How memory timings on A64's affect performance - The truth.

[cuddles]

December 28, 2004 : Added RAS to CAS Investigation. Updated CAS results with LL / LH scores and removed CPU Arithmetic. SuperPi to be added shortly, was unable to find a Process Timing program to measure SuperPi calculation time within 100th's of a second. Updated first post with benchmark methods and details, as well as an A64 Tweaker screenshot.


Ever hear this : "Ram on Intel loves Mhz, ram on A64's love tight timings"? I know I have, and I had never, ever seen any solid evidence to state this as fact. Now, when you're dealing with something like memory timings, a lot of things come into play. Mobo, BIOS, ram type, and of course the CPU. There are also many facets of performance. You of course have your synthetic benchmarks, your benchmarks from the competitive realm (AQ3, 3DMark) as well as your pure real world gaming performance. I've seen on a lot of forums people asking about how ram timings will affect their performance, whether it be in competitive benchmarks or real world gaming. Not finding any hard evidence, I decided to look into this topic.

By no means do I consider myself an expert at all in the Ram department. At the time of me typing this, I've only been actually overclocking my computer for about 1.5 months. I've been reading about overclocking for maybe 4 months. In the following sections, I'll take a look at CAS, RAS to CAS and RAS effects on performance, as well as a compilation at the end including FSB and performance ratios and other data to help you sort out where you are most likely to perform best (220 3-2-2 > 200 2-2-2?).

The test setup is as follows :

S939 AMD FX-53 (200x12, stock)
2x512MB Crucial Ballistix DDR400 (running in Dual Channel)
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum (1.3b6 BIOS)
x800 Pro flashed to XT PE @ 570 / 590
2x74GB Raptors in Raid 0
Windows XP SP2
Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro

Notes about the conditions of the benchmarks :
- I tried to keep all tests on even playing ground. All of the same services were running in the background for all tests at all settings.
- If a benchmark looked off, or fishy, I ran it more than once to make sure my results were exact. There will always be a slight margin of error, which can be attributed for some differences.
- VSync was never enabled.
- The ATI Control Panel was set to High Quality for all tests.
- For the Competitive Benchmarks I simply ran the tests from beginning to end. No tweaks, no tricks, no nothing.
- In 3DMark 2001 I only use Lobby High and Lobby Low to show results. Originally I ran through the entire benchmark, but margin of error in 2001 is very large. At the advice of the 2001 Pro's, LL and LH were deemed as the most RAM / CPU dependant tests, and therefore those are the only scores you will see.
- A64 Tweaker shot for specific settings on all benchmarks can be found here (http://img97.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img97&image=tweaker4gx.jpg).

I'm breaking this down into 3 subsections, Synthetic Benchmarks, Competitive Benchmarks and Real World Performance.

Here are the settings for the gaming benchmarks :

Counter-Strike : Source Visual Stress Test (Ran once, running twice gave identical results)
Low :
640x480
All settings on Low
Bilinear Filtering, No Reflect

High :
1600x1200
All settings on High
4xAA / 16xAF / Reflect All

Doom 3 - timedemo demo1 (Ran twice, took second score)
Low :
640x480
Lowest Quality
All Advanced Settings disabled

High :
1600x1200
Ultra Quality
All Advanced settings enabled (except for AA and VSync)

And without futher delay, here are the results!

EDIT - Quick Links
Investigating CAS (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=642991#post642991)
Investigating RAS to CAS (tRCD) (http://xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=642992#post642992)

[cuddles]

Investigating CAS


Synthetic Benchmarks

200x12 / 2-2-2-10 :
Everest Latency Benchmark : 47.2ns
Sandra Soft 2005 Bandwidth : 6070 / 6027

200x12 / 2.5-2-2-10 :
Everest Latency Benchmark : 50.8ns
Sandra Soft 2005 Bandwidth : 6055 / 6012

200x12 / 3-2-2-10 :
Everest Latency Benchmark : 53.1ns
Sandra Soft 2005 Bandwidth : 6048 / 5994

As you can see, going from CAS2 to CAS2.5 will lose you about 3ns in latency (7.6%). Going from CAS2.5 to CAS3 will hit you for about another 3ns.

And how does this affect your bandwidth? Not much overall. The total difference from CAS2 to CAS3 is only a 22 / 33 decrease (0.25% / 0.25%). And from CAS2.5 to CAS3 it's only 1%! That definately isn't much in the grand scheme of things, as you'll see when we get to real world gaming.




Competitive Benchmarks

200x12 / 2-2-2-10 :
3DMark 2001 : 351.3 / 156.2
3DMark 2005 : 6312
Aquamark 3 : 77661

200x12 / 2.5-2-2-10 :
3DMark 2001 : 344.5 / 153.3
3DMark 2005 : 6304
Aquamark 3 : 76749

200x12 / 3-2-2-10 :
3DMark 2001 : 338.2 / 150.9
3DMark 2005 : 6309
Aquamark 3 : 75755

(Note : Most competitive benchers on the A64 platform make use of A64 Tweaker by CodeRed, I'd just like to note that I did not use that utility at all for any of these benchmarks. CAS timings were set in the BIOS. Lobby Low and Lobby High are the scores shown. A64 Tweaker shot for specific settings on all benchmarks can be found here (http://img97.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img97&image=tweaker4gx.jpg).)

Interesting results we see here. Competitive Benchmarks really do get affected by things as specific as your ram timings, which most competitive benchmarkers already know :) I didn't use 2003 for this test because it's essentially in between 2001 and 2005 as far as CPU / Ram dependance.

3DMark 2001 showed a large decrease when switching CAS timings. Going from CAS2 to CAS2.5 decreased Lobby Low by 6.8 (1.97%)FPS ! As benchers know, this is a huge decrease. Going from CAS2.5 to CAS3 dropped it another 6.3 FPS (1.86%). These may seem like nothing to most people, but when it comes to competitive benchmarking, almost 2% is a huge, huge difference. In Lobby High we saw the same drop happen, we lost 5.7 FPS (3.51%) going from CAS2 to CAS3.

3DMark 2005 showed slight differences which are within the margin of error, so we can basically ignore all those tests. This just goes to show you that 3DMark 2005 is essentially entirely GPU as of now. In 4 years it will probably just as CPU bound as 3DMark 2001 has become.

Aquamark 3 showed interesting results as well. I never thought Aquamark 3 was this dependant on things as specific as ram timings. We see that from CAS2 to CAS2.5 we drop an astounding 912 (1.18%) points. Further, from CAS2.5 to CAS3 we drop another 994 (1.31%) points. The total difference from CAS2 to CAS3 is 1906 (2.52%) points. That is a huge difference, if you ask me when it comes to competitive benchmarking.

And now, we move on to the true test, real world performance.



