Gaming
Three DX9 games representing different gaming engines were used to test the performance of the OCZ DDR3-1800 Platinum 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 is 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. ALL games were run at 1280x1024 resolution, which is the maximum resolution for the most common 19" flat panel monitors.
The Kingston tops performance at the slower DDR3-800 speed, but the Micron Z9-based memory takes top honors from 1066 to the Highest Speed DDR3. OCZ manages the best performance at those speeds with slightly faster timings than other Z9-based memory.
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. Kingston, based on Elpida LL memory, performs best at the slower 800 and 1066 speeds, with OCZ and the other Z9 memory topping DDR-1333 to DDR3-2000. The pattern is basically the same as in Far Cry. With the constant CPU speed of 3.0GHz we see frame rates improve from 116.8 at DDR3-800 5-3-3 to 128.7 at DDR3-2000 9-8-7, an improvement of just over 10%. We have commented many times that memory is just one small part of the performance equation, but a 10% improvement in a game frame rate merely as the result of an increase in memory speed (and FSB speed, though we can't isolate that factor at present) is significant. Far Cry sees a similar increase from 112.90 at 800 to 121.94 at DDR3-2000, which is about an 8% improvement.
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 very subtle and HL2 performance is most influenced by the video card and CPU used in the benchmark, there are nonetheless patterns that are the same as the other two games. The Kingston wins by a small margin at 800 and 1066, while the OCZ tops the performance of Lost Coast from 1333 to 2000+. This game is not very sensitive to memory bandwidth so it is no real surprise that the performance improvement form 800 to 2000 is a small 3%.
Three DX9 games representing different gaming engines were used to test the performance of the OCZ DDR3-1800 Platinum 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 is 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. ALL games were run at 1280x1024 resolution, which is the maximum resolution for the most common 19" flat panel monitors.
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| Click to enlarge |
The Kingston tops performance at the slower DDR3-800 speed, but the Micron Z9-based memory takes top honors from 1066 to the Highest Speed DDR3. OCZ manages the best performance at those speeds with slightly faster timings than other Z9-based memory.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
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. Kingston, based on Elpida LL memory, performs best at the slower 800 and 1066 speeds, with OCZ and the other Z9 memory topping DDR-1333 to DDR3-2000. The pattern is basically the same as in Far Cry. With the constant CPU speed of 3.0GHz we see frame rates improve from 116.8 at DDR3-800 5-3-3 to 128.7 at DDR3-2000 9-8-7, an improvement of just over 10%. We have commented many times that memory is just one small part of the performance equation, but a 10% improvement in a game frame rate merely as the result of an increase in memory speed (and FSB speed, though we can't isolate that factor at present) is significant. Far Cry sees a similar increase from 112.90 at 800 to 121.94 at DDR3-2000, which is about an 8% improvement.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
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 very subtle and HL2 performance is most influenced by the video card and CPU used in the benchmark, there are nonetheless patterns that are the same as the other two games. The Kingston wins by a small margin at 800 and 1066, while the OCZ tops the performance of Lost Coast from 1333 to 2000+. This game is not very sensitive to memory bandwidth so it is no real surprise that the performance improvement form 800 to 2000 is a small 3%.
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Lonyo - Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - link
Any chances of a power consumption comparison between DDR2 and DDR3?DDR3 is supposed to run at a lower voltage, so in theory it might use a little less power. Would be interesting to see if there is any difference (DDR2/3-800 would probably be best, since that's a standard speed for both).
yyrkoon - Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - link
Does anyone even sell a DDR3 capable motherboard yet ? If so, is anyone even using DDR3 ? Personally, I think latencies need to come down, Prices need to come down,etc. Memory companies are *claiming* they are taking a beating in the market for DDR2 (claiming all time low, and losing money . . .).Personally, I think you reap what you soe, and they got what they deserved for their early market prices.Anyhow, short and skinny, I think *we* all need to take things slowly this time around, OEMS, buyers, and reviewers . . .
yyrkoon - Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - link
By the way, when I asked if anyone is even making a DDR3 motherboard yet, I was pretty much joking. Obviously if you're testing it, there has to be some form of a platform availible.You know, I cannot help but think that DDR2 was not quite 'finished' yet, and I do not understand the *need* for DDR3(unless OEMs are looking to rape our wallets again . . .). Of course, if 'Joe blow enthusiast' HAS to HAVE DDR3 memory because it gives him/her an extra 4-13 FPS in an outdated game at 2-3x the cost of DDR2 . . . well... lets just say that I expect that OCZ, Geil, and the rest would be more than happy to keep you poorer ;)
Some of us actually like to upgrade smart, using as many parts from older machines as possible to save money for other things. This sort of marketing strategy makes it hard on us who would like to do so while keeping our system upgraded once a year or so. I just got over having to buy memory, CPU, and a motherboard the last 'technolgy' advance, and I really do not wish to repeat the process.
asliarun - Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - link
Man, I never understand viewpoints such as yours. This is a technology article on the latest DDR3 advancement, and is not marketing propoganda urging you to go out and buy it NOW. Intel's latest CPU chipsets (P35/P38, IIRC) all support DDR3 (along with DDR2), so it's not like DDR3 is exactly vaporware. Only AMD is not supporting DDR3 right now because firstly, they will need to upgrade their integrated uncore memory controller, and secondly, they tend support upcoming technologies much later than Intel. Furthermore, DDR3 is definitely the future as it has much more headroom than DDR2, and is designed to work at lower voltages.In any case, my point is that we're discussing a new memory standard technology which is already in the market and is slowly being adopted. Initially, it WILL be highly priced like any other technology until volume manufacturing kicks in. However, if you are a price sensitive customer instead of a "Joe blow enthusiast" (frankly, like most of us), no one is forcing you to replace your RAM with DDR3 TODAY, least of all this AT article. Your logic of not adopting DDR3 simply because it is initially expensive and because it only gives "4-13fps increase" is however, absurd. By the same token, there is no need for ANY technology improvement, especially those that *only* result in an incremental improvement.
As a footnote, you should be grateful for all the "Joe blow enthusiasts" in this world instead of heaping scorn on them. All said and done, you and I ARE freeloading on him, as he's the one who's financing our cut rate technology purchases.
GlassHouse69 - Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - link
Oh you think so?hm.... i wonder how much Anandtech/daily got for reviewing this... hm.....