Intel Core 2 Duo: Memory Performance Part Deux
by Gary Key on August 14, 2006 4:15 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Memory Performance
Our ASRock 775Dual-VSTA motherboard provides two DDR2 and three DDR memory ratios. The ASRock 775i65G provides three DDR memory ratios although we could only get our DDR-400 memory modules to work at DDR-355 due to the front side bus ratios availability within the i865 BIOS. We are only testing this board at DDR-355 due to this issue. Our ASRock ConRoeXFire-eSATA2 board is based on the 945P chipset and features DDR2-400, DDR2-533, and DDR2-667 memory speeds. Our Biostar P965 and DFI 975X motherboards feature the same DDR2 memory speeds as the ASRock 945P board while adding DDR2-800. Even though our ASRock 775Dual-VSTA does not support DDR2-800 we are reporting these scores for comparison.
We are testing our motherboards at the fastest stable timings we can achieve and still pass our benchmark test suite. By increasing the memory voltage on the 775Dual-VSTA board we were able to run our Transcend modules at 3-4-3-9 at DDR2-667. With these set ratios, CPU speed remains the same at 1.86GHz in our test platform with memory speed being varied by selecting the different ratios.
Due to performance reasons we did not test the DDR-266 or DDR2-400 settings as we believe most people will not utilize these ratios. The balance of our comments in the first article about the Intel memory controller design and command rates with the VIA PT880 chipset still hold true. Our memory settings were derived from extensive stress testing with a variety of applications. While certain settings that allowed lower latencies worked well with some applications, the final settings we arrived at had to work with all applications.
The Intel 865G chipset offers greater DDR memory performance than the VIA PT880 Pro in our synthetic test results. Although the buffered Intel DDR-355 scores 18% better than the VIA DDR-400 setting, the unbuffered result is only 4% better. The SuperPI test is basically a tie with the memory latency results heavily favoring the Intel chipset. Although the i865 results are well below the DDR2 based chipsets, we will see this chipset perform very well in our application and game tests.
The Sandra bandwidth memory performance result of the VIA PT880 Pro at DDR2-533 (1:1 ratio) leads the DDR2-667 (4:5 ratio) by up to 30% although the memory timings are almost equal at both speeds. It is obvious the ASRock 775Dual-VSTA BIOS is tuned for DDR2-533. This particular setting delivered the best raw performance although we will see in our application and game benchmarks this advantage is negated by other platform components.
Overall, the VIA PT880 Pro is very competitive at DDR2-533 memory speeds with the Intel P965 showing a definite advantage at DDR2-667. The Intel 945P based ASRock ConRoeXFire-eSATA2 offers a nice balance of performance at both memory speeds while costing just $20 more than the VIA PT880 Pro board but does not allow you to use your DDR memory or AGP video card.
Our Biostar P965 board offers a 12% improvement in the Sandra Unbuffered test, though its buffered scores are less than our DFI 975X board along with higher latencies. As we have been saying for years, however, the Buffered benchmark usually does not correlate well with real performance in applications on the same computer. For that reason, our memory bandwidth tests have always included an Unbuffered Sandra memory score. The Unbuffered result turns off the buffering schemes, and we have found the results correlate well with real-world performance as we will see shortly.
Our ASRock 775Dual-VSTA motherboard provides two DDR2 and three DDR memory ratios. The ASRock 775i65G provides three DDR memory ratios although we could only get our DDR-400 memory modules to work at DDR-355 due to the front side bus ratios availability within the i865 BIOS. We are only testing this board at DDR-355 due to this issue. Our ASRock ConRoeXFire-eSATA2 board is based on the 945P chipset and features DDR2-400, DDR2-533, and DDR2-667 memory speeds. Our Biostar P965 and DFI 975X motherboards feature the same DDR2 memory speeds as the ASRock 945P board while adding DDR2-800. Even though our ASRock 775Dual-VSTA does not support DDR2-800 we are reporting these scores for comparison.
We are testing our motherboards at the fastest stable timings we can achieve and still pass our benchmark test suite. By increasing the memory voltage on the 775Dual-VSTA board we were able to run our Transcend modules at 3-4-3-9 at DDR2-667. With these set ratios, CPU speed remains the same at 1.86GHz in our test platform with memory speed being varied by selecting the different ratios.