Real World Performance

200x12 / 2-2-2-10 :
VST Low : 198 FPS
Doom 3 Low : 144.2 FPS

VST High : 102.74 FPS
Doom 3 High : 61 FPS


200x12 / 2.5-2-2-10 :
VST Low : 198 FPS
Doom 3 Low : 143.7 FPS

VST High : 101.7 FPS
Doom 3 High : 61 FPS


200x12 / 3-2-2-10 :
VST Low : 193 FPS
Doom 3 Low : 142.2 FPS

VST High : 101.07 FPS
Doom 3 High : 61 FPS


Very interesting results we see here. Even when we're running at lowest settings, taxing the CPU / Ram much more so than the video card, we see almost the exact same numbers throughout.

Doom 3 Low barely budged. It isn't within margin of error, it is indeed because of the CAS timings, but a total of 2 FPS difference from CAS2 to CAS3 is pretty significant when it comes to showing that timings don't matter that much in real world gaming.

Doom 3 High was entirely GPU. Frames don't change at all, why? Well, something as insignificant as ram timings won't change anything if all the work is being put on your GPU, so we see absolutely no performance decrease.

VST Low gave almost the same results as Doom 3 Low. Now, on CAS3 it did seem to drop more than from CAS2 to CAS2.5, and I did rerun the test to make sure, and it hit 193 each time. Even so, a 5 FPS drop when you're dealing with settings that will never be used real world don't have much weight, in my opinion.

VST High also gave interesting results. This is real world, this is what you'll see while playing. From CAS2 to CAS2.5, we lost 1 FPS. Oh no!! Not a whole frame! Going from CAS2.5 to CAS3 dropped us not even a single frame per second, 0.63 if you want to get technical. I think we can all agree that that means nothing in terms of real world performance. Overall, going from CAS2 to CAS3 dropped us approximately 1.63 FPS.



Conclusions

Well, overall, I think we got some interesting results. On forums a lot I'll hear people ask 'Should I get this 2.5-3-3 ram or this 3-3-3 ram?'. In most cases, the 2.5-3-3 ram will be a decent amount more expensive than the 3-3-3 ram. And most people get the answer of 'Go for the 2.5 ram, it's worth it'. I think after the tests given above, we should really start questioning that.

For Competitive Benchers
I don't think I need to say much here. If you bench for sport, you already know what I've told you. Timings do matter, and they matter a reasonable amount. The difference at the same Mhz between CAS2 and CAS2.5 even is a reasonable amount. The difference between CAS2 to CAS3 is even more pronounced, and as we all know, 500 points in any benchmark can make or break a world record. Paying the extra $50-$100 for CAS2 ram instead of CAS2.5 is definately worth it. But as I said, if you're a bencher, you already know all of this and probably have some nice sticks of BH5 or TCCD at your side already, so I don't think I need to say much more on this front.

For Gamers (especially those on a budget)
Here's what it really all comes down to. If you're a gamer with a newer PC, you're most likely on the A64 platform. The question of timings comes into play a lot when deciding your PC components. I even previously would tell people to spring for the CAS2 over the CAS3, thinking it would indeed help with performance. Keep in mind, this is specifically dealing with CAS only. If you have the choice between 2-2-2 and 3-2-2 ram (which won't happen often), then I think you can see that the extra money usually isn't worth it if you're an average gamer. After the tests above, I really have to question myself. Is it really worth it? For a budget gamer, $50-$100 is a pretty decent amount of cash to smack down for some CAS2 ram as opposed to some CAS3 ram. Is it truely worth it? I guess that's up to the gamer themselves, but overall I think we can come to the conclusion that the answer is no. $50 extra for 1 FPS under normal gaming conditions is not something most people would spring for. Even when it's entirely CPU / Ram dependant, we barely see a 3 FPS difference. This is entirely negligable, I think we can agree. I myself was surprised at how little difference in the real world ram timings had an effect. Update - Keep in mind, this is CAS only.



Final Thoughts

Well, when it comes to CAS only, I think it's clear that for real world performance, CAS doesn't mean a thing. For benching, of course it does. And for synthetic benchmarks, you will see a performance decrease, but it's extremely minimal (well under 100mb/s from CAS2 to CAS3). Scroll down for more benchmark results regarding other timings. But as a final answer for CAS only, it has no real world performance decrease when changing from CAS2 to CAS3 (keeping all other timings equal).

[cuddles]

Investigating RAS to CAS (tRCD)



Synthetic Benchmarks

200x12 / 2-2-2-10 :
Everest Latency Benchmark : 47.2ns
Sandra Soft 2005 Bandwidth : 6070 / 6027

200x12 / 2-3-2-10 :
Everest Latency Benchmark : 50.9ns
Sandra Soft 2005 Bandwidth : 6052 / 6006

200x12 / 2-4-2-10 :
Everest Latency Benchmark : 52.9ns
Sandra Soft 2005 Bandwidth : 6027 / 5983

When it came to CAS only, we saw very minimal performance loss (22 / 33 decrease). When it comes to tRCD2 to 4, we see a 43 / 44 (0.71% / 0.74%) decrease overall. Going from 2 to 3, we only see a drop of 18 / 21 total. When it comes to memory bandwidth, this isn't a huge drop, but it is noticable when it comes to synthetic benchmarking.

The latency also suffers a reasonable amount, moreso than with CAS only being the variable. We drop 4ns from 2 to 3 and another 2ns from 3 to 4 for a total drop of 6ns. That's a reasonable amount when it comes to your ram timings. Much more pronounced than we saw with CAS changing.

With CAS from 2 to 3, we had a total drop of about 0.25%. With tRCD from 2 to 4 we see a ~0.72% decrease. More than twice the performance difference in comparison between the two settings when it comes to bandwidth.


Competitive Benchmarks

200x12 / 2-2-2-10 :
3DMark 2001 : 351.3 / 156.2
3DMark 2005 : 6312
Aquamark 3 : 77661


200x12 / 2-3-2-10 :
3DMark 2001 : 340 / 151.1
3DMark 2005 : 6316
Aquamark 3 : 76573

200x12 / 2-4-2-10 :
3DMark 2001 : 332.3 / 147.7
3DMark 2005 : 6305
Aquamark 3 : 75668

Looks like we have some more 'splainin to do.

3DMark 2001 showed almost the same decrease as before. With CAS only we had a decrease of almost 4%. Here, going from tRCD 2 to 4 dropped us 19 FPS (5.7%) in LL. In LH with CAS we saw a total 3.51% drop. With tRCD from 2 to 4 we see a drop of 8.5 FPS (5.75%). The differences between CAS and tRCD so far show us that tRCD effects performance close to twice as much overall in 3DMark 2001.

3DMark 2005 is almost not worth mentioning. This should probably be dropped from future benches, but I left it in just to show that Ram timings mean next to nothing in 2005. Going from CAS2 to 3 will drop maybe 2 points off your score, and going from tRCD 2 to 4 will drop you about the same.

Aquamark 3 also showed us more of a decrease than with CAS. While we were seeing a total of 1906 (2.52%) points, going from tRCD 2 to 4 drops us about 1993 (2.63%) points. While less drasatic than the CAS2 to 3 drops we saw previously, tRCD only increase your performance decrease (yeah, that makes sense :p ) by about 0.1%. Not entirely significant, but the drop is there.

