Double Height DDR4: 32GB Modules from G.Skill and ZADAK Reviewed
by Ian Cutress & Gavin Bonshor on January 23, 2019 9:00 AM ESTGaming Performance
Civilization 6 (DX12)
Originally penned by Sid Meier and his team, the Civ series of turn-based strategy games are a cult classic, and many an excuse for an all-nighter trying to get Gandhi to declare war on you due to an integer overflow. Truth be told I never actually played the first version, but every edition from the second to the sixth, including the fourth as voiced by the late Leonard Nimoy, it a game that is easy to pick up, but hard to master.
Benchmarking Civilization has always been somewhat of an oxymoron – for a turn based strategy game, the frame rate is not necessarily the important thing here and even in the right mood, something as low as 5 frames per second can be enough. With Civilization 6 however, Firaxis went hardcore on visual fidelity, trying to pull you into the game. As a result, Civilization can taxing on graphics and CPUs as we crank up the details, especially in DirectX 12.
Perhaps a more poignant benchmark would be during the late game, when in the older versions of Civilization it could take 20 minutes to cycle around the AI players before the human regained control. The new version of Civilization has an integrated ‘AI Benchmark’, although it is not currently part of our benchmark portfolio yet, due to technical reasons which we are trying to solve. Instead, we run the graphics test, which provides an example of a mid-game setup at our settings.
1080p Ultra
4K Ultra
World of Tanks enCore
Albeit different to most of the other commonly played MMO or massively multiplayer online games, World of Tanks is set in the mid-20th century and allows players to take control of a range of military based armored vehicles. World of Tanks (WoT) is developed and published by Wargaming who are based in Belarus, with the game’s soundtrack being primarily composed by Belarusian composer Sergey Khmelevsky. The game offers multiple entry points including a free-to-play element as well as allowing players to pay a fee to open up more features. One of the most interesting things about this tank based MMO is that it achieved eSports status when it debuted at the World Cyber Games back in 2012.
World of Tanks enCore is a demo application for a new and unreleased graphics engine penned by the Wargaming development team. Over time the new core engine will implemented into the full game upgrading the games visuals with key elements such as improved water, flora, shadows, lighting as well as other objects such as buildings. The World of Tanks enCore demo app not only offers up insight into the impending game engine changes, but allows users to check system performance to see if the new engine run optimally on their system.
Strange Brigade
Strange Brigade is based in 1903’s Egypt and follows a story which is very similar to that of the Mummy film franchise. This particular third-person shooter is developed by Rebellion Developments which is more widely known for games such as the Sniper Elite and Alien vs Predator series. The game follows the hunt for Seteki the Witch Queen who has arose once again and the only ‘troop’ who can ultimately stop her. Gameplay is cooperative centric with a wide variety of different levels and many puzzles which need solving by the British colonial Secret Service agents sent to put an end to her reign of barbaric and brutality.
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Alim345 - Wednesday, January 23, 2019 - link
It’s not clear whether it is possible to use four sticks. Probably it is not since those sticks replicate what should happen in motherboard.Targon - Thursday, January 24, 2019 - link
Much of that would be a function of the chipset/BIOS and the memory controller which is on the CPU these days. These double height modules can't directly talk to the memory controller as if they are two modules, because the memory slots themselves and how they talk to the chipset/memory controller/CPU are not different.That is why I wanted to see at least an attempt to get these to work with a socket AM4 system and see how they show up. Going from 1T or 2T to 2T or 4T for the memory is probably the issue, and if the chipset would even allow it. Asking Asus if they have plans to allow DDR4 to run with a 4T command rate on more boards would be worth the call.
nevcairiel - Wednesday, January 23, 2019 - link
Since one of those DIMMs basically acts like two DIMMs, you probably cannot use two of them on the same channel, since that would require supporting 4 DIMMs on the same channel.Targon - Thursday, January 24, 2019 - link
I don't think it works that way. Yes, internally each one is working as if it was two, but how the module talks to the BIOS/chipset/processor is the big question. Does the BIOS need to support a 4T command rate on the memory for these to work, and if so, that explains why support is limited.Bp_968 - Thursday, January 24, 2019 - link
He explained in the article that the way memory channels are handled that the traces are daisy chained or combined. These dimms act as 2 dimms slapped onto one card and won't work stacked 2 too a channel (because then you'd have 4 dimms on a channel).Above and beyond that you also have the fact that now 32GB modules exist which render these far less useful. There are very very few scenarios where you'd want 128GB of ram and not want it to be ECC RAM. Any sort of server and many workstation tasks I'd much prefer to use ECC ram instead.
yuhong - Wednesday, January 23, 2019 - link
Even Intel don't usually update ARK or the datasheet.alpha754293 - Wednesday, January 23, 2019 - link
Maybe I'm missinng something here - but I don't understand why people just don't get 32 GB DDR4-2666 ECC Registered DIMMS like this one (https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N... and be done with it?It's going to run about the same price and they can just overclock it.
Wixman666 - Wednesday, January 23, 2019 - link
Because most boards don't run ECC memory. These are a niche product to get 64GB on boards that only have 2 slots. Lots of memory doesn't overclock well. You're making assumptions with your statement that are completely off base.CheapSushi - Thursday, January 24, 2019 - link
Does that mean ECC RAM will NOT WORK AT ALL or just the ECC portion, soft error correcting, won't work but it'll show up like regular RAM?alpha754293 - Thursday, January 24, 2019 - link
I've used ECC memory on consumer grade boards. All that happens is that the ECC part of the ECC, Registered RAM gets disabled and the rest of the DIMM module functions like a UDIMM instead of a RDIMM."You're making assumptions with your statement that are completely off base."
Yes! Which is why I literally said: "Maybe I'm missinng something here - but I don't understand why people just don't get 32 GB DDR4-2666 ECC Registered DIMMS like this one (https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N... and be done with it?"
Lots of memory don't overclock well is just a broad and generic statement that can also be applied to these modules as well.
The fact of the matter is that DDR4-3000 and DDR4-3200 modules ARE overclocked by default anyways because those speeds aren't part of the JEDEC JESD79-4 spec (p.163).
Here is a 32 GB module from Micron Technology, DDR4-3200, ECC Registered: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Micron-MTA36ASF4G72PZ-3G2...
The point being that a) they exist already and b) you should be able to disable the ECC, registered capabilities of these DIMMs. (I've never had a consumer grade board that didn't know how to ignore the ECC registered capabilities of RDIMMs.)
In other words, you can already do this with existing modules that you can buy, at those speeds, "second" hand (which tells you a little bit about the maturity of the tech).