Memory Scaling on Haswell CPU, IGP and dGPU: DDR3-1333 to DDR3-3000 Tested with G.Skill
by Ian Cutress on September 26, 2013 4:00 PM ESTOur final set of tests are a little more on the esoteric side, using a tri-GPU setup with a HD5970 (dual GPU) and a HD5870 in tandem. While these cards are not necessarily the newest, they do provide some interesting results – particularly when we have memory accesses being diverted to multiple GPUs (or even to multiple GPUs on the same PCB). The 5970 GPUs are clocked at 800/1000, with the 5870 at 1000/1250.
Dirt 3: Average FPS
It is pretty clear that memory has an effect: +13% moving from 1333 C9 to 2133 C9/2400 C10. In fact, that 1333 C9 seems to be more of a sink than anything else – above 2133 MHz memory the performance benefits are minor at best. It all depends if 186.53 FPS is too low for you and you need 200+.
Dirt 3: Minimum FPS
We see a similar trend in minimum FPS for Dirt3: 1333 C9 is a sink, but moving to 2133 C9/2400 C10 gives at least a 20% jump in minimum frame rates.
Bioshock Infinite: Average FPS
While differences in Bioshock Infinite Minimum FPS are minor at best, 1333 MHz and 1600 C10/C11 are certainly at the lower end. Anything 1866 MHz or 2133 MHz seems to be the best bet here, especially in our case if we wanted to push for 120 FPS gaming.
Bioshock Infinite: Minimum FPS
Similar to Bioshock on IGP, minimum frame rates across the board seem to be very low, with minor differences giving large % rises.
Tomb Raider: Average FPS
Tomb Raider remains resilient to change across our benchmarks, with 1 FPS difference between the top and bottom average FPS results in our tri-GPU setup.
Tomb Raider: Minimum FPS
With our tri-GPU setup being a little odd (two GPUs on one PCB), Tomb Raider cannot seem to find much consistency for minimum frame rates, showing up to a 15% difference when compared to our 1600 C10 result which seems to be a lot lower than the rest.
Sleeping Dogs: Average FPS
Similar to other results, 1333 and 1600 MHz results give lower frame rates, along with the slower 1866 MHz C10/C11 options. Anything 2133 MHz and above gives up to 8% more performance than 1333 C9.
Sleeping Dogs: Minimum FPS:
Minimum frame rates are a little random in our setup, except for one constant – 1333 MHz memory does not perform. Everything beyond that seems to be at the whim of statistical variance.
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gsuburban - Thursday, November 28, 2013 - link
Interesting article however, "Number of Sticks" as noted above would mean what? Is there a performance gain or loss using the same amount of Gigs of the same RAM in say 16GB in two dims versus 16GB of the same using 4 dimms?neal.a.nelson - Sunday, December 8, 2013 - link
That is a reasonable inference, and given the age of the article and date of the last post, probably all you're going to get. For upgrade ability, it's smart to use the two dual-channel slots instead of filling all four with the same amount.htwingnut - Monday, January 20, 2014 - link
Thanks for this testing and article. This shows 1366x768 for resolution. While I understand that this will test the RAM fully, it's also not realistic. I'd like to see results running single 1080p or 3x1080p because that's more real world.melk - Thursday, January 23, 2014 - link
Am I reading this correctly? That there is literally a 1fps difference at best, in both lowest and avg fps?melk - Thursday, January 23, 2014 - link
So we are talking about a ~1 fps difference in real world testing? Wow...dasa43 - Friday, February 28, 2014 - link
To see gains from faster ram the game needs to be cpu limited while most console ports are totally gpu limitedIncreasing resolution just stresses the gpu more further lightning the load on the cpu
Thief & Arma are two cpu limited games that can see big gains from faster ram
Thief benchmarks
http://forums.atomicmpc.com.au/index.php?showtopic...
Arma benchmarks
http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?166512-A...
NordRack2 - Sunday, June 1, 2014 - link
Quote: "Using the older version of WinRAR shows a 31% advantage moving from 1333 C9 to 3000 C12"That's wrongly calculated.
Correct is: ((213.63-163.11)/213.63) × 100% = 24%
cadman777 - Sunday, April 19, 2015 - link
Dear Sir,Do you have an article that explains the basics for RAM, CPU & m/b matching?
I want to learn the basics on this, but all I keep finding are articles like this with bits and pieces, and general explanations of the various components, but no pragmatic explanations on how they work together and how to match them and do the over-clocking between the various components to arrive at a stable system.
Thanx ... Chris
Nickolai - Sunday, August 13, 2017 - link
Is there a similar article for DDR4?