Overall we can see that 3DMark 2001, as usually is very picky about ram and doesn't like the tRCD being upped as much as the CAS. With AQ3, we see that it doesn't really have a preference as to what is being changed. Upping CAS or tRCD will get you about the same decrease.


Real World Performance

200x12 / 2-2-2-10 :
VST Low : 198 FPS
Doom 3 Low : 144.2 FPS

VST High : 102.74 FPS
Doom 3 High : 61 FPS

200x12 / 2-3-2-10 :
VST Low : 195.84 FPS
Doom 3 Low : 142.8 FPS

VST High : 102.27 FPS
Doom 3 High : 61 FPS

200x12 / 2-4-2-10 :
VST Low : 188.37 FPS
Doom 3 Low : 140.1 FPS

VST High : 102.65 FPS
Doom 3 High : 61 FPS

Doom 3 Low really isn't worth mentioning. Once again, we about a 2 FPS difference between timing changes. Woopdee.

Doom 3 High is what you'd notice playing. And yes, you wouldn't notice a thing. Rock hard 61 FPS all throughout, it just doesn't budge.

VST Low was also worthless. There was a decrease of about 5 FPS total from tRCD 2 to 4. Not huge at all, considering no one would even play at these resolutions. It does show that the ram timings are affecting gameplay under these specific circumstances, so let's see how it will really affect things.

VST High shows us... a suprise!. With CAS2 to 3 we saw a 1 FPS decrease. With tRCD 2 to 4 we see nothing change at all. They're all within margin of error, so we get the exact same results with tRCD 2 to 4 throughout. Not something I was expecting, but I'm not particularly suprised either. CS: Source just doesn't care about tRCD at all.


Conclusions

I think we saw what we expected. There is a performance decrease with synthetic and competitive benchmarks when increasing RAS to CAS (tRCD). In the competitive benchmarks, it is very significant, and it also is in the synthetic benchmarks, especially in latency. But with real world, we see once again it makes essentially no difference. Remember, this is tRCD only!

For Competitive Benchers

What we see here is that you will see a bigger decrease when changing tRCD compared to CAS. Going from 2 to 3 on tRCD hits you for almost 1000 AQ3 marks and drops your LL by ~10 and LH by ~5. If you have a choice between 2.5-2-2 and 2-3-2, I think it's clear that you'll want 2.5-2-2. This actually suprises me, but when looking at FPS comparisons we see that upping tRCD one step hits you for about twice the performance that upping your CAS does. I personally find this suprising, as I would have naturally thought 2-3-2 would outperform 2.5-2-2, but as we see here, that isn't the case.


For Gamers

Well, here's where most of the populace is, even the hardcore OCers are usually primarily gamers going for the most out of their system and their budget. Once again in Doom 3 we see no performance drop when playing with tRCD, and we also see nothing change in the VST at all. In fact, tRCD affects CS: Source less than changing CAS does. And when I say 'affects', we're talking about 1-2 FPS, which is practically nothing. $50 for 2-2-2 over 2-3-2 clearly isn't worth it. Will it be worth it with 2-2-2 vs 2.5-3-2 or 2.5-3-3? We'll find out shortly ;)

Final Thoughts

Another timing down, another fable perhaps destroyed. When it comes to real gaming, tRCD matters just as little as CAS does. Keep in mind, these are singular variables, with only one timing being changed at a time. The entire story could change with CAS as well as tRCD changing, but that's something we'll have to wait to see.

The bottom line with RAS to CAS (tRCD) : In real world performance, going from tRCD2 to tRCD4 has no performance decrease.

[cuddles]

Saved for future results - Investigating RAS.

[cuddles]

Saved for future results - Mhz differences and what Mhz increase is required to make up for timing differences (i.e 220 2.5-3-3 = 200 2-2-2?)

[viccyran]

Nice post. :)

Now.. I know you worked hard enough, but we should probably compare mhz! :) Try to see the best buy for all those gamers out there

Good work :toast:

[cuddles]

I will be definately looking into if the results are different at higher Mhz. I will be updating the posts as I get more results, don't you worry :)

[Soulburner]

Nice testing, however my only gripe are the actual timings you used.

When people talk about memory timings they usually talk about the differences between 2-2, 3-3, and 4-4 timings. You tested by only changing the CL rating which has a very minimal impact on performance.

Can you test with different timings? (ex 2.5-3-3-7, 3-4-4-8, this is where you will see how much timings matter)

[cuddles]

Nice testing, however my only gripe are the actual timings you used.

When people talk about memory timings they usually talk about the differences between 2-2, 3-3, and 4-4 timings. You tested by only changing the CL rating which has a very minimal impact on performance.

Can you test with different timings? (ex 2.5-3-3-7, 3-4-4-8, this is where you will see how much timings matter)


You may be asking, 'Well what about the other timings? What effect does 2-2-2 vs. 2-3-2 have? What about 2-2-2 vs. 2-3-3 or 2-2-3?'. I'm asking myself the same question, and I do plan to go further into it to find out how other timings affect A64 systems, if at all. Specifically getting down to 2-2-2 vs 2-3-2 and 2-2-3, to really see if there's any effect at all in real world gaming or benchmarking. I also want to look into different Mhz settings and see if it really makes a difference when combined with different timings. I will update the thread as I do so.

All in time ;) This entire thing (as well as write up) took about 4 hours, I will get to specific tests very shortly and update the posts with the new information.

[Dojo | Warlord]

Mabye this thread deserves a sticky?


GJ :toast:

[Mtemel]

nice work man :D

For me its been impossible to find memory that will actually go above 258 fsb on 2.5,3,3,7, ive had 3 lots of mem and none go above 258

[reject]

f***n awesome that must have taken ages
:toast:
when i saw u did cas first i thought it would make no diff but 2k1 really likes low cas!
very good to know since its most peoples fav bench
and the games was what i expected, still good to know i dont lose performnce gaming at my 24/7 settings

[STEvil]

lol.. i'll bet it did.

Took me quite some time to do 1.5/2/2.5/3/2-2-0-/5/10/13 numbers for just sisoft and everest...

[MaxxxRacer]

i knew that 2001 was cpu dependent, but omg... now i know why i get garbage scores... cant wait for this rma on my winnie and my ocz ram. should be able to break 30k.

cuddles, that is a great article. I say sticky. But i would sticky it in the amd forums as this is an amd only post..

