Super Talent & TEAM: DDR3-1600 Is Here!
by Wesley Fink on July 20, 2007 11:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Memory
Gaming
Three DX9 games representing different gaming engines were used to test the performance of the Super Talent DDR3-1600C7 and the TEAM Xtreem DDR3-1600 in real world gaming. There are more recent gaming titles available, but they are also DX9. We will update games in the memory test suite as soon as a selection of DX10 games with reliable benchmarks is available. At that time the memory test OS will also be moved to Vista.
The Far Cry - River demo was run for 3 loops and results in FPS were averaged over the 3 runs.
Super Talent and TEAM dominate overall gaming performance of Far Cry and top the charts from 1333 to 2000+ memory speeds. Far Cry performs slightly better at 1066 with fast DDR2 memory on the P35 chipset, much as we expected.
Quake 4 and the underlying engine have always proved to be very sensitive to improvements in memory bandwidth. This is amply demonstrated in these memory tests. Again in all cases DDR2 and DDR3 are faster on P35 than the fastest DDR2 on P965. The pattern is the same as in Far Cry but the differences are magnified in Q4. The lower latencies of the new Micron Z9 DIMMs move that DDR3 to the top at 1333, and at every speed above it. It would be very interesting here if the CPU speed could be held constant and only the memory speed varied, but available ratios and the 333 multiplier make that all but impossible. What we need are 1600, 1666, and 2000 ratios available on upcoming motherboards - in addition to the 1333, 1066, 1000, and 800 that are already available.
We include Half-Life 2: Lost Coast as a representative of games that are less sensitive to improvements in memory bandwidth. Lost Coast is played through the Steam engine, where there is the constant worry, for a reviewer, that each new update of Steam will break your test benchmarks. Though the differences are very subtle and HL2 performance is most influenced by the video card used in the benchmark, there are nonetheless patterns that are exactly the same as the other two games. All P35 results are faster than the same fast DDR2 results on P965. DDR2 on the P35 is slightly faster at 1066 and the new Z9 DDR3 is tops in results at DDR3-1333 and higher.
The Super Talent and TEAM results are very close at all speeds, but Super Talent manages to be ever so slightly faster at every speed in every benchmark. Since the base memory chips are the same, a slight alteration in binning or small changes to programming the SPD could bring the Super Talent and TEAM into parity or move TEAM to the lead.
Three DX9 games representing different gaming engines were used to test the performance of the Super Talent DDR3-1600C7 and the TEAM Xtreem DDR3-1600 in real world gaming. There are more recent gaming titles available, but they are also DX9. We will update games in the memory test suite as soon as a selection of DX10 games with reliable benchmarks is available. At that time the memory test OS will also be moved to Vista.
The Far Cry - River demo was run for 3 loops and results in FPS were averaged over the 3 runs.
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| Click to enlarge |
Super Talent and TEAM dominate overall gaming performance of Far Cry and top the charts from 1333 to 2000+ memory speeds. Far Cry performs slightly better at 1066 with fast DDR2 memory on the P35 chipset, much as we expected.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
Quake 4 and the underlying engine have always proved to be very sensitive to improvements in memory bandwidth. This is amply demonstrated in these memory tests. Again in all cases DDR2 and DDR3 are faster on P35 than the fastest DDR2 on P965. The pattern is the same as in Far Cry but the differences are magnified in Q4. The lower latencies of the new Micron Z9 DIMMs move that DDR3 to the top at 1333, and at every speed above it. It would be very interesting here if the CPU speed could be held constant and only the memory speed varied, but available ratios and the 333 multiplier make that all but impossible. What we need are 1600, 1666, and 2000 ratios available on upcoming motherboards - in addition to the 1333, 1066, 1000, and 800 that are already available.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
We include Half-Life 2: Lost Coast as a representative of games that are less sensitive to improvements in memory bandwidth. Lost Coast is played through the Steam engine, where there is the constant worry, for a reviewer, that each new update of Steam will break your test benchmarks. Though the differences are very subtle and HL2 performance is most influenced by the video card used in the benchmark, there are nonetheless patterns that are exactly the same as the other two games. All P35 results are faster than the same fast DDR2 results on P965. DDR2 on the P35 is slightly faster at 1066 and the new Z9 DDR3 is tops in results at DDR3-1333 and higher.
