G.Skill TridentX Review: 2x4GB at DDR3-2666 C11-13-13 1.65V
by Ian Cutress on October 28, 2012 12:00 PM ESTPortal 2
A stalwart of the Source engine, Portal 2 is the big hit of 2011 following on from the original award-winning Portal. In our testing suite, Portal 2 performance should be indicative of CS:GO performance to a certain extent. Here we test Portal 2 at 1920x1080 with High/Very High graphical settings.
With Portal 2 on IGP we seem to hit a ceiling very early on in our testing, around the 2400C11/2133C9 range. After this the frame rate levels out, suggesting that something else in the system is the limiting factor.
Batman Arkham Asylum
Made in 2009, Batman:AA uses the Unreal Engine 3 to create what was called “the Most Critically Acclaimed Superhero Game Ever”, awarded in the Guinness World Record books with an average score of 91.67 from reviewers. The game boasts several awards including a BAFTA. Here we use the in-game benchmark while at the lowest specification settings without PhysX at 1920x1080. Results are reported to the nearest FPS, and as such we take 4 runs and take the average value of the final three, as the first result is sometimes +33% more than normal.
Batman: AA is still the main beneficiary of faster memory speed in our IGP testing, and the jump from 2400 C10 to 2666 C11 does seem to make a difference (even if it is only 0.75 fps out of 58.25).
Overall IGP
Taking all our IGP results gives us the following graph:
The only kit that gets the performance increase predicted by MemTweakIt is Batman:AA. There is no doubt that out of the kits tested that the 2666 C11 2x4 GB kit performs the best, but it is hard to argue for the kit that costs twice per GB than the other kits except in an extreme overclocker scenario.
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OCN's_3930k - Sunday, October 28, 2012 - link
$600 for 2800CL11? Hell no.xTRICKYxx - Sunday, October 28, 2012 - link
Yeah, that price really stuck out! Obviously G-Skill knows the price is ridiculous but its not a popular product....formulav8 - Sunday, October 28, 2012 - link
Yeah what a big fat waste, for well, about anything. Should at least see how a nice IGP like Trinity or something responds to that kind of ram. CPU's are content with 1600mhz/1333mhz ram quite strongly. I just don't understand the purpose of this review myself. But there must be others that do or it wouldn't be done?DDR4 - Monday, November 12, 2012 - link
Get your mom to buy it for u :)mfenn - Sunday, October 28, 2012 - link
Calling an IGP test with $170 memory kits "real world" is ridiculous. What gamer spends $170 on memory and nothing on the GPU?sicofante - Sunday, October 28, 2012 - link
Even on an IGP the gain from faster memory is significant in very particular scenarios, but you're definitely right: where are the results using a proper GPU? I bet they show this trend of ever faster and more expensive memory is ridiculous and its ROI is close to non-existent beyond 1600MHz cheap and ordinary memory.sicofante - Sunday, October 28, 2012 - link
I meant ONLY in very particular scenarios.JlHADJOE - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
I replied much the same thing when they tested the 2400 kit.I'd rather have 1333 DDR3 and a $100 GPU, instead of 2600 DDR3 and APU graphics.
just4U - Sunday, October 28, 2012 - link
It does not appear to be all about the speed it can hit. That's only a part of the selling point (i think) but also the lower command rates that can be achieved accross the spectrum of speeds. This is key.Really am liking your memory articles Ian. I'd love to know just how low this ram can go. I hear things like Cas6/7 at more modest speeds.. from users but I haven't had the oportunity to play with any of the TridentX memory yet so I don't really know.
just4U - Sunday, October 28, 2012 - link
The heatsinks really do tick me off though..