[reject]

the amd forum is chockers, the memory timings forum would be better

[Kunaak]

personally, I never found any ram that worked the same way, the ram I had before it did.

all ram seems to be very different.
while my kingston 3500 can do up to about 280 at cas 2-2-2-5, you will see I always run it at cas 2-2-2-7, or sometimes 6.
the tras on my Kingston never seems to do anything better at tras 5 or less, but at tras 7, my bandwidth seems to be at it's magic spot, just about 20 mbs or so higher then when using tras 5, and always gets me alittle more points, when used on A64's.

most people would tell me to go for cas 2-2-2-5 when benchmarking, but with this ram, and having 2 years of using this exact ram, I can tell you, the magic spot for my ram is tras 7.

however my geil ultra X, seems like great stuff, does about 260 at cas 2-2-2-5 with just a hair over 2.9 volts easy.
great little ram, but it doesn't seem like cas 2 much, and even gives me a nice half second boost in pifast, if I ran at 2.5-2-2-5.
even better if I ran 2.5-2-2-0.

tras is almost useless for my geil TCCD stuff, and cas latency seems to only hold it back from the higher scores in 3dmark and pifast, when past about 255, and it doesn't respond to voltages at all past about 3 volts.
very weird ram, but hard to complain when you have ram that will run cas 2.5-2-2-5 at 260 with only 2.9+ volts all day, without any issues.
it's not gonna replace my BH5 kingston for benchmarks, but it does have a spot in my hardware pile, waiting for some new hardware.

I think when it comes to ram, the best way to know where you ram the best, isn't with a guide, it's with a few hours of testing your own ram.
sounds like a pain, but once you know, you never have to guess what you ram can and cannot do again...

atleast, till you get a new motherboard ;)

[Wingless]

// edited by Jupiler for flaming.

[MrQ3W]

What is the highest level of education you've attained Wingless?
Hope you get what you so hope for..

[DoGMaN]

Very nice information cuddles, good work. Though I agree with SoulBurner. I think it would have been more helpful if you would have done these tests with different tRCD rather than CAS. I think you would find that it makes a little more difference on the A64 platform.

[Duka]

Very well done!!!
However as it has been said previously by Soulburner, its not alone CAS 2, 2,5 or 3 but also the other timings when the "gamers" are considering wheather they should buy cheap value ram or expensive ram.

For instance a comparison between 2.2.2.10 versus 2,5.3.3.7 and perhaps even worse timings.

Edit: Was a little to fast on the bit about grammer... :D

[Dunk]

He really likes that nana :stick:

Nice review but as others said it would have been more interesting to focus on different timings. Here's my best results for tweaked timings with my PQI 2x512MB DC kit at stock for my winchester 3500+ on my neo2 plat:

Column Address Strobe # (CAS) = 2.0
Row Cycle Time (Trc) = 7
Row Refresh Cycle Time (Trfc) = 9
RAS# to CAS# delay (Trcd) = 2
Row to Row delay (Trrd) = 2
Min RAS Active Time (Tras) = 10
Row Precharge Time (Trp) = 2
Write Recovery Time (Twr) = 2
Write to Read Delay (Twtr) = 1
Read to Write Delay (Trtw) = 1

spent a long time messing with A64 tweaker before I settled on those and did a lot of testing

[kryptobs2000]

I bet you will definatly see more of a performance difference if you did with soulburner suggested I agree as well. Also, I bet it'll make alot more difference when running at highermhz say 250mhz 2-2-2-5 vs 250mhz 3-2-2-5 since it will have more bandwidth of course. Can't wait till you finish ur testing I've done a few benchmarks but nothing extensive.

To wingless, high fsb does make a pretty noticable difference, I don't see how you can conclude anything related to fsb based on these tests. If you don't like it here your more than welcome to leave.

Great job cuddles :)

[HermS]

Wow thanks wingless you've changed my whole perception of overclocking... you're a genius :rolleyes:

Interesting experiment man, well done!

[mcnbns]

Yes. Ban wingless if only for his risking inducing epileptic seizures to all who read this wonderful thread.

Awesome info, cuddles, and thanks for your hard work. :toast:

[macci]

Good idea to show the realworld difference but like already mentioned the timings that actually matter are Trcd and Trp (w/ A64 there is great number of other timings too). CAS lantency hasn't been important in a while.

While doing the mem latency comparisons it might be a good idea to show how much CPU clock speed makes a difference in gaming performance. Example: is it better to have 2200MHz w/ 3-4-4-8 timings or 2000MHz w/ 2-2-2-5 timings.

[texuspete00]

Yeah, most of us knew cas didnt make a difference. EB was the flavor for awhile based on this fact. Didnt catch on as much as TCCD only to price I believe. I know you said were going to, thanks for that. I just trust that many people on the forum knew this part. On to the real deal!

Thanks for the effort though, but we'd like to see the other timings... I mean you always have the holier ras to cas at 2. Also 1T vrs. 2T in real life benchmarks. There are some arguments there. Im sure 1t vrs. 2T is a big deal but Sandra would have you believe.... well lets just say dual vrs. single channel isnt mega-gigantic in most apps for A64's so how does even this 800MB/s to 1GB/s end up changing the Doom 3 experience.

[reject]

he said hed do them in time.
to finish the whole thing i bet would take a day or two
:toast: cuddles :toast:

[[ r2 ]]

Nice comparison, as some of the users pointed out it will better to compare RAS to CAS and RAS Precharge as those timings play the role for A64s.

x-2-2-x/x-3-2-x/x-3-3-x/x-4-4-x

You will see a huge difference at x-2-2-x and x-4-4-x.
A 200Mhz o/c on the cpu will not match the above at x-2-2-x for A64.

[Holst]

This is with dual channel memory.

Can anybody be bothered to test single channel 754?

[trans am]

Ras to cas is the most important factor when it comes to timings on A64. lets do another test. how about VX 2-2-2-10 1T 260mhz vs. TCCD 2.5-3-3-10 1T 300mhz

[thephenom]

']Nice comparison, as some of the users pointed out it will better to compare RAS to CAS and RAS Precharge as those timings play the role for A64s.

x-2-2-x/x-3-2-x/x-3-3-x/x-4-4-x

You will see a huge difference at x-2-2-x and x-4-4-x.
A 200Mhz o/c on the cpu will not match the above at x-2-2-x for A64.
Agreed

And thanks for taking the time to do the review. CL generally matters more on a P4 side if you're running 1:1, the other timings affect A64 the most.

[kryptobs2000]

Testing 2 different types of memory is not a truly fair comparison, even at the same speed with the same timings memorys still will be a little faster or slower in many cases.

[cuddles]

Thanks for all the comments. Expect 2-3-2 vs 2-2-3 vs 2-3-3 / 2-4-4 in the next few days. Depending on the results, I might also try 2.5-3-3 as well and will also be looking into how all the differences scale with different Mhz ratings as well as CPU speed.

[kryptobs2000]

I ran a few tests. Just the HL2 stress test, everything on the highest details except no AA, or AF @ 1280x960, and 3dmark 01. These results are pretty accurate everything was consistant. They were at 2t because I cannot run 1t stable with only 2.8v and my motherboard does not like my bh5 for some reason either so sorry I couldn't test that. But it's with my sig rig. Also I can't boot at cas 3 because bh5 dosn't like that I've heard and I've never beenable to do it anyways.

