Sandra UnBuffered Memory Performance-

Our second set of results is generated by SiSoftware Sandra and is once again a program that is widely available and generates reliable results that can be replicated easily. Our UnBuffered results are based on the best possible memory timings and strap choices we could manage at each setting listed. We generally find that Sandra's UnBuffered scores translate to improved results in applications that are memory sensitive.

10x266FSB 2672MHz 5-5-5-15 1T 800 Strap DDR3-1066


8x333FSB 2671MHz 6-6-6-18 1T 800 Strap DDR3-1333


10x360FSB 3600MHz 7-7-7-18 1T 800 Strap DDR3-1440


9x400FSB 3600MHz 7-7-7-24 1T 1066 Strap DDR3-1600



8x450FSB 3600MHz 8-8-8-24 2T 1066 Strap DDR3-1800



8x465FSB 3720MHz 8-8-8-24 1T 1066 Strap DDR3-1860



We notice a 9% improvement in our stock CPU results in the first two tests. The differences between our 8x450FSB and 8x465FSB results is right around 4%, just slightly above our 3% increase in CPU and FSB speeds. Overall, our Sandra results scale very well as we progress through each setting. In this particular test, we noticed the difference between the 10x360 800 and 1066 strap settings was right around the 1% mark.
Memory Performance Quick Thoughts
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  • anandtech02148 - Tuesday, June 19, 2007 - link

    what am to going to do with my 7gigs of ddr2 800mhz.
    It was a nice fire sale this season,.. the promises of vista,direct 10 games, anyone want to trade 7gigs of ddr2 for 2gigs of ddr3 when all the promises matured?

  • ViRGE - Monday, June 18, 2007 - link

    DDR3 is going to have a really hard time taking off if the memory consortium doesn't manage to push out some good 2GB sticks soon. At this point 4GB is about to become the norm for a high-end system and 4 1GB sticks leaves no room for future expansion plus invites any problems/slowdowns that happens with 4 sticks over 2 sticks. The sweet spot needs to be 2GB sticks so that high-end computers build with DDR3 can use a 2x2GB configuration and leave the other 2 slots open for another 2x2GB set when said system gets upgraded in a couple of years.
  • BigLan - Monday, June 18, 2007 - link

    I don't really think that 2gb sticks is going to help ddr3 much, but I agree that it's going to have a hard time taking off. I actually think it'll take much longer for ddr3 to catch on than ddr2 did, which was helped enormously by Intel's chipsets only supporting ddr2 which forced dell and the big oems to transition early and helped the overall adoption rate (though AMD still stuck with DDR1 for a long time.)

    This time around, oems don't really have a reason to transition so will likely stay with the cheaper product for longer.

    Having said that, Intel has a much bigger incentive to push ddr3 this time than they did with ddr2. AMD showed that they could not move their chips to ddr2 easily because they have to rework the memory controller and the same is likely to be true this time around. I think an early push by intel to dd3 would help them keep the performance crown for a long time.
  • TA152H - Monday, June 18, 2007 - link

    Are you sure AMD couldn't move to DDR2? Seeing as how DDR performed as well, was there really any point to it? Originally AMD said they would go straight to DDR3 and skip DDR2, so I think it was more of a choice. Also, the memory controller on the K8 isn't designed well for DDR2, whereas the Barcelona has deeper request and response ques, so should take better advantage of DDR2. It looks like AMD changed their minds in the middle, which was probably a mistake and a waste of design resources since DDR2 pretty much sucks, at least for the K8.

    DDR3 should take off because it's clearly better than DDR2, and it's essentially no more difficult to make. The price will drop quickly and for whatever reason people have everything backwards. Supply/demand says that if demand is too high, price goes up, not down. So what the heck is everyone talking about? That demand will be moderate and growing should help, since every memory company knows they need to make DDR3 since it will take over, but demand isn't crazy immediately so they have time to get it right and ramp production.
  • wolfman3k5 - Monday, June 18, 2007 - link

    When will you guys review the Abit IP35 motherboard? It's supposed to be pretty cool.
  • TA152H - Monday, June 18, 2007 - link

    Any idea why Everest is showing faster L2 cache speeds with higher FSB speeds? Seems to me Everest is rubbish and shouldn't be used if you can't trust the results, but maybe I'm missing something (although I can't imagine how, the L2 cache shouldn't care about the FSB). Is it just bad software or is there something I haven't thought of?

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