Market Positioning

As mentioned in the previous page, this memory kit has some immediate challengers in and around the price range for the capacity:

$145: Corsair Vengence 4x4GB DDR3-1600 7-8-8 (8.75ns / 13.125ns)
$150: Kingston HyperX 4x4GB DDR3-2400 11-13-13 (9.17ns / 12.08ns)
$150: Corsair Vengeance 4x4GB DDR3-2400 10-12-12 (8.33ns / 11.25 ns)
$150: Mushkin Redline 4x4GB DDR3-2400 10-12-12 (8.33ns / 11.25 ns)
$150: G.Skill Trident 4x4GB DDR3-2400 10-12-12 (8.33ns / 11.25 ns)

$145: G.Skill TridentX 2x8 GB DDR3-2133 9-11-11 (8.43ns / 11.72ns)
$150: Crucial Ballistix 2x8 GB DDR3-1866 9-9-9 (9.65ns / 13.40ns)
$150: GeIL Evo Veloce 2x8 GB DDR3-2400 11-12-12 (9.17ns / 12.08ns)
$150: Kingston HyperX 2x8 GB DDR3-1866 9-10-9 (9.65ns / 13.40ns)
$155: G.Skill TridentX 2x8 GB DDR3-2400 10-11-11 (8.33ns / 11.25 ns)

The $145 and $155 2x8 GB kits from G.Skill really shoot across the bow of the GeIL ship Evo Veloce in the same capacities, but most of the 4x4 GB $150 DDR3-2400 C10 kits also offer better XMP sub-timings for the same price, meaning the advantage of the Evo Veloce is obviously memory density per module.

Test Bed

Test Bed
Processor i7-3770K @ 4.4 GHz
4 Cores / 8 Threads
Motherboard ASUS P8Z77-V Premium
Memory G.Skill 1333 MHz 9-9-9-24 1.5V 4x4GB Kit
G.Skill 1600 MHz 9-9-9-24 1.5V 4x4GB Kit
G.Skill 1866 MHz 9-10-9-28 1.5V 4x4GB Kit
GeIL 2400 MHz 11-12-12-30 1.65V 2x8GB Kit
G.Skill 2133 MHz 9-11-10-28 1.65V 4x4GB Kit
G.Skill 2400 MHz 10-12-12-31 1.65V 4x4GB Kit
CPU Cooler Intel Stock Cooler
Graphics Cards Intel HD4000
ECS GTX580
Power Supply Rosewill SilentNight 500W Platinum
Storage OCZ Vertex3 240GB
SATA 6Gbps to USB 3.0 Thermaltake BlacX 5G Docking Station
Thunderbolt Device Lacie Little Big Disk 240GB
Test Bench Coolermaster Test Bed
Operating System Windows 7 x64 Ultimate

Many thanks to...

We must thank the following companies for kindly donating hardware for our test bed:

OCZ for donating the USB testing SSD
ASUS for donating the IO testing kit
ECS for donating NVIDIA GPUs
Rosewill for donating the Power Supply

ASUS MemTweakIt

With our overview of the ASUS Republic of Gamers range of products, one piece of software caught my eye while I was testing.  The ASUS MemTweakIt allows for almost complete control of the memory subtimings while in the OS, such that users can optimize their settings for memory reads, memory writes, or for pushing the boundaries.  The upshot of this software in our context is that it takes all the sub-timings and settings and condenses them into a score.  As the memory kits we test contain XMP profiles, these profiles determine a large majority of the sub-timings on the kit and how aggressive a memory manufacturer is.  We should see this represented in our MemTweakIt score.

As we do not know the formula by which ASUS calculates this value, it has to be taken with a pinch of salt.  It could be weighted in favor of one of the settings versus the other.  Normally I would not put such an non-descript benchmark as part of our testing suite, but the MemTweakIt software does give us one descriptor – it gives us a theoretical rate of improvement across the range of kits we test, and allows us to order them in the way they should perform.  With this being said, the results for our kits are as follows:

ASUS MemTweakIt

Percentage Increase Over DDR3-1333

In terms of MemTweakIt scores, the Geil 2400 C11 kit pulls in just behind the G.Skill 2133 C9 kit.  The price between these two kits is $150 for the GeIL and $130 for the G.Skill, meaning if the benchmarks pan out like the MemTweakIt scores, the extra $20 on the GeIL kit is the ‘module differentiation’ between having a 4x4GB kit and a 2x8GB kit.

Overview, Specifications and Visual Inspection Gaming Tests: Metro 2033, Civilization V, Dirt 3
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  • Tchamber - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link

    It would be nice to see how memory impacts gaming with a graphics card. Or does the difference get so small that there's no meaningful difference?
  • Magnus101 - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link

    I think it already is no meaningful difference in most games, even with the integrated GPU!
    As with all memory performance tests, the real world difference is so small that it makes no sense to throw money at higher speced memory.
    Almost in all circuimstances, perhaps except some special cases like they highlighted in an earlier article hear at anand.
    The biggest difference there was for Winrar64 compression (not the usual unpacking we normal user do almost daily) and that was still only 20% differece between 1333 and 2400.

