In-Game Benchmarks
In an effort to make this as consistent as possible – given that I am looking for potentially minor differences between system memory speeds – I have selected games with dedicated benchmarks for the sake of exact repeatability. These benchmarks were performed three times each, with the system restarted between each new run, and then the results were averaged.
Thief
This new release from Square-Enix is built on the Unreal engine, and Nixxes Software developed the PC version. I used the game’s built-in benchmark with image quality maxed out via the “Very High” preset, and 8x AA.
At 1920×1080 there was some very minor scaling with memory speed, but it was not really a factor. The results at 2560×1440 were completely non-linear, as I seemed to be hitting the limit of my GTX 770’s 2GB frame buffer at times during these higher resolution runs, causing some pretty choppy gameplay.
Batman: Arkham Origins
This is another game based on the Unreal engine, developed by Warner Montreal. The PC version of the game seems to be a console port, with some additional detail settings available. For these runs I set all detail options to their highest DX11 values, PhysX enabled and on “high”, and TXAA set to “high”.
Arkham Origins was very, very consistent with an almost exactly 60 FPS average at 1920×1080, regardless of the memory used (as if showing the roots of this console port on PC). Memory speed seemed to have little effect, other than very slightly improving the max frame rate – though the rest of the results were all over the map.
At 2560×1440 the result was unpredictable again, with the slowest memory speed actually producing the highest frame rates. Needless to say, memory speed didn't really help in any aspect of this game’s performance in this system.
why not bench it against the
why not bench it against the IGP instead of cpu bound tasks? or better yet try to get it stable on an APU.
would it be possible to run
would it be possible to run some gaming benchmarks on amd apu’s as you suggested? Sure its unlikely that someone would buy ram this pricy and use it on a apu but it would be very interesting to see how it would affect a kaveri or richland part, just for shits and giggles?
pricey? its on sale for $100,
pricey? its on sale for $100, not too expensive for very highspeed ram.
well yea if I was buying ram
well yea if I was buying ram today, but the msrp is $300, this is just a great sale on amazon
Please as suggested test with
Please as suggested test with an AMD APU. If it is only $10 more than regular memory then many, many people will go for this and an AMD APU. It makes little sense to test this with a fast i7 and dedicated GPU as we know what the resuls will be already. Test where faster memory will make the biggest difference and that will be with an APU. With this and A10-7850K you could get some decent entry level performance, overclock the integrated GPU and 1080p gaming at low / medium details are a very real option.
Oh, see here for an
Oh, see here for an example:
http://www.overclockers.com/amd-a107850k-kaveri-apu-review/
I agree with the comments
I agree with the comments about APU testing, and trust me, I want to see how it would improve the graphics performance myself! I mentioned in the article that the memory would be worth revisiting with an APU, I just didn’t have the necessary components.
I’m going to put together a test system with a 7850K and see if I can get this memory stable at 2666MHz. I don’t know specifically when I’ll have this done, but I’ve already ordered the parts!
Sounds like a great idea
Sounds like a great idea Sebastian! It might be interesting to look at some GPU overclocking for the 7850K. On overclockers they got some really decent performance around the 1 GHZ mark.I know that is kind of out of the scope of the article but it shows what a ‘budget’ system can do with the right memory and GPU / CPU config. Just a thought anyway.