Gaming
Three DX9-era games representing different gaming engines were used to test the performance of Kingston DDR3-1375 in real world gaming. There are more recent gaming titles available, but they are also DX9. We will update games in the memory test suite as soon as a selection of DX10 games with reliable benchmarks are available. At that time the memory test OS will also be moved to Vista.
The Far Cry - River demo was run for three loops and results in fps were averaged over the three runs.
Far Cry performs best with fast DDR2 memory on the P35 chipset, much as we expected. However, the performance of DDR3 on the P35 is much closer to DDR2 on the Asus P5K with the low latency Kingston DDR3. It is also important to note that both DDR3 and DDR2, even in slow DDR3 latencies, are faster than the fastest DDR2 on the P965.
DDR3-1333 reaches speeds almost the same as DDR2-1066 at 4-4-3 timings on the P35. Speeds above 1333 chart new performance territory for DDR3.
Quake 4 and the underlying engine have always proved to be very sensitive to improvements in memory bandwidth. This is amply demonstrated in these memory tests. Again in all cases DDR2 and DDR3 are faster on P35 than the fastest DDR2 on P965. The pattern is the same as in Far Cry but the differences are magnified in Q4. One interesting result is that the low-latency Kingston is now within 1 frame of DDR2 3-3-3 on P35 at both the overlap speeds of 800 and 1066. Kingston DDR3-1333 performance is at about the same speed at DDR2 4-4-3 at 1066 on the same P35 chipset. Speeds higher than 1333 again chart new performance territory.
We include Half-Life 2: Lost Coast as a representative of games that are less sensitive to improvements in memory bandwidth. Lost Coast is played through the Steam engine, where there is the constant worry, for a reviewer, that each new update of Steam will break your test benchmarks. Though the differences are not as dramatic, the pattern is exactly the same as the other two games. All P35 results are faster than the same fast DDR2 results on the P965. DDR2-800 3-3-3 and DDR2-1066 4-4-3 are the fastest in the overlap speeds on the P35 motherboard.
Low latency Kingston DDR3 is all but identical in results to fast DDR2 at both overlap speeds, showing the impact of lowered latency on DDR3 performance. 1333 and above results chart new performance territory, and the Low latency Kingston performance in these higher speeds certainly validates DDR3 as the performance memory for the future.
Three DX9-era games representing different gaming engines were used to test the performance of Kingston DDR3-1375 in real world gaming. There are more recent gaming titles available, but they are also DX9. We will update games in the memory test suite as soon as a selection of DX10 games with reliable benchmarks are available. At that time the memory test OS will also be moved to Vista.
The Far Cry - River demo was run for three loops and results in fps were averaged over the three runs.
| Far Cry- HOC River - 2.66GHz Frames Per Second - Higher is Better |
||||
| Memory | 800 | 1066 | 1333 | 1520 (380x7) |
| Kingston DDR3-1333 KHX11000D3LLK2 |
103.77 5-4-3-10 1.75V |
106.11 6-5-5-12 1.7V |
106.91 7-7-6-15 1.7V |
107.46 8-8-8-22 1.8V |
| Corsair DDR3-1066 CM3X1024-1066C7 |
103.39 6-6-6-15 1.5V |
105.87 7-7-7-20 1.5V |
106.70 9-9-9-25 1.5V |
- |
| DDR2 - P35 Corsair Dominator |
106.30 3-3-3-9 2.25V |
108.00 4-4-3-11 2.3V |
- | - |
| DDR2 - P965 (10x266) Corsair Dominator |
101.26 3-3-3-9 2.25V |
103.04 4-4-3-11 2.3V |
- | - |
Far Cry performs best with fast DDR2 memory on the P35 chipset, much as we expected. However, the performance of DDR3 on the P35 is much closer to DDR2 on the Asus P5K with the low latency Kingston DDR3. It is also important to note that both DDR3 and DDR2, even in slow DDR3 latencies, are faster than the fastest DDR2 on the P965.
