Phenom II ddr III speed vs timings

[chew*]

I think the screenshots speak for themselves........Lets see some other comparisons of other benches to get a bigger picture. I suggest memory intensive...I will recompare 32m later but didn't have 1 1/2 hours to kill....

Method used, opened far right PI set affinity to core 1, priority high ran 16k twice then blasted a 1m, opened another PI 1m set affinity to core 2, priority high etc etc you get the idea......

[whe3ls]

lower speeds and tighter timings seems better

[shaolin95]

Maybe you could try runs that last about 5 mins each instead of the 32M or of course I can do it too instead of having you all the work. :-)

[chew*]

Maybe you could try runs that last about 5 mins each instead of the 32M or of course I can do it too instead of having you all the work. :-)

Sure have a shot at it, but if the times are a 10th of a second off now longer benches it will be like 1 sec off.......even so it just makes more sense to run tighter and slower as that 1 second might make a 1/100th of a FPS difference......but its alot easier to run tight and low

[shaolin95]

I am actually using running tight and low myself right now but I am always curious.

[Sparky]

So when I was looking at that $60 OCZ D9 kit that runs DDR3-1333 @ CAS6 instead of DDR3-1600 at CAS8 then I was actually being smart instead of just cheap. Cool
Not like I'm buying soon anyway but good to know I was headed in the right direction.

[roofsniper]

on ddr2 didnt speed matter more than timings?

[chew*]

Sure but ddr III is a different animal now,+ with ddr III I think we have reached the ceiling and we have a new revision of the IMC.

[crazydiamond]

so lets say i was going to get the gd70 w/ a 955be and 8gb ram would you get:

1600mhz 7.6.6.24 1.9v kit
or
2000mhz 9.9.9.28 1.9v kit

they are both ocz kits, do you think they could run those tight timings at lower mhz? i know w/ ddr2 sometimes faster ram couldnt get the tight timings at lower speeds (think 1000mhz 5.5.5.15 kits that cant do 800mhz 4.4.4.12)

is ddr3 the same way? i was leaning toward the 2000mhz kit just figuring having the headroom cant hurt



edit to add: i wonder how your results would scale w/ more nb freq and even cpu

[roofsniper]

have any other tests to show this? maybe the speed is already high enough on the ram that it would benefit from tighter timings.

[chew*]

so lets say i was going to get the gd70 w/ a 955be and 8gb ram would you get:

1600mhz 7.6.6.24 1.9v kit
or
2000mhz 9.9.9.28 1.9v kit

they are both ocz kits, do you think they could run those tight timings at lower mhz? i know w/ ddr2 sometimes faster ram couldnt get the tight timings at lower speeds (think 1000mhz 5.5.5.15 kits that cant do 800mhz 4.4.4.12)

is ddr3 the same way? i was leaning toward the 2000mhz kit just figuring having the headroom cant hurt



edit to add: i wonder how your results would scale w/ more nb freq and even cpu

Thats a good point and yes it does scale but not at speeds anyone can reach with air or water.......seems the IMC is partial to 5-5-5 and 6-6-6 latencies.

I would suggest this stuff I'm playing with. Does 6-6-6 1333+ and 1600 7-7-7 at 1.65v for both......Sure there is faster stuff but at the price point its hard to beat.....Its what I'm using in the above posts.....

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec_...iteria=BA26056

I think optimum would be ram that can do 5-5-5 1333+ and 6-6-6 1600....gives you flexbility to tune it whichever way works best for your particular PC.

Will be testing other stuff over the next few days, I think i'm going to test fear and crysis to get some more realworld comparisons.

[demonkevy666]

these are still early chip they have to mature for good memory support on ddr3.

these have to do DDR2 and DDR3 it's not surprising they can't reach above 1800mhz.

sure a bit disappointing, but not really a big deal.

later chips will probably get better as time go's on.

[roofsniper]

might be the reason why the imc on the cpus are just rated for 1333. later on the imc will become more powerful tho and im sure speed will be better than timings the same way it was for ddr2.

[Oese]

depends on whether the application needs fast memory access or high bandwidth.

i tested 1333 cl6 vs. 1600 cl7 when gaming and there was a remarkable difference towards 1600 cl7 was clearly better in a very problematic crowded area (MMORPG). I cannot prove that, but perhaps gaming benches would show (i dont have any recent games here though)

plus, super pi is not really memory intensive. its not tenth but some 1/100 difference there...

[PoppaGeek]

depends on whether the application needs fast memory access or high bandwidth.

i tested 1333 cl6 vs. 1600 cl7 when gaming and there was a remarkable difference towards 1600 cl7 was clearly better in a very problematic crowded area (MMORPG). I cannot prove that, but perhaps gaming benches would show (i dont have any recent games here though)

plus, super pi is not really memory intensive. its not tenth but some 1/100 difference there...

