Memory Scaling on Core i7 - Is DDR3-1066 Really the Best Choice?
by Gary Key on June 24, 2009 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Memory
Microsoft Excel 2007 SP1
Excel can be a very powerful mathematical tool. In this benchmark, we are running a large Monte Carlo simulation on stock pricing data to estimate the riskiness of an investment portfolio.
This benchmark runs entirely in cache, so the results are predictable. Memory bandwidth or latency is not going to make a real difference here.
Photoshop CS4 x64
To measure performance under Photoshop CS4 x64, we turn to the Retouch Artists’ Speed Test macro only with a custom image sized at 4800x3600. The test performs basic photo editing; a few color space conversions, several layer creations, color curve adjustment, 3x image and canvas size adjustments, unsharp mask, and finally a gaussian blur performed on the entire image.
We expected different results in this particular benchmark, but it is one of several applications that responded well to DDR3-1066 C5 settings in single task mode.
Bibble 5.0
We utilize Bibble Labs’ Bibble 5 v2 to convert 50 RAW image files into full size JPEG images with the program’s default settings. This program is fully multithreaded and multi-core aware.
This application responds well to memory bandwidth coupled with improved latencies as we see about a 5% improvement switching from 1066 C7 to 1600 C6.
iTunes 8 x64
We import the album Tommy by The Who to our disk in WAV format. The directory consists of 25 songs totaling 751MB. We then convert this music collection to MP3 format utilizing 320Kbps VBR Highest audio settings or to an AAC format using the iTune Plus option.
Utilizing either transcoding method, iTunes performance remains almost flat regardless of memory type. We notice about a 2% improvement switching from 1066 C7 to 1600 C6.
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darklight0tr - Wednesday, June 24, 2009 - link
You kinda lost me at the Windows 7 admission. Why use an unreleased OS that most of us don't have access to?Gary Key - Wednesday, June 24, 2009 - link
I debated about using Win7, but we have some interesting virtualization benches coming in a couple of weeks with XP mode running on it, both for these tests and looking at 12GB and 24GB loads.Also, memory management and several other performance metrics are just better under Win7 than Vista. I ran most of these tests under Vista 64 and the results (percentage wise) were the same as Win7. I also tried the latest RC version of Win7 (7232), no differences in performance. Not that I expected any as the core code for Win7 has been done for a while but it was to double check. I did not use 7232 since it is not "officially" available for the public. ;)
crimson117 - Wednesday, June 24, 2009 - link
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/downloa...">http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/downloa...There, now everyone here has access to it.
darklight0tr - Wednesday, June 24, 2009 - link
LOL. You got me there, my brain hadn't arrived at work yet when I posted that comment.Still, I don't see the point of replacing the released, established OS with an unreleased one. Testing on both would have made more sense if you wanted to do it that way.
philosofa - Wednesday, June 24, 2009 - link
I lol'd :) Nicely done.Re the article itself; fantastic and thorough work as always! Great to see the debate and various titbits of benching replaced by such a systematic multi-app examination of i7 memory speed & latency effects. Also, cheers for the analysis of min frame rates - this is something that's been on-and-off for a while now, and I, like a lot of others, agree that it's as least as important as average FPS.
Cheers Gary.
Matt Campbell - Wednesday, June 24, 2009 - link
Great job as always Gary, fantastic detail.aileen - Friday, July 3, 2009 - link
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