Overclocking
My first foray into overclocking PC3 memory, how would it fair
I pondered as I started the process. Then I remembered, Patriot
has already done this for me. The memory modules arrived stating
their OC ability, 8-8-8-24 / 1.9V / 1866MHz, simply enough, right?
Well, not as simple as one would think, you have to be able to
get the mainboard and cpu to climb that hill with you, unfortunately
mine capped at 3.2GHz (1,500MHz memory speed):
The Patriot PC3-15000 Extreme Performance memory modules had
no issues and not one hiccup running at 1,500MHz speeds.
Testing
I will be testing these modules on an Intel based system, for
comparison, I will be sampling the previously tested Super Talent
2GB kit (2x1GB PC2-6400) at stock speeds and at overclocked rate
(maximum attainable by Patriot). Without further ado, here is
the test bed:
DDR3 Test bed:
Asus P5K3 Deluxe
MSI NX8600GT Twin Turbo
WD 250GB 7200RPM SATA-II
Intel 640 (P4 3.2 EM64T LGA-775)
Cooler Master RP-500 PSU
Patriot PC3-15000 (1.9V) (8-8-8-24)
Comparison Test bed:
Asus P5WDH Deluxe
MSI NX8600GT Twin Turbo
WD 250GB 7200RPM SATA-II
Intel 640 (P4 3.2 EM64T LGA-775)
Cooler Master RP-500 PSU
Patriot DC PC2-5300 (1.8V) (4-4-4-12)
When you set them next to each other (the CL values) you can
see the PC3 values are double that of the PC2 values. Does this
make a difference when it comes to performance? Only reading further
shall we find out...
Test suite:
SiSoft Sandra XII Lite 2008
PiFast
TMPGenc Plus 2.5
Quake 4
SiSoft Sandra XII Lite 2008
Although a synthetic benchmark, it's a popular one, freely available
if you wish to make comparison benchmarks. We will be testing
the memory speeds at stock speeds (667MHz).
This is not DDR2 VS DDR, as DDR won that race on the initial
foray of DDR2. As you can see, DDR3, at least these Patriot modules,
come out fighting...
PiFast
A good indicator of CPU/Motherboard performance is PiFast version
4.3, by Xavier Gourdon. We used a computation of 10000000 digits
of Pi, Chudnovsky method, 1024 K FFT, and no disk memory. Note
that lower scores are better, and times are in seconds.
Lower times are better
While the synthetic shows a little bit of an advantage
for DDR3, this one out and out shows that Patriots Extreme Performance
modules are just that, performance modules. An ~12 second decrease
(or ~25% ) is rather drastic improvement I would say.
TMPGEnc MPEG Encoding
Video encoding is a taxing chore, both on Memory
and Processor, we will be encoding a 543mb VOB file to MPEG2.
For the VOB to MPEG2 I used a bit rate of 5000k/Sec, as this is
the midrange for a DVD, which is typically between 1000k/Sec to
10,000k/Sec. I used a frame size of 720x480 (DVD Std) and 16:9
NTSC. Note that lower scores are better.
The difference isn't as great here as in the PiFast
test above, a mere 6%, nonetheless, an improvement.
Quake 4
Memory performance does play a role in gaming performance,
especially a game that is as hard on an overall system as Quake4
is. Now running Ver 1.42, the Q4 demo works well for this purpose.
Once again the Patriot DDR3 memory outperforms the
Patriot DDR2.
Final Words
So DDR3 memory is where we are going, while currently there is
a price premium, if you want the current BearLake chipset from
Intel, you will have to forgo a little cash. To match the BearLake
performance, I would seriously consider memory modules that, for
the time being, outperform it...
Pros:
-1,866MHz @ 8-8-8-24 memory, OC'd from the start
-Life Time warranty (up to 1.9V)
-Overclocking ability in big chips
-Nice looking, compliments the window case designs nicely
Cons:
-Cost, DDR3 memory pricing is still at a premium