Due to performance reasons we did not test the DDR-266 or DDR2-400 settings as we believe most people will not utilize these ratios. The balance of our comments in the first article about the Intel memory controller design and command rates with the VIA PT880 chipset still hold true. Our memory settings were derived from extensive stress testing with a variety of applications. While certain settings that allowed lower latencies worked well with some applications, the final settings we arrived at had to work with all applications.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
The Intel 865G chipset offers greater DDR memory performance than the VIA PT880 Pro in our synthetic test results. Although the buffered Intel DDR-355 scores 18% better than the VIA DDR-400 setting, the unbuffered result is only 4% better. The SuperPI test is basically a tie with the memory latency results heavily favoring the Intel chipset. Although the i865 results are well below the DDR2 based chipsets, we will see this chipset perform very well in our application and game tests.
 |
 |
| Click to enlarge |
The Sandra bandwidth memory performance result of the VIA PT880 Pro at DDR2-533 (1:1 ratio) leads the DDR2-667 (4:5 ratio) by up to 30% although the memory timings are almost equal at both speeds. It is obvious the ASRock 775Dual-VSTA BIOS is tuned for DDR2-533. This particular setting delivered the best raw performance although we will see in our application and game benchmarks this advantage is negated by other platform components.
Overall, the VIA PT880 Pro is very competitive at DDR2-533 memory speeds with the Intel P965 showing a definite advantage at DDR2-667. The Intel 945P based ASRock ConRoeXFire-eSATA2 offers a nice balance of performance at both memory speeds while costing just $20 more than the VIA PT880 Pro board but does not allow you to use your DDR memory or AGP video card.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
Our Biostar P965 board offers a 12% improvement in the Sandra Unbuffered test, though its buffered scores are less than our DFI 975X board along with higher latencies. As we have been saying for years, however, the Buffered benchmark usually does not correlate well with real performance in applications on the same computer. For that reason, our memory bandwidth tests have always included an Unbuffered Sandra memory score. The Unbuffered result turns off the buffering schemes, and we have found the results correlate well with real-world performance as we will see shortly.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
34 Comments
View All Comments
randytsuch - Monday, August 14, 2006 - link
HiI am thinking about upgrading my old P4 to a low end conroe, and after reading the article, was also thinking about the 775i65G.
Application will be mostly video rendering, and as a music server for my squeezebox, no gaming.
I am wondering how well the 775i65G overclocks, compared to something like a Gigabyte 865-DS3. I was thinking about the Gigabyte, but the Asrock would save a fair amount of money, will let me keep my AGP card and RAM, as well as being cheaper than the DS4.
Thanks,
Randy
kmmatney - Monday, August 14, 2006 - link
From what I understand, the low multiplier of the Conroe hurts its overclocking chances with this motherboard. People have gotten very good overclocks with Prescotts and Celeron D's with the ADrock board, but only becuase those processors have much higher multipliers. I don't think the lack of voltage adjustment hurts it as much as the fact that you just can't take the FSB very high.Paladin165 - Monday, August 14, 2006 - link
I just want to add that I bought an ASRock 775 Dual-VSTA with a celeron D 326 to hold me over until I get a conroe, and I'm running some old DDR266 with no problems. I'm using an old Geforce 4 ti 4400 AGP in it and it works with most games (not Oblivion though unfortunately). So if you still have some DDR 266 laying around you'd like to use go ahead and buy this board. It has a ton of memory settings including some kind of memory compatability mode so it should work with just about anything.However, even with the Celeron D 326 overclocked to 3.3GHZ, super pi 1M takes 59sec...roughly equal to my sempron 1.6ghz at stock speed. It is definitely a slow POS. Temps are still very low, going to try to get it up higher, 3.8 or 4.0ghz, but I'm not sure I can while keeping the memory at such low speed.
Another thing nice about this board which I haven't seen mentioned in the reviews is that it can run AGP and PCI-E at the same time, so you can have 4 moniters without needing a slow PCI graphics card.
Also, it seems that the AGP is only 4X. The settings in the bios only go up to 4X and Everest or something told me it was running my card at 4X, I doubt it makes any difference though.
cdalgard - Monday, August 14, 2006 - link
I am wondering how a 6800 Ultra would compare to the 7600GS on these platforms. How might the benchmarks look? Is the 6800 Ultra faster than the 7600GS to begin with?ChronoReverse - Monday, August 14, 2006 - link
The 7600GT would be a good match against the 6800U but the 7600GS is definitely behind the 6800U.xsilver - Monday, August 14, 2006 - link
but if i'm not mistaken, the 7600gs and gt only differ in clock speeds, so trying your luck with overclocking the gs may achieve stock gt resultsSixFour - Monday, August 14, 2006 - link
Cooling would stop first before the actual video card did.ChronoReverse - Monday, August 14, 2006 - link
Not to mention the much slower memory. Typically you get GDDR3 with GT while you get GDDR2 (clocked lower as well) with the GS.cdalgard - Monday, August 14, 2006 - link
How does the memory compare on the 6800 Ultra? There does not seem to be any good benchmarks comparing the 3 cards (6800U, 7600GS, 7600GT). Does anyone have a link to a table for specifications (core clock, memory clock, pipelines)? Thanks.Gary Key - Monday, August 14, 2006 - link
The memory on the 6800 Ultra runs at 1.10GHz compared to 400MHz on the 7600GS. We will have scores up for the PCI-E versus AGP on the 6800 Ultra and 7600GS cards shortly.