    I haven't seen any benchies with memory for compilers (programing) or for DAW (music making, like with cubse, sonar and so on), but I suspect it is the same old story of almost no difference.
  • tekphnx - Thursday, October 25, 2012 - link

    Second Life at max settings is a notable exception. I recently upgraded from DDR3-1600 to DDR3-2000 on my i5-760 @3.8ghz with GTX670, and saw a jump of 5-6fps in minimum framerates.
  • JonnyDough - Friday, October 26, 2012 - link

    I COMPLETELY agree. This article is BOGUS. Here's why:

    If you're going to spend money on higher end memory then you may as well fork over a little for a discreet graphics card instead. It will make much more difference in games.

    Intel integrated graphics are only good for office usage still. No real gamer or anyone doing heavy GPU calculations, cares about Intel IGPs.

    Show us what this more costly memory does for a real gamer and we'll consider purchasing it. Three frames per second more on an IGP is not worth the money spent on this memory.
  • IanCutress - Friday, October 26, 2012 - link

    That's the thing - not everyone that has a PC uses it for gaming. As alluded to by Magnus, there are other things that do not need a discrete GPU but are still used by a large number of enthusiasts - VMs, compilations, even non-parallel scientific simulations. You whack in a stupidly large matrix into memory and it will bog down. Failing that, how about financial calculations? Now put all that inside a mITX chassis and board where you're limited to two memory slots. Sure 2x8GB 2400 C11 may not be your first port of call, but if saving an extra 3-5% time on whatever you do actually has a financial impact on your work portfolio, then the early investment could pay off in the long run. Then again, it may not and that 2x4GB 1333 C9 is looking a little sweeter.

    No article is bogus, as you put it. Sure there are good things to review and some that are not so good. If we solely focused on the good, then we'd all be sitting around patting each other on the back for doing a service to the industry. I like reviewing all sorts - you get to see the niggles of the smaller companies that can't invest, or you can point out when a top company is just being stupid. Thus when you get a really good product that shines out from the rest, it is something special to behold.

    Ian

    PS There are plans for a compilation benchmark in future reviews. I'm trying to organise a decent one that I can strap a timer to without sitting in front of the screen for 20 minutes waiting for it to finish.
  • Runamok81 - Friday, October 26, 2012 - link

    True, not everyone uses a PC for gaming. But do you really think the "frost white" Evo Veloce memory is targeted towards the financial or enterprise sector? As silly as it is, Enthusiasts with money than sense WILL pay a premium to raise their benchmark synthetics.
  • ytoledano - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link

    Sticks like these coupled with a X79 motherboard with 8 DIMMs populated are biting into server territory - I'm sure! I'm running a 3930K + 48GB (I will soon have to upgrade to 64) as a dedicated SQL server. How much would similar performance cost me if I'd built the system around a Xeon? Probably twice.
  • Blibbax - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link

    Roughly £400 extra for the Xeon equivalent of the 3930K.
  • quixver - Tuesday, November 20, 2012 - link

    You are missing out on ECC though.
  • Beenthere - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link

    Anyone who has actually tested higher RAM frequencies or RAM quantities above 4 GB. in a typical modern desktop PC knows that frequencies above 1600 MHz. produce no tangible system performance gain in either Intel or AMD powered PCs. Tangible means a change in system performance that you can actually see and or feel. In addition more than 4 GB. of RAM produces minimal gains unless you operate your PC with many applications open or functioning concurrently, which most people don't. CAD, modeling, and some other business applications CAN benefit from more RAM but many consumer apps don't.

    Be advised that RAM benches grosssly mis-represent the actual SYSTEM gains because they assume the RAM is saturated 100% of the time, which it is not. If you run real applications and compare 1333 MHz. to 2400 MHz. you will likely not even be able to tell the difference between the two because DDR3 RAM @ 1333+ MHZ. is not a system bottleneck.

    The RAM mfgs. are doing everything they can to convince enthusiasts to buy high priced high frequency RAM because this is very profitable for them. When you test with real applications and see how tiny the system gains are, you will wish that you had bought 1600 or 8166 MHz. RAM at a reasonable price and used the cash for a faster CPU or GPU.

    If you have money burning a hole in your pocket then by all means buy the fastest RAM you can find. Then you can brag at how cool it is... even if you can't actually use the highest frequency in your PC. Understand that your CPU may not be able to run the RAM anywhere near it's rated frequency. Typically Deneb CPUs top out around 1600 MHz., Thubans around 1800 MHz., Zambezi at 2000+ MHz. and Vishera around 2400 MHz. based on initial testing for Vishera. No one cares about Intel CPUs so I won't post on them... <LOL>

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