Check out these: ExtremeTech

[Oese]

yeah.. but i think ddr3-1333 timings are not really optimized there..

whatever, impressive numbers from the amd ddr3 system..

[shaolin95]

Is it stated anywhere on that article what timings were used for each? I cant see it specified and if its not then its such a pointless test.

PS I just got a reply from the author and he thinks he used 7-9-9-22 for both. Doesnt really help us much here as obviously the 1600 will be better if the timings are kept the same.

[Oese]

thats right then really.. thats the cause for 1333 was slower then ddr2 at higher clock then too..

but, what's nice with this is: even with ddr3-1600 with 7-9-9-22 (what is rather slow) the numbers shown are very nice for just 3.12ghz clock

[gOtVoltage]

What would be cool ,,

a Single IMC(onchip) that did both DDR2 and DDR3 thus use the Same DDR2 Dimm slots for DDR3. Not two seperate IMC's..Just One

Why didnt Mobo makers,,Make Bios or mobos to run Either DDr2 or 3 on the fly in the Same Dimm Slots.

Two sepperate IMC's are being used ATM instead of a single IMC,, thus you must have a DDR2 or DDR3 Mobo not Both on the Same Mobo .

It would be Nice to upgrade from DDR2 to DDR 3 on the Same Mobo as how PHII can run AM2+/AM3.

Its odd why DDr3 cant use a DDr2 slot (IMC/Bios is what controls the Ram ) even though it has same amount of pins/tabs you'd think they would of made DDR3 compatable to drop into a DDr2 slot Via a Bios or something.

From my understanding the Slots/Rams differ only by Volts and how there pinned with the exception of being faster chips . DDR2/DDR3 side by side look the same besides speed/latency.

I always thought DDR3 was just a DDR2 PCB with improved chips. Kinda like what they did with Vidcards. You know when they went from DDR2 to DDR3 on the Same card. Manufactures used the Same PCB's for DDR2/DDR3 videocards.

Having the Same Memory PCb DDR3 to drop in to a DDR2 slot they would only need a AM3 IMC that could run all DDR2/DDR3 dimms instead of two seperate IMC's for DDR2/DDr3 .


Latencies would be a lot better i would think.

Hahaa that Was my two bits worth

In the end ive always noticed the PH1/PH!! runs best with a medium Latency 5/6/7 and High NB above 2400mhz with Medium Ram Freqency say 1100+ to 1200mhz.

Untill we see a Single AM3 IMC DDR3 only setup (no DDr2IMC involved) then well see Way faster Numbers @1600+mhz and even higher.So in the end i think Higher ram with 5/6 timing will be seen even @ 2000mhz eventually.

[crazydiamond]

ddr3 has the center groove in a different slot, it wont fit into ddr2 slots

[gOtVoltage]

ddr3 has the center groove in a different slot, it wont fit into ddr2 slots

You made my headache go away That explains it,, so a whole new ball game with DDr3 then...Not as simple as i thought between the Two types of Dimms.


So AMD needs to unleassh the Pure AM3/DDR3 only chip (no ddr2IMC),,shure to be " The InHell Inside killer"

[roofsniper]

why does it matter if it has 2 imcs? i dont think you would get any performance loss it just costs slightly more to make the chip.

[demonkevy666]

why does it matter if it has 2 imcs? i dont think you would get any performance loss it just costs slightly more to make the chip.

because it's added transistors I believe phenom II has 758 million transistors
vs the 731 million in I7, the extra transistors are for ddr2 and and ddr3 the difference being that ddr3 uses a 4 bit wide and ddr2 uses 2 bit wide addresses.
so you would need two different IMC's.

[roofsniper]

i know but even if i was going pure ddr3 and never going back i really dont see why it matters if it has 2 imcs. i know why they are both there but sure take out the ddr2 controller and thats a few less transistors. i think if you are running ddr3 anyway the ddr2 controller isnt even burning any power so really it doesnt seem like its that big of a deal. besides we all know that soon enough amd is having certain cpus only ddr3. i believe istanbul is ddr3 only. deneb only had both to offer a smooth transition.

[demonkevy666]

i know but even if i was going pure ddr3 and never going back i really dont see why it matters if it has 2 imcs. i know why they are both there but sure take out the ddr2 controller and thats a few less transistors. i think if you are running ddr3 anyway the ddr2 controller isnt even burning any power so really it doesnt seem like its that big of a deal. besides we all know that soon enough amd is having certain cpus only ddr3. i believe istanbul is ddr3 only. deneb only had both to offer a smooth transition.

guess it comes down to price.