Memory Performance: 16GB DDR3-1333 to DDR3-2400 on Ivy Bridge IGP with G.Skill
by Ian Cutress on October 18, 2012 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Memory
- G.Skill
- Ivy Bridge
- DDR3
I remember buying my first memory kit ever. It was a 4GB kit of OCZ DDR2 for my brand new E6400 system, and at the time I paid ~$240, sometime back in 2005. Skip forward seven years and users can enjoy four times as much density for under 1/3 of the price, an upswing by a factor 12x in terms of density against price. However in terms of the memory landscape, performance is a key factor when deciding between kits that cost almost the same, and making sure if that extra $15 for the next memory kit up is worth the jump.
The pricing for each of the kits are as follows:
$75: Ares DDR3-1333 9-9-9 4x4 GB
$80: RipjawsX DDR3-1600 9-9-9 4x4 GB
$95: Sniper DDR3-1866 9-10-9 4x4 GB
$130: RipjawsZ DDR3-2133 9-11-10 4x4 GB
$145: TridentX DDR3-2400 10-12-12 4x4 GB
Ultimately the best way to look at these results is through the IGP comparison graph posted several pages back:
Our synthetic test shows that as memory kits get faster, sub-timings can start to suffer (as in the kits we have tested), and as a result despite the extra MHz we can hit the law of limiting returns. If we tested a 2400 9-9-9 kit, I’m sure the synthetic test would rise proportionately as the jump from 1333 9-9-9 to 1600 9-9-9 and 1866 9-10-9 did. But it is the other results showing the kit comparison that makes interesting reading.
Ultimately whether a kit will be beneficial or not is down to the scenario in which it is used. All the tests today rely on having one part of the system at full stretch for a certain amount of time – either the CPU or the GPU. In most circumstances a system is not taxed, such as checking email or browsing the web, and thus memory may not make much of a difference (and it is hard to quantify in any scientific way). However, for situations where something is taxed, we can compare results.
As we see with our IGP testing, some games get boosted significantly with memory (Batman:AA), whereas some level out and get sub-10% boosts despite almost double the cost for that memory (Portal 2). In a similar fashion, our x264 decoding tests show that a small gain can be had, or in WinRAR up to 20% better performance is possible.
Writing this review has taken a lot longer than expected. Initially it comes down to what benchmarks should be run – there are a lot of synthetic results out in the wild from many sources, and I wanted to focus on real-world scenarios to aid buying decisions. Hopefully I have found a good number of different scenarios where buying that higher rated memory kit actually makes a difference – IGP gaming is the key one often quoted, but other options such as Maya, WinRAR compression and USB 3.0 throughput can be important too.
In the end, we have to recommend what kits our users should be looking for. Taking the DDR3-1333 C9 kit as a base, it seems a no-brainer to go for the DDR3-1600 C9 kit for $5 more. The boost across the board for a negligible difference in price is worth it. The jump up to the G.Skill 1866 C9 kit also provides enough of a measurable boost, although the leap in price from 1600 C9 is another $15, which could be harder to swallow.
As we move into the 2133 C9 kit we tested today, we again across our test bed see a tangible jump in performance. This jump is not as much as moving from 1333 to 1600, but it is there and users wanting peak performance will be happy with this kit, though the size of the user pockets will also have to match.
When it comes to our 2400 C10 kit results, compared to the 2133 C9, it is highly dependant which kit comes out on top. Even if one kit beats the other, it is only by a small margin – not one that can be justified by a $15 jump in the price.
For the majority of users, the DDR3-1866 C9 kit from G.Skill is a great buy, as long as the user remembers to enable XMP(!). Budget conscious builds will find solace in the DDR3-1600 C9 kit, which is a no brainer over the 1333 C9 kit for the extra $5. If your pockets are a little deeper, then the G.Skill DDR3-2133 C9 kit will offer some extra performance, but not as much as jumping between the other kits will. The DDR3-2400 C10 kit is not in the right ballpark compared to the other kits and only serves well for forum signatures. To sum up:
$75: Ares DDR3-1333 9-9-9 4x4 GB
$80: RipjawsX DDR3-1600 9-9-9 4x4 GB – Recommended for Budget Conscious
$95: Sniper DDR3-1866 9-10-9 4x4 GB – Recommended
$130: RipjawsZ DDR3-2133 9-11-10 4x4 GB – Recommended for Deeper Pockets
$145: TridentX DDR3-2400 10-12-12 4x4 GB – Not Recommended
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jwilliams4200 - Friday, October 19, 2012 - link
You are also incorrect, as well as highly misleading to anyone who cares about practical matters regarding DRAM latencies.Reasonable people are interested in, for example, the fact that reading all the bytes on a DRAM page takes significantly less time than reading the same number of bytes from random locations distributed throughout the DRAM module.
