomb Raider seem to have a peak (1600 C8) and a sink (2400 C12), this looks to be an exception rather than the norm, with minimum frame rates typically showing 35.8 – 36.0 FPS.
Sleeping Dogs: Average FPS
Frame rates for Sleeping Dogs vary between 49.3 FPS and 49.6 FPS, showing no distinct improvement for certain memory timings.
Sleeping Dogs: Minimum FPS
The final discrete GPU test shows a small 5% difference from 1600 C11 to 2400 C11, although other kits perform roughly in the middle.
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gsuburban - Thursday, November 28, 2013 - link
Interesting article however, "Number of Sticks" as noted above would mean what? Is there a performance gain or loss using the same amount of Gigs of the same RAM in say 16GB in two dims versus 16GB of the same using 4 dimms?neal.a.nelson - Sunday, December 8, 2013 - link
That is a reasonable inference, and given the age of the article and date of the last post, probably all you're going to get. For upgrade ability, it's smart to use the two dual-channel slots instead of filling all four with the same amount.htwingnut - Monday, January 20, 2014 - link
Thanks for this testing and article. This shows 1366x768 for resolution. While I understand that this will test the RAM fully, it's also not realistic. I'd like to see results running single 1080p or 3x1080p because that's more real world.melk - Thursday, January 23, 2014 - link
Am I reading this correctly? That there is literally a 1fps difference at best, in both lowest and avg fps?melk - Thursday, January 23, 2014 - link
So we are talking about a ~1 fps difference in real world testing? Wow...dasa43 - Friday, February 28, 2014 - link
To see gains from faster ram the game needs to be cpu limited while most console ports are totally gpu limitedIncreasing resolution just stresses the gpu more further lightning the load on the cpu
Thief & Arma are two cpu limited games that can see big gains from faster ram
Thief benchmarks
http://forums.atomicmpc.com.au/index.php?showtopic...
Arma benchmarks
http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?166512-A...
NordRack2 - Sunday, June 1, 2014 - link
Quote: "Using the older version of WinRAR shows a 31% advantage moving from 1333 C9 to 3000 C12"That's wrongly calculated.
Correct is: ((213.63-163.11)/213.63) × 100% = 24%
cadman777 - Sunday, April 19, 2015 - link
Dear Sir,Do you have an article that explains the basics for RAM, CPU & m/b matching?
I want to learn the basics on this, but all I keep finding are articles like this with bits and pieces, and general explanations of the various components, but no pragmatic explanations on how they work together and how to match them and do the over-clocking between the various components to arrive at a stable system.
Thanx ... Chris
Nickolai - Sunday, August 13, 2017 - link
Is there a similar article for DDR4?