HL2 Stress test:

2.5-4-4-7............... 121.5
2-2-2-5................. 128.9

3dmark01:

2.5-4-4-7.............. 18987
2-2-2-5................ 19857

Sorry it is not as comprehensive and thorough as cuddles but it should be pretty accurate results. I'm surprised there was almost a 1000 point gain in 3dmark01 I think this shows very much that timings matter a significant amount. I am going to rerun the test for HL2 at 2-2-2-5 because it jerked a few times for some reason, so I'll rerun that and post my results.

edit: I reran HL2 Stress test 3 times on each setting to make sure they were accurate. I took the highest and the lowest run and here they are.

2.5-4-4-7

highest 122.4
lowest 121.5

2-2-2-5

highest 131.9
lowest 129.3

So there's about an 8-10 fps diff with tighter timings. That dosn't really seem like alot since they are high numbers to begin with but I think that's pretty significant. And keep in mind I was at 1280x960 once you lower the settings and the resolution the gap will most likely increase.

[cuddles]

I've updated it with what I'll be investigating hopefully over the next few days (try to squeeze it in without upsetting the girlfriend). RAS to CAS, as well as RAS which will include a look at RAS to CAS and RAS at higher settings. I'll also look into compensating timings with FSB to try to find where the line draws, and whether or not timing changes becoming greater at higher FSB settings.

One problem I will face is that my ram is unable to do 2-2-2 at anything above 215 or so, so most of my tests involving FSB speeds will unforunately have to be done comparing CAS2.5 to CAS3 only, without the CAS2 ability. Expect it to be completely finished within a week (hopefully).

[Holst]

If I have time I can run some benches on my 754 setup using BH5 that will do uber tight timings. @250.

I think the difference between tight and loose may be more significant on single channel 754 systems.

[cuddles]

If you can get some solid and comprehensive results under the S754 platform I'll put it in the main post with specific S754 results. I'll shoot you a PM later today.

[kryptobs2000]

Car Low can vary so much it will skew the results horribly. (can be as much as 40fps)

I tested to see if you were right and it wasn't too off but oddly I got less fps each time I ran it :confused:

260
252
252
252
250.9

86
86
85.4
84.7
84.4

[Holst]

The first run would have had the barrel go a different place, run it over a few times more and it will go back up again.

2001 is not consistent between runs, my score changes by 200 odd points between car low runs

[cuddles]

I did consider showing the FPS for each individual test, but thought of it too late. Perhaps I will update it later, or as you suggested only use LH / LL. This isn't really meant for benchmarkers, because we all already know the answers, in general, and all already know that 2-2-2 is king. What I'm mostly looking into is real world applications as to how timings will affect your gaming, if at all. The CAS investigation has been done, and RAS to CAS is next. It will be in the same format, only changing a different clock time. I will update the main thread with all timing listings from A64, even though it's all at defaults and make sure it uses all the same settings for the benchmarks already done.

[Jupiler]

Cleaned up wingless' post.

Good work, cuddles.


@wingless : check PM.

[NoGodForme]

This thread actually deserves to be made into an article and published.
Review sites are probably scared to do it, because they don't want to make anyone mad.

I have Corsair PC3200XLPro which has been advertised at 2225 timings. The problem I have, is that most people CAN'T RUN 2225 TIMINGS TO BEGIN WITH. In my case, I have to run at 2336, or I get errors in Memtest and Prime95. When I built my machine, it defaulted to 2225, and it crashed until I figured out what was going on.

If you notice on the CorsairMicro site, they don't brag about 2225 memory on the main page. It's been replaced with flash memory and upgrades. I wonder why?

And I've also run benchmarks at 2225 vs 2336, and there is no differance.

[kryptobs2000]

lol, rma it. What kind of chips does it use?

[MrQ3W]

Sounds to me like a case of too much optimistic thinking on Corsairs side. :D

[esdee]

Nice test!!! it deservers a sticky!

Since you are hot from all those test, how about a sPI compare?

[cuddles]

SuperPi 1M using 100th of a second timing will be updated with the previous results, replacing CPU Arithmetic from the list. It will also be used and included in all further benchmarks.

Thank you all for the comments. I did some initial testing and it looks like the flute will play a different tune when it comes to RAS to CAS ;) Many updates coming in the next week.

[Crankster]

cuddles, VERY nice work indeed. I really like that you dealt with the CAS "issue". Everyone seems to be thinking it's of no relevance wich you in my opinion proved it is. When presenting facts in an empirical manner it's always good to question the gospel. In fact i might chime in and do some testing, will be spending a lot of time off-line for a while. I'll put up (provided someone cares of course) some SPI 32M results with variying timings and FSB.

Anyways, i'm looking forward to your next installment.


@mods: Sticky this you must.

[iddqd]

I'm not even going to bother arguing with the op :shakes: ...

[Jupiler]

Already to many stickies in this section.
This section might get a sub-section, like the AMD one, where all the "stickies" are gathered.
Until that happens, you'll need to have some patience.

[fareastgq]

I like to see this test done for timings:

2 2 2 10
2 3 2 10
2 2 3 10
2 3 3 10
2 3 4 10
2 4 4 10.....

2.5 2 2 10
2.5 3 2 10
2.5 2 3 10
2.5 3 3 10.....

and so on, you get the picture.. up to 3 4 4 10 :) that combined with those 3d runs should give us a very clear bench and real world pic. Each timing would have to be run multiple times of course and averaged, may be ran at 200 mhz, 220mhz, 240mhz, 260mhz, 280mhz, 300? and on in 20 mhz increments? same multi, just diff cpu spds? somone with the capability to go all the way up to 300mhz on their ram, hehe. also clarify whether it's 2x256 or 2x512 or whatever... there was a thread a long time ago where someone had done this, but I don't believe I've seen it done for a64 754/393 yet. props to you btw cuddles.

[blinky]

yah cas doesnt do much, for 3dmark2001 you need to run it at least 3 times and average the results since the room for error between tests ran at the same settings is so large

[cuddles]

I don't think we need that in depth results, personally. Once you know that going from 2-2-2 to 2.5-3-2 affects performance X amount and going from 2.5-2-2 to 2.5-3-2 affects performance X amount, you can generally know that you've found out how much RAS to CAS will affect performance. I will look into it to see if it affects performance using 4 as well, but if it skews as much as I think it should (if it's the same percentage difference as 2 to 3, then there's no point in extensively benching 3 to 4, since we already know how much it affects it). The point is to really find out how much the timings affect things. I don't see a need to go that in depth with it in order to find those answers. I am however going for RAS to CAS benches tomorrow at some point and hopefully I can get them all done. There will be 6 different sets of timings for investigating RAS to CAS only. Once I find out how CAS, RAS to CAS and RAS affect performance, I will be investigating FSB / Mhz settings and overall clock speeds as well.

Say going from 200 Mhz to 220 Mhz gives you X result, and going from 220 Mhz to 240 Mhz gives you X result as well. At that point we can generally assume going from 240 Mhz to 260 Mhz will give you the same increase, and therefore there isn't really a specific need (in my opinion) for further investigation into it, because we already know what affects we'll see.

With this investigation, I'm after the 'how' of timings, not simply benching and recording the results. Because if you know how certain timings affect things, you can apply that knowledge to any FSB / Mhz setting, rather than consulting a chart for reference.

