Anything over 1600MHz is Overkill

[BackDraft]

I have heard that most systems do not even utilize the full potential of their ram speeds and anything over 1600MHz is overkill.
Weird that they are selling 2400MHZ now.
So if there more of a performance boost with these higher ram speeds or is it all in the latencies?

[slugbug]

I remember reading on the EVGA forums that folding@home is faster with 2133mhz ram compared to 1600mhz. Don't remember how much though.

[rrplay]

So if there more of a performance boost with these higher ram speeds or is it all in the latencies?

Interesting these sticks from G.Skill with insane speeds have been getting a lot of attention lately

G.Skill -Largest & Fastest DDR3 Memory at Computex 2012 !

Maybe it is all about the latencies and the headroom on high quality memory like these
Mushkin Redline PC3-12800 (994057) 16GB Quad Pack Memory Kit Review or these ?
Mushkin Blackline PC3-17000 (994015) 16GB Quad Pack Memory Kit Review

Still think that it might be very interesting if HTL got a review of the G.Skill TridentX to review

[ana3mic]

It all depends on the chipset and IMCs, some systems gain more from faster speed and latency rams and others don't. I'm not well informed on the AMD side but all the 1156 and especially 1155 Intels don't gain enough from RAM faster then 1600 9-9-9-24 to justify the price difference, maybe 1800 Mhz chips are OK if you find a good deal. That is for general use and gaming, benchmarking is another story and this is probably the only place those kits costing close to a whole PC really shine. But I guess whoever is into benching should know that already .

[bob2701]

I'm going to have to read this thread all over. I was distracted by Peter's post.

[rrplay]

I'm going to have to read this thread all over. I was distracted by Peter's post.

Sorry about that Bob now we can talk about something that's also important !

"Who would you choose to be G.SKILL's booth babe again for Computex 2013?

(left to right) Yvonne, Lily and Patty

[Skataneric]

There doesn't appear to be any noticable real world performance increases when going over 1600MHz, especially when it comes to gaming. Even though the bandwidth does increase, and synthetic benchmarks look prettier, real world applications capitalize more on processing speed rather then RAM speed.

I think with the larger and faster CPU cache that we are seeing and more advanced memory controllers, the MHz speed of RAM is really not as big of a factor anymore. This is why timing changes seem to have the bigger effect because those effect the the speed that the RAM can process the information, as well as communicate with the cache and CPU. Latencies aren't equal to throughput.

If you look at Sandra Cache and Memory benchmarks on Intel systems, Intel seems to have their memory controller as advanced as it can be for current memory speeds. When you start increasing the speeds and looseing timings, the cache and memory speed factor numbers start going up (bad) instead of down.

AMD has been known to have a more shotty memory controller and is more stingy with their cache. In the same benchmarks, increasing the memory and loosening the timings does show an overall improvement. However, I don't think their systems are operating at full potential so any speed increases are a bonus. It was only this last Bulldozer launch that you actually saw nice memory speeds. Although, still nowhere near Intel.

Think of it in network terms. You can have all the bandwidth(increased MHz speed) in the world, but if your ping(timings) are crap, your connection isn't going to go any faster.

I could be way off, but thats my 2 cents.

[Manduh]

That's very interesting Skataneric. And it's good to know for those looking to buy RAM and maybe help them to save a little money.

So it basically depends heavily on what CPU one is using? And even then it might be a very small improvement?

[crowTrobot]

2800MHz CL11 actually sounds good. Don't exactly know how much better it performs but that is definitely a lot better than 2000MHz CL11.

1866 Mhz CL7 is a beast though, noticeable increase from 1600 CL9 and 2000Mhz CL10

But then again I don't even run my systems overclocked (unless I'm benchmarking) so I don't really care either way. lol

[BackDraft]

Great response Eric.
I was kind of hoping a member would chime in and say it though.
This was again a catalyst thread to get some response.

Absolutly right,
Memory controllers on the Intel chips are working like a finely tuned bigblock 402.
Speed is no longer the answer it's latencies, when you are running 1600 @ 7-7-7-20 or 24 you will actually get better perf out of your system than if you ran 1866 @ 9-9-9-27.
It's all in the memory controller now a days.
The pipeline bottleneck is no longer a factor so you don't need the speed to push through it. It's all in the latency. Tighter timings better perf.

Check out the last two memory reviews we have and see for yourself.