The Super Talent and TEAM results are very close at all speeds, but Super Talent manages to be ever so slightly faster at every speed in every benchmark. Since the base memory chips are the same, a slight alteration in binning or small changes to programming the SPD could bring the Super Talent and TEAM into parity or move TEAM to the lead.
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metalgrx - Thursday, December 13, 2007 - link
If you check the official site of TEAM ( http://web.teamgroup.com.tw/teamgroup/en/productDe...">http://web.teamgroup.com.tw/teamgroup/e...php?pd_i... you ll see the PC3 12800 DDR3 1600MHz CL7 (2*1GB),7-7-7-21-2T, 1.75V~1.85V which is available in my country and i must say it's quite cheap compared to the other options...what do you think about this? To set it clearly...should i buy it?Bozo Galora - Friday, July 20, 2007 - link
FWIW: I picked this little blurb up from EVA's forum:Quote:
BTW... The Micron Z9's are just Engineering samples (rev B), while the D9's are going to be on the market soon (if not already out there), and those are the non-Engineering samples.
Hopefully the D9's can overclock as well as the Z9's (or even better)
(Unquote)
So it looks like the DDR3 will also have D9's
DigitalFreak - Friday, July 20, 2007 - link
Wait a sec... so all this Z9 memory being reviewed isn't what will actually be available for sale? I thought these were retail DIMMs?Wesley Fink - Saturday, July 21, 2007 - link
We have kits identified as Retail from both Super Talent and OCZ. Both have also announced the availability of these parts and pricing for the retail parts. TEAM has told us the TEAM kit is an Engineering Sample, but that retail kits will be announced soon.EVGA boards use nVidia chipsets and do not support DDR3. I would guess EVGA and its users would not be happy with DDR3-2000 chips being available as it would likely hurt their sales.
Bozo Galora - Friday, July 20, 2007 - link
Another fine memory review - you da man, Wesley.Please ignore all the knuckle draggers - they have nothing better to do in their boring empty lives than to argue just for for the sake of arguing.
Keep up the good work - don't let the losers get to you.
theprodigalrebel - Friday, July 20, 2007 - link
TEAM's timings are listed as 5-4-3-9 2.1V @ 1900MHz in the 'Highest Speed' column.Wesley Fink - Friday, July 20, 2007 - link
The charts have all been corrected and now show the correct DDR3-1900 TEAM settings of 9-8-7-18 at 2.1V. Since our Web Editor is traveling and not available I ended up redoing the charts myself, so I added a few things like larger type to communicate the winner at each memory speed.strikeback03 - Monday, July 23, 2007 - link
while you're at it, last page, 4th paragraph from the end mentions DDR2-2000 DIMMs, assume that should be DDR3.Wesley Fink - Friday, July 20, 2007 - link
Thank you for pointing that out. It will be corrected.MadBoris - Friday, July 20, 2007 - link
At first I was like wow.Then I saw all DDR2 comparisons were at 33% less CPU frequency.
We need to get back to real world thinking here.
As an example if I am buying a MOBO capable of DDR2 or DDR3 with a 2.8 GHZ CPU. I would like to know what the actual performance difference would be on that platform for extra cost of DDR3. As it is, by guessing, a faster CPU would probably be a better value and keeping DDR2.
Anyway, unique charts and data this time guys. I know it shows the scaling of memory speed and I am sure this some amazing electronic achievement in some laboratory, but it doesn't communicate much value to me until I see some apple to apple comparisons.
I'm sure that will come around next time, looking forward to it.