DDR4 Haswell-E Scaling Review: 2133 to 3200 with G.Skill, Corsair, ADATA and Crucial
by Ian Cutress on February 5, 2015 10:10 AM EST2x GTX 770 SLI Gaming
Next up is a pair of MSI GTX 770 Lightning graphics cards in SLI, which may be more akin to the typical Haswell-E system. Our goal here is to provide enough frames for a full on 120 Hz or 144 Hz refresh rate, ideally at the minimum frame rate level in modern games while still attempting maximum quality settings at 1080p. Even for this system it will be a hard task, and it will be interesting to see how the different memory configurations help with this.
Dirt 3: Average FPS
Dirt 3: Minimum FPS
Bioshock Infinite: Average FPS
Bioshock Infinite: Minimum FPS
Tomb Raider: Average FPS
Tomb Raider: Minimum FPS
Sleeping Dogs: Average FPS
Sleeping Dogs: Minimum FPS
Conclusions at 1080p/Max with two GTX 770s
Similarly to the single GPU arrangement, the only deficit worth mentioning is that of the minimum frame rate in F1 2013. Here we see 114-115 FPS on all the DDR4-2133 C15 kits, compared to 124-126 FPS on everything else except DDR4-2400 4x8 which had 120 FPS. This is a bigger 10% boost from choosing something other than the JEDEC standard.
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JlHADJOE - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link
Will be interesting to see another article like this when we have CPUs with integrated graphics and DDR4.OrphanageExplosion - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link
"For any user interested in performance, memory speed is an important part of the equation when it comes to building your next system."Doesn't your article actually disprove your initial statement?
And surely your gaming benchmarks might make more sense if - once again - you actually tested CPU intensive titles as opposed to the titles you've tested? The GPU will barely touch your expensive DDR4, if at all.
The only scenario I can see DDR4 making a real difference will be in graphics work with AMD APUs, and even then we'll need to see really high-end, fast kits that should just about offer comparable bandwidth with the slowest GDDR5 to offer a literally game-changing improvement.
Sushisamurai - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link
Errr... Memory speed did make a difference (small IMO) when it came to DDR3. This article tests if it holds true to DDR4 - however, without an iGPU the other tests don't really show a significant difference when price is factored in. I mean, sure, there's a difference, but not worth the price premium IMO.A future AMD comparison would be nice, when AMD decides to support DDR4... Otherwise, it was a nice article.
FlushedBubblyJock - Sunday, February 15, 2015 - link
That's called the "justify wasting my life to write this article, tag and hook and sinker line, plus the required tokus kissing to the kind manu's that handed over their top tier for some "free" advertising and getting out the word.It's not like the poor bleary eyed tester can say: " I didn't want to do this because one percent difference is just not worth it, my name is not K1ngP1n and I'm not getting 77 free personal jet flights this year to go screw around in nations all over the world.
vgobbo - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link
I really enjoyed this review!But... Intel processors are massive cache beasts, which reduces a lot the pressure put on memory (except for games, which I believe was the most interesting part of this review). Said that, I wish to see a review on an AMD system, which have a lot weaker cache structure and memory buses.
Is this possible to happen, or I'm just a dreamer? ;D
Anyway, this was another outstanding review of Anandtech! Loved it! Thank u guys!
dazelord - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link
Interesting, but isn't Haswell-E/X99 accessing the memory in 256bit mode using 4 dimms? I suspect the gains would be much more substantial in 128bit/ 2 dimm systems.willis936 - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link
Good stuff but after seeing a fair bit of memory roundups in my time I think this mostly confirms what everyone has been thinking: DDR4 is incredibly underwhelming in the performance space. You not only get better bang for buck with DDR3 right now but comparable, if not better, performance in the high end kits.galta - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link
You've got it wrong. Nobody goes for DDR4 because of the memory, it's because of the new CPU and chipset.Ask yourself: do you really need extra cores and/or pci lanes? Or, do you want them and have the money to pay for it? If the answer is "yes" than you'll go for 5xxx and DDR4 is incidental.
Otherwise, go 4xxx and DDR3 will also be incidental.
It makes no sense to talk about memory as if it could be chosen independently from CPU/chipset.
rmh26 - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link
Ian could you post more information about the NPB fluid dynamics benchmark. Specifically which benchmark CG, EP, FT ... and which class problem S, W, A, ...etc. In my own research I have found the simulation time to scale nearly linearly with the memory frequency for large enough problems. I am wondering how much the cache has to do with masking the effects of memory frequency on performance. As a the size of the problem gets larger the cache will no longer be able to mask the slowness of the memory. In general memory, and moreover interconnects between computers play a very important role in some HPC applications the rely on solving partial differential equations. In fact there have been suggestions to move away from the standard HPC Linpack benchmark used to create the top 500 lists as this compute intensive benchmark does not accurately reflect the load placed on supercomputers.http://insidehpc.com/2013/07/replacing-linpack-jac...
Dasa2 - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link
Congrats anandtech you screwed up another ram review further misleading peopleThe games you chose to review are so badly GPU bottlenecked its sad. Do you not know that ram performance affects cpu performance?
You could run Dirt 3 with a i3 2100 vs a 5ghz 5960x and get the same score
How about putting some different CPU in amongst your ram benchmarks like 4460-4690 5820-5960x so people can see how faster ram compares to spending more on the CPU...
A 4690k with 1600c11 ram can perform slower in games than a 2500k with 2133c9 ram