DDR3-1333 reaches speeds almost the same as DDR2-1066 at 4-4-3 timings on the P35. Speeds above 1333 chart new performance territory for DDR3.
| Quake 4 - id Demo - 2.66GHz Frames Per Second - Higher is Better |
||||
| Memory | 800 | 1066 | 1333 | 1520 (380x7) |
| Kingston DDR3-1333 KHX11000D3LLK2 |
111.2 5-4-3-10 1.75V |
114.7 6-5-5-12 1.7V |
115.5 7-7-6-15 1.7V |
116.0 8-8-8-20 1.8V |
| Corsair DDR3-1066 CM3X1024-1066C7 |
107.9 6-6-6-15 1.5V |
111.8 7-7-7-20 1.5V |
113.2 9-9-9-25 1.5V |
- |
| DDR2 - P35 Corsair Dominator |
112.5 3-3-3-9 2.25V |
115.7 4-4-3-11 2.3V |
- | - |
| DDR2 - P965 (10x266) Corsair Dominator |
106.00 3-3-3-9 2.25V |
109.7 4-4-3-11 2.3V |
- | - |
Quake 4 and the underlying engine have always proved to be very sensitive to improvements in memory bandwidth. This is amply demonstrated in these memory tests. Again in all cases DDR2 and DDR3 are faster on P35 than the fastest DDR2 on P965. The pattern is the same as in Far Cry but the differences are magnified in Q4. One interesting result is that the low-latency Kingston is now within 1 frame of DDR2 3-3-3 on P35 at both the overlap speeds of 800 and 1066. Kingston DDR3-1333 performance is at about the same speed at DDR2 4-4-3 at 1066 on the same P35 chipset. Speeds higher than 1333 again chart new performance territory.
| Half Life 2 - Lost Coast - 2.66GHz Frames Per Second - Higher is Better |
||||
| Memory | 800 | 1066 | 1333 | 1520 (380x7) |
| Kingston DDR3-1333 KHX11000D3LLK2 |
108.0 5-4-3-10 1.75V |
109.1 6-5-5-12 1.7V |
109.5 7-7-6-15 1.7V |
109.5 8-8-8-22 1.8V |
| Corsair DDR3-1066 CM3X1024-1066C7 |
107.0 6-6-6-15 1.5V |
108.4 7-7-7-20 1.5V |
108.7 9-9-9-25 1.5V |
- |
| DDR2 - P35 Corsair Dominator |
108.5 3-3-3-9 2.25V |
109.5 4-4-3-11 2.3V |
- | - |
| DDR2 - P965 (10x266) Corsair Dominator |
103.9 3-3-3-9 2.25V |
104.9 4-4-3-11 2.3V |
- | - |
We include Half-Life 2: Lost Coast as a representative of games that are less sensitive to improvements in memory bandwidth. Lost Coast is played through the Steam engine, where there is the constant worry, for a reviewer, that each new update of Steam will break your test benchmarks. Though the differences are not as dramatic, the pattern is exactly the same as the other two games. All P35 results are faster than the same fast DDR2 results on the P965. DDR2-800 3-3-3 and DDR2-1066 4-4-3 are the fastest in the overlap speeds on the P35 motherboard.
Low latency Kingston DDR3 is all but identical in results to fast DDR2 at both overlap speeds, showing the impact of lowered latency on DDR3 performance. 1333 and above results chart new performance territory, and the Low latency Kingston performance in these higher speeds certainly validates DDR3 as the performance memory for the future.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
42 Comments
View All Comments
Kozusnik - Thursday, December 6, 2007 - link
Kingstone ram is some of the best ram you can put into your computer by asking me i use it in every computer i build!begsh - Saturday, June 23, 2007 - link
are you really achieved this??i have same modules and they cant get even 1400 at 7-7-7, with mobo asus p5k3 and 0403 bios.
any tips?