Reasonable people can easily understand someone calling that difference sequential and random read speeds.
Your argument is equivalent to saying that no, you did not shoot the guy, the gun shot him, and you are innocent. No reasonable person cares about such specious reasoning.
hsir - Friday, October 26, 2012 - link
jwilliams4200 is absolutely right.People who care about practical memory performance worry about the inherent non-uniformity in DRAM access latencies and the factors that prevent efficient DRAM bandwidth utilization. In other words, just row-cycle time (tRC) and the pin bandwidth numbers are not even remotely sufficient to speculate how your DRAM system will perform.
DRAM access latencies are also significantly impacted by the memory controller's scheduling policy - i.e. how it prioritizes one DRAM request over another. Row-hit maximization policies, write-draining parameters and access type (if this is a cpu/gpu/dma request) will all affect latencies and DRAM bandwidth utilization. So just sweeping everything under the carpet by saying that every access to DRAM takes the same amount of time is, well, just not right.
nafhan - Friday, October 19, 2012 - link
I was specifically responding to your incorrect definition of "random access". Randomness doesn't guarantee timing; it just means you can get to it out of order.jwilliams4200 - Friday, October 19, 2012 - link
And yet, by any practical definition, you are incorrect and the author is correct.For example, if you read (from RAM) 1GiB of data in sequential order of memory addresses, it will be significantly faster than if you read 1GiB of data, one byte at a time, from randomly selected memory addresses. The latter will usually take two to four times as long (or worse).
It is not unreasonable to refer to that as the difference between sequential and random reads.
Your argument reminds me of the little boy who, chastised by his mother for pulling the cat's tail, whined, "I didn't pull the cat's tail, I just held it and the cat pulled."
jwilliams4200 - Thursday, October 18, 2012 - link
Depending on whether there is a page-hit (row needed already open), page-empty (row needed not yet open), or page-miss (row needed is not the row already open), the time to read a word can vary by a factor of 3 times (i.e., 1x latency for a page-hit, 2x latency for a page-empty, and 3x latency for a page-miss).What the author refers to as a "sequential read" probably probably refers to reading from an already open page (page-hit).
While his terminology may be ambiguous (and his computation for the "sequential read" is incorrect, it should be 4 clocks), he is nevertheless talking about a meaningful concept related to variation on latency in DRAM for different types of reads.
See here for more detail:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3851/everything-you-...
Shadow_k - Thursday, October 18, 2012 - link
My knowledge of RAM has increased 10 fold very nice artical well donelosttsol - Thursday, October 18, 2012 - link
2133MHz "Recommended for Deeper Pockets"???Not really. DDR3 is so cheap now that high end RAM is affordable for all. I would have said you were crazy a few years ago if you told me soon I could buy 16GB of RAM for less than $150.
IanCutress - Thursday, October 18, 2012 - link
Either pay $95 for 1866 C9 or $130 for 2133 C9 - minor differences, but $35 saving. This is strictly talking about the kits used today, there could be other price differences. But I stand by my recommendation - for the vast majority of cases 1866 C9 will be fine, and there is a minor performance gain in some scenarios with 2133 C9, but at a $35 difference it is hard to justify unless you have some spare budget. Most likely that budget could be put into a bigger SSD or GPU.Ian
just4U - Friday, October 19, 2012 - link
Something has to be said about the TridentX brand I believe.. since it is getting some pretty killer feedback. It's simply the best ram out there being able to do all that any other ram can and that little bit extra. I don't see the speed increase as a selling point but the lower timings at conventional speeds that users are reporting is interesting.. I haven't tried it though.. just going on what I've read. Shame about the size of the heatsinks though.. makes it problematic in some builds.Peanutsrevenge - Friday, October 19, 2012 - link
You clearly live in some protected bubble where everyone has well paid jobs and isn't on a shoestring budget.I would so LMAO when you get mugged by someone struggling to feed themselves because you're all flash with your cash.