And thank you all for the encouragement, I'm looking forward to finishing this entire thing and putting a rest to many questions newer people have regarding timings on A64. :thumbsup:

EDIT : You do realize that getting an average for 3 3DMark 2001 runs would take approximately 20 minutes. Multiply that by 6 sets of timings and you have 2 hours of 3DMark 2001 tests alone. I also have to go through all the other benches, which would turn 4 hours of work into 8+. I plan on streamlining the 3DMark 2001 results to LH and LL specifically (to show the differences), if anyone has any other suggestions, I'm open to them. And as I said before, SuperPi 1M will be included with new results to the 100th of a second over an average of 3 runs, and updated for previous results.

[reject]

I ran a few tests. Just the HL2 stress test, everything on the highest details except no AA, or AF @ 1280x960, and 3dmark 01. These results are pretty accurate everything was consistant. They were at 2t because I cannot run 1t stable with only 2.8v and my motherboard does not like my bh5 for some reason either so sorry I couldn't test that. But it's with my sig rig. Also I can't boot at cas 3 because bh5 dosn't like that I've heard and I've never beenable to do it anyways.

HL2 Stress test:

2.5-4-4-7............... 121.5
2-2-2-5................. 128.9

3dmark01:

2.5-4-4-7.............. 18987
2-2-2-5................ 19857

Sorry it is not as comprehensive and thorough as cuddles but it should be pretty accurate results. I'm surprised there was almost a 1000 point gain in 3dmark01 I think this shows very much that timings matter a significant amount. I am going to rerun the test for HL2 at 2-2-2-5 because it jerked a few times for some reason, so I'll rerun that and post my results.

edit: I reran HL2 Stress test 3 times on each setting to make sure they were accurate. I took the highest and the lowest run and here they are.

2.5-4-4-7

highest 122.4
lowest 121.5

2-2-2-5

highest 131.9
lowest 129.3

So there's about an 8-10 fps diff with tighter timings. That dosn't really seem like alot since they are high numbers to begin with but I think that's pretty significant. And keep in mind I was at 1280x960 once you lower the settings and the resolution the gap will most likely increase.

thanks kryptobs2000! :toast:
and the Car Low bug is very annoying i have been up at 11 pm saying just one more car low and then going on till 2.30am
i have found that not every app even cares for fsb but all like tight timings, so i make a small sacrifice on those that like fsb and run tighter timings
im gonna do some testing on dividers, tightening timings as i drop dividers. should be interesting casue at 3-4-4 this ram scales up to 280-290 1T but cant run rcd or rp 2 at any speed above 200

[STEvil]

Holst, here are your 754 numbers..

Sisoft/everest only though, and only testing cas and tras with 2x512 OCZ VX.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=609370#post609370


Did those a while back..

[macci]

TCCD wins.

300MHz 2.5-3-3-7 TCCD wins vs 274MHz 2-2-2-5 BH-5 by a couple of fps in system dependant 3D Mark 2001SE tests @ same CPU speed.
I highly doubt that this is the case when both are ran with fastest A64tweaker settings. Looks like every single "page #1" score in the ORB is done w/ BH5 (and that includes Onepagebook's result ;)).

[fareastgq]

I don't think we need that in depth results, personally. Once you know that going from 2-2-2 to 2.5-3-2 affects performance X amount and going from 2.5-2-2 to 2.5-3-2 affects performance X amount, you can generally know that you've found out how much RAS to CAS will affect performance. I will look into it to see if it affects performance using 4 as well, but if it skews as much as I think it should (if it's the same percentage difference as 2 to 3, then there's no point in extensively benching 3 to 4, since we already know how much it affects it). The point is to really find out how much the timings affect things. I don't see a need to go that in depth with it in order to find those answers. I am however going for RAS to CAS benches tomorrow at some point and hopefully I can get them all done. There will be 6 different sets of timings for investigating RAS to CAS only. Once I find out how CAS, RAS to CAS and RAS affect performance, I will be investigating FSB / Mhz settings and overall clock speeds as well.

Say going from 200 Mhz to 220 Mhz gives you X result, and going from 220 Mhz to 240 Mhz gives you X result as well. At that point we can generally assume going from 240 Mhz to 260 Mhz will give you the same increase, and therefore there isn't really a specific need (in my opinion) for further investigation into it, because we already know what affects we'll see.

With this investigation, I'm after the 'how' of timings, not simply benching and recording the results. Because if you know how certain timings affect things, you can apply that knowledge to any FSB / Mhz setting, rather than consulting a chart for reference.

And thank you all for the encouragement, I'm looking forward to finishing this entire thing and putting a rest to many questions newer people have regarding timings on A64. :thumbsup:

EDIT : You do realize that getting an average for 3 3DMark 2001 runs would take approximately 20 minutes. Multiply that by 6 sets of timings and you have 2 hours of 3DMark 2001 tests alone. I also have to go through all the other benches, which would turn 4 hours of work into 8+. I plan on streamlining the 3DMark 2001 results to LH and LL specifically (to show the differences), if anyone has any other suggestions, I'm open to them. And as I said before, SuperPi 1M will be included with new results to the 100th of a second over an average of 3 runs, and updated for previous results.

I know it takes alot of time to run a test that in depth, but it'd still be nice to see, real data would be better than general guessing... oh well, there's only so much time and we've gotta do other things too like :toast: right? hehe.

[cuddles]

I may not be able to get stuff done tonight, due to Christmas and such, I have more to do tonight and tomorrow than I thought. And yes, while I agree it would be nice, as of now I just don't have the time to spend 2 hours watching 3DMark 2001 and re running tests. Maybe at some point, but as of now I can't.

Once we know how changing timings affect things, I think that we'll have a lot more knowledge overall when it comes to asking the question 'Is x-x-x @ xxx Mhz better than y-y-y @ y-y-y Mhz?'.

[bachus_anonym]

TCCD wins.

300MHz 2.5-3-3-7 TCCD wins vs 274MHz 2-2-2-5 BH-5 by a couple of fps in system dependant 3D Mark 2001SE tests @ same CPU speed.


I highly doubt that this is the case when both are ran with fastest A64tweaker settings. Looks like every single "page #1" score in the ORB is done w/ BH5 (and that includes Onepagebook's result ;)).

also, it's not quite possible to have same CPU speed at 300HTT vs 274HTT. that difference in CPU clocks will also affect benchmark's results.

[Zeus]

I highly doubt that this is the case when both are ran with fastest A64tweaker settings. Looks like every single "page #1" score in the ORB is done w/ BH5 (and that includes Onepagebook's result ;)).

Not 100% convinced on that one macci.
Didn't OnepageBook do a compare Lobby test with 11x273Mhz 2-2-2-5 vs.10x300MHz 2,5-3-3-7?
Results were about the same, if not slightly TCCD favoured.
I think none of the ORB's #1 page benchers bothered with TCCD RAM and took 2-2-2-x settings to be superior over 2,5-3-3-x for granted, hence the BH-5 (VX?) results one the first page of the ORB.