Night201 - Friday, May 25, 2007 - link
http://www.memory4less.com/m4l_itemdetail.asp?rid=...">Seems pretty Expensive: ~ $500MadBoris - Saturday, May 26, 2007 - link
P.S. Some of the recent reviews almost seem a bit minimalistic. Hope it's not a trend of things to come. Not to be critical, but I would like to see anandtech provide fresh content, perspectives and methodologies like I've grown accustomed to.Wesley Fink - Monday, May 28, 2007 - link
We would appreciate it if you could share specifics of what would constitute a non-minimalist memory review. What tests and procedures would you add?MadBoris - Saturday, May 26, 2007 - link
You know the more i think about it, the results aren't that tangible. Sure Sandra shows benefits. But if I am running a game at 40 fps, is DDR3 going to give me 41, 42?It won't be noticeable.
Spend less on reliable decent RAM, get a faster CPU or GPU, seriously.
Same with the P35, just not too tangible with speed tests. Mobo's should be about reliability, features sets, testing devices(USB, SATA, RAID) on them and how well they work.
Speed testing with RAM or Mobo's isn't tangible enough. When a new chipset or RAM increases things 15 - 20% then I'll be interested. I'm not really interested in shaving .5 seconds off a compile or an encode.
Wesley Fink - Friday, May 25, 2007 - link
We have updated ALL charts in the review to make it easier to compare performance. Bandwidth Standard, Bandwidth Buffered, Super Pi, and the 3 games now included 1520 (380x7) results in the last column. This means all four rows are now running at 2.66GHz, with just a change in the memory bandwidth. *00, 1066, and 1333 are running 8x333, and 1520 is 7x380 - all 2.66GHz as stated at the top of the chart.We have added an Overclocking Chart to p.5 that includes 7x380 (2.66GHz)- 8-8-8-22, 8x380 (same multiplier as 800/1066/1333 but pushed ot highest OC at 3.04GHz)- 8-8-8-20, and 8x275 (3.0GHz - highest speed at 7-7-7 timings) - 7-7-7-15. so you cna see the impact of timings at the very top overclocks. It should be no surprise that 1500 7-7-7-15 results are the fastest.
With these changes we think we have addressed your suggestions on making the performance charts more useful for readers.
Wesley Fink - Friday, May 25, 2007 - link
For those who requested them, these are the results for the higheest memory speed at slower timings. After further testing, we managed 1520 8-8-8-22 timings at 1.8V.The first result is 7x380, which is the same 2.66GHz run at all other memory speeds, and the second is 8x380, which is the same ratio but the highest OC we could reach from the base memory setting of 1333. The sequence is test, 7x380 (2.66), 8x380 (3,04):
Sandra XI-Standard Buffered - 7329, 7462
Sandra XI-Standard UNBuffered - 5172, 5263
Super Pi 1.5 - 45.31, 40.40
Far Cry River - 107.46, 117.82
Quake 4 - 116.0, 123.5
Half Life 2-Lost Coast - 109.5, 111.5
We will add a chart with these results to the bottom of the overclocking section later today.
Googer - Friday, May 25, 2007 - link
2GB of DDR3 will cost you close to $385!http://www.google.com/products?q=KHX11000D3LLK2&am...">http://www.google.com/products?q=KHX11000D3LLK2&am...
TA152H - Thursday, May 24, 2007 - link
A lot is being made of DDR3 latency and such, and performance, but hasn't anyone considered the impact of voltages? I see these grossly inflated voltages for DDR2 memory, and I can't help but wonder if they would have so much better performance, even clock speed normalized, if they were both run at stock voltages.A lot of places aren't stupid enough to run DDR2 at 2.2 or 2.3 volts, it creates a lot of heat and lowers the lifespan of the device. Sure, the kiddies will, but the business world isn't that crazy about running things out of spec. Now we have the jackasses at Kingston already producing 1.7v DDR3. Why even bother having a spec if no one pays attention to it???? The memory is just out, and they can't stay to spec.
But anyway, it might be interesting to compare memory at spec, which, last I remember, was 1.5v for DDR3 and 1.8v for DDR2. Or even at the same voltage, to see what is intrinsic to DDR3 and DDR2. It might be the voltage difference accounts for a lot of the higher timings, and not the standard. Not that I'm advocating running DDR3 at 1.8v, but for testing, it would be informative. Certainly if these nitwits are running DDR2 at 2.2-2.3v, DDR3 at 1.8v can't be too far behind. Good grief.