I have one 512mb stick of TCCD that is 3d proof at 315MHz 2,5-3-3-7 at 3V, i'm pretty sure that can do some damage in 3d mark 2K1.

I could be wrong but i think 2x512mb of 300+MHz TCCD at 2,5-3-3-x shouldn't be overlooked.
I'd love to be proven wrong on that, feel free to do so. ;)

[gclg2000]

This is a good and well deserving thread. I think you should put it all into excel charts and bar graphs. I guess like tomshardware does or something. It makes it easy to get to the nitty and gritty meat of the tests.

This is of course an old old arguement. Many of the TCCD's chips on A64's @ 300 MHZ or so are womping on 250 @2-2-2-5.....there's an equilibrium point and thats' what is required to find.

We all wish and pray for the day that 300MHz in dual channel @ 2-2-2-5 comes...(if ever)

[cuddles]

December 28, 2004 : Added RAS to CAS Investigation. Updated CAS results with LL / LH scores and removed CPU Arithmetic. SuperPi to be added shortly, was unable to find a Process Timing program to measure SuperPi calculation time within 100th's of a second. Updated first post with benchmark methods and details, as well as an A64 Tweaker screenshot.



To answer some questions, I will be using bar graphs closer to the end of everything in order to summarize. As of now I'm concentrating on single timings in order to see their solitary effect on performance. The summary once done will be reasonably large and have bar graphs and all sorts of nice comparisons with FSB / Ram timings ;)

[STEvil]

Doing an awesome job there cuddles, keep up the good work ;)

Do you have UT2K4 or Quake 3?

May be handy to give those two a quick try for a couple benches and see if they react the same as Doom3 and VST are.

[cuddles]

I do have UT2004 installed, Q3A hasn't been installed for ages. I'll try UT2004 at some point, make a 16 bot ONS demo and do a few quick tests to see how it reacts. D3 is more graphical than anything, we all know, and the Source engine is heavy on CPU / Ram it seems, so I used them. They're also the newest type games out, but I will try UT2004 and see how it handles it. If it isn't significant, I'll just mention that it had no effect, if it is significant, I'll go into detailed benching with it :toast:

[cuddles]

If anyone could link me to that Process Timer program I've seen when people are running SuperPi to get 100th's of a second times, I'd like to add the results of SuperPi 1M to the previous tests.

[IvanAndreevich]

Good work. I think you should test 10-3-3-3 -> That's what crappy RAM like mine runs.

[dutchman.pt]

Very good work. :toast:
It deserves sticky. :)

[cuddles]

Good work. I think you should test 10-3-3-3 -> That's what crappy RAM like mine runs.

3-3-3 comes along with the RAS Investigation, it will also include combined timings. The question I'll be trying to answer with that final Investigation of timings (next Investigation is using FSB) is :

Say upping tRCD drops you 5%, and upping CAS drops you 2%. Does upping both drop you 7%?

Once this is all done there will be charts with the timings listed to see what performs the best, and the worst. The one suprising thing I've found so far is that 2.5-2-2 > 2-3-2. That really came as a suprise to me :)

[cuddles]

Why wouldn't it be faster? :confused:

tRCD is the timing above all others.

CAS does squat.

Yes, that's clear now. I, like I'm sure many others, previously thought that CAS would have more effect than tRCD, which isn't the case. If I'm telling you things you already know (which I will be for a lot of people) and you have nothing constructive to add, please don't reply. This isn't as clear a lot of people as the colour of the sky is. If you already know what I've said, don't read it, and even better, don't respond.

[Wired-HoH]

I have Corsair PC3200XLPro which has been advertised at 2225 timings. The problem I have, is that most people CAN'T RUN 2225 TIMINGS TO BEGIN WITH. In my case, I have to run at 2336, or I get errors in Memtest and Prime95. When I built my machine, it defaulted to 2225, and it crashed until I figured out what was going on.

Go to Corsair's Forum (www.asktheramguy.com) and apply for an RMA, and don't forget to list all of your specs and settings and how you've troubleshooted so far, or just call up their tech support.



If you notice on the CorsairMicro site, they don't brag about 2225 memory on the main page. It's been replaced with flash memory and upgrades. I wonder why?

Ummm... probably because the XL isn't the newest thing they've done? They came out last May after all. The CMS stuff and that Flash stuff is their newest baby. Come on man, why do you think middle kids are always complaining about a lack of attention? :)



And I've also run benchmarks at 2225 vs 2336, and there is no differance.

How'd u run benchmarks if you were crashing out at it, or did I read that wrong?

[STEvil]

Here you go cuddles, found process timer for you.. took me a while to dig it up.. ;)

http://xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=492715&postcount=777

[cuddles]

Ahh, thank you. I searched Google for about 20 minutes before I gave up the search. Will update with SuperPi results on Friday morning (4AM or so EST) and hopefully also the quick RAS investigation, as I don't expect to see much of a performance difference.

[macci]

Didn't OnepageBook do a compare Lobby test with 11x273Mhz 2-2-2-5 vs.10x300MHz 2,5-3-3-7?
Results were about the same, if not slightly TCCD favoured.
Yes he did but he forgot to 'tune' the BH5 to max settings w/ A64 tweaker (those tweaks dont lower the max OC clockspeed at all).
'untuned' Bh5 at 273 is like 'maxtuned' bh5 at 253 => check this thread (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=48161) for more info :)
If TCCD would actually be faster you'd see it on top of the ORB ;)

[macci]

It was clearly visible in his screenshot.

[jmke]

This thread actually deserves to be made into an article and published.
Review sites are probably scared to do it, because they don't want to make anyone mad.


why would they be scared?




I have Corsair PC3200XLPro which has been advertised at 2225 timings. The problem I have, is that most people CAN'T RUN 2225 TIMINGS TO BEGIN WITH.


faulty ram, RMA it.

[reject]

cool, cant wait till its done
i wanna know whether to ditch this 3-4-4 or use the money to upgrade something else

[beau_zo_brehm]

BUMP

let's see some more test cuddles :)

[madgamer]

Any news on this? frequency vs. latency etc? I look forward to another update.

[kryptobs2000]

I'll do some test if you guys want just let me know what you want tested. I can get the memory in my sig anywhere up to 265 1.5-2-2, can't post at cas 3 tho, since it's bh5.

[FallenAngel]

It's a nice thing you're doing 'kryptobs'

What I would like to know is if there is a performance hit for just playing if you got tight timings and low frequency or in the other hand have loose timings and high frequency, I got a P4 and tight timings doesn't do nothing at all but high frequency yes, I'm switching to a AMD rig so before buying this or that mem I would like to know what's best for playing, do I bought VX for tight timings or GSKill or other for higher bandwidth or frequency, bear with my english please...

[Rabbi_NZ]

Very nice write up cuddles

[kryptobs2000]

It's a nice thing you're doing 'kryptobs'

What I would like to know is if there is a performance hit for just playing if you got tight timings and low frequency or in the other hand have loose timings and high frequency, I got a P4 and tight timings doesn't do nothing at all but high frequency yes, I'm switching to a AMD rig so before buying this or that mem I would like to know what's best for playing, do I bought VX for tight timings or GSKill or other for higher bandwidth or frequency, bear with my english please...

By playing, you mean games? Just lemme know what you'd like me to bench.

[FallenAngel]

By playing, you mean games? Just lemme know what you'd like me to bench.
Thanks, I already know what i want, don't need to bother you, thanks very much for your offer

EDIT: by the time I posted this, I had a pm from a friend who explained me alot, and advised me to pick a mem for high bandwidth

[dexx]

Ras to cas is the most important factor when it comes to timings on A64. lets do another test. how about VX 2-2-2-10 1T 260mhz vs. TCCD 2.5-3-3-10 1T 300mhz
Just a quick test using 3dmark2001. Running the memory of my 3000+ s939 at 240MHz 3-4-4-8 gave a score of 26618. Running 240MHz 2.5-3-3-6 gave 28812. Equates to an 8% improvement.

[wfarid]

wow great job cuddles. It's been mentioned before but I really like how you have organized everything (paying attention to gamers, benchers etc), can't wait to see more tests results!

[saaya]

beautifull! :D :toast:

as soon as the real front page is back this is going to be posted there as an article :)
(if you dont mind)

[DeMagH]

first of all:
i LOVE ur work/idea, nothing to add really .. u covered it all .. waiting for the other results

second:
just a thought .. those results were taken with a flashed to PE card, means .. a powerful card, would there be a greater gap if u changed to something with lower graphics performance, like 6600GT, 9800 pro ... etc.?! take that in consideration please.

[fareastgq]

that's some great info.. props to u again.

[isp]

Looks like this little gem was hidden for a couple months, nice info though. Thanks.

[WiCKeD]

First, I just wanted to say there are too many stickies in this forum! It's getting crazy. That said, this should be one of them. :cool:

Great test cuddles. Very amusing to see the differences in real world gaming - I never would have guessed! Just checking their is no fps cap on D3, right?

For everyone implying the results are bogus, because cuddles ran the results separately... well it's plain to see that if the timings do not do much individually, things aren't going to be much better as a whole.

Here, I did a few tests awhile back on an XP platform, mainly using 3DMark01. It should give everyone an idea of the largest impact timings are going to have on performance, since '01 seems to be the most affected. There is definitely nothing to get too excited about: http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=104709&highlight=bandwidth+timings

So figure best case scenario, you get a 3.5% performance increase in 3DMark01 between the worst and the best timings (and this is on an XP where timings are a little more important)... Turn that into MHz and that's less than about a 90MHz difference in performance (2500 *.05). In actual games, it looks like it is way less than half of that!

Now that is not including an increase in fsb, which would contribute a handful of percentage points more, but you get the idea. Bottom line, if you're deciding between spending $300 on any component in your system and you intend to game, spend that extra $200 or so on the video card over some shiny, overpriced RAM.

Me, I have money to burn, so I can afford to be a hypocrite! :D

[demonR6]

WiCKeD.. are you using the single channel turbo memory from PQI? I am using this currently in my set up and when I drop it to 166 I can play with the timings and OC the FSB on the CPU to 255x10 LDT 3.. when I try to take the mem back to 200 1:1, any higher FSB than 230x10 takes a dump. Same thing with the LDT, if I lower it and try raising the FSB it locks up from the get go.

Last week was a lot of frustrating time and error. It seems like I have an old revision of the 3000+ Clawhammer that is castrated. I am able to crank up the voltage on it high as heck without it even blinking though. I am not well versed in memory yet so I am having a hard time trying to learn how to best tweak it. I did have the box running at 250x10 LDT3 vcore 1.75 vdimm 2.8 with the memory at 166 5:6 2.5-3-3-7 and it runs through SuperPi @ 32m without problems in about a half hour or so. I am able to run games without problems either. Running the memory at 166 though is a crutch since I have to run it slower than 1:1??

It sucks because as soon as I try running the mem at 1:1 my FSB takes the hit and 230 is more or less my peak.

[M.Beier]

I wonder why some of you test in 2-2-2-"10"

Am I totally wrong or....
A64 gains best performance by using 2-2-2-"5"..

I get best results at 2,5-2-3-5 compared combined with max-clock on my ballistix PC4k :\

Best regards
12k

[isp]

I've always thought that a tRAS of 11 yielded best performance on socket 754. I think 6 is the lucky number for 939.

[STEvil]

11 is fastest on nF2. 5 gives fastest latency results on nF2
5, 10, and 0 have proven to be fast on S754 and 939.
2 is an oddball, its doing the best on 939 so far, but nobody has tested on 754 yet that I know of.

1_2_Know: Try 2.5-4-2-x (cas/trcd/trp/tras) on the Ballistix.

[dexx]

11 is fastest on nF2. 5 gives fastest latency results on nF2
5, 10, and 0 have proven to be fast on S754 and 939.
2 is an oddball, its doing the best on 939 so far, but nobody has tested on 754 yet that I know of.

1_2_Know: Try 2.5-4-2-x (cas/trcd/trp/tras) on the Ballistix.
Has anyone with Ballistix/UTT/BH5 tried 2.5-2-2-10 on an NF4 system?

[XanderF]

Did a thread like this with tRAS and Mhz ever get created at any point?

Those posts are still blank...

[G4h4o8s6T]

Yeah Im sure this might have been mentioned somewhere in this thread, and is probably common sense to most of you...........but I still dont know whether its better to run 200mhz 2-3-2-5 with a divider or 1:1 280mhz 3-3-3-8??? All I do really is game, and Ill be running my opty at 2.8ghz 24/7.

[uOpt]

Yeah Im sure this might have been mentioned somewhere in this thread, and is probably common sense to most of you...........but I still dont know whether its better to run 200mhz 2-3-2-5 with a divider or 1:1 280mhz 3-3-3-8??? All I do really is game, and Ill be running my opty at 2.8ghz 24/7.

My results here:
http://cracauer-forum.cons.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27

The last entry has a high-clocked Opteron. With that, BH-5 @ 250 MHz 2-2-2-5 beats TCCD @ 322 MHz 3-4-4-8.

[WeStSiDePLaYa]

still updating this cuddles? nice to see a fellow from ontario making real sweet guide.

[slavearm]

Maybe this is a good place to post since people are actually using facts...

I have two options to run my memory, and this is the best I can manage with my 2GBHZ

255Mhz 3-4-4-6 1T
or
280Mhz 3-4-4-8 2T

Thanks in advance.

[uOpt]

Maybe this is a good place to post since people are actually using facts...

I have two options to run my memory, and this is the best I can manage with my 2GBHZ

255Mhz 3-4-4-6 1T
or
280Mhz 3-4-4-8 2T

Thanks in advance.

The 1T option is obviously faster.

[v3n]

The 1T option is obviously faster.

it would be close but I agree

[uOpt]

Yeah, I highly doubt you would be able to feel a difference at all.