DDR3-2200+ with Core i5 750 - Performance

Memory Read test

Synthetic testing. Here we have the read performance of the memory. Now this is as relative as it can be, because if you pop in three (triple channel) 2000 MHz DIMMs into an X58 motherboard with Core i7, that result would be lifted massively as well. In fact you'd pass 20.000 MB/sec real fast as well

Fact is .. have you ever seen 18.500 MB/sec of bandwidth on a dual-channel configuration with a 199 USD processor?

Memory Write test

The same can be said for the memory write tests. Of course Intel Triple channel configurations dominates here considering we used 1333 JEDEC timed memory on both platforms. Triple channel performance on Nehalem is just frighteningly good really.

A Phenom II processor will perform roughly in-between 6500 and 7000 MB/sec, with some random performance occurrences here and there taken into account where Intel's latest Core i5 offering will offer roughly 10.000 MB/sec of bandwidth.

A-DATA in dual-channel mode reaches roughly 15.000 MB/sec once we tweak that BIOS, which is a third faster than JEDEC 1333 MHz reference.

Resident Evil 5 (DirectX 10)

A new addition to our benchmark suite is Resident Evil 5. Capcom's newly released game ensures you a survival horror sequel that will let you bust up some zombies on your hard drive. Resident Evil 5 PC will support DirectX 9 and 10 along with ultra-high resolutions.

So here's where the review will get very subjective. Since we need to raise the base clock of the processor in order to reach a high memory frequency, the overclocked processor will dominate the performance. There is no good way of showing the pure effect of memory performance since we are tied to the CPU baseclock.

So please look at the game tests we show you this way: a comparison in-between platforms. thus what you can achieve with an nicely tweaked and overclocked system. Resident Evil 5 looks fantastic and has a built in benchmark. We test at DirectX 10.0 mode with 4x AA -- all settings are maxed out including BLUR activated. If you like to reproduce the benchmark scores yourself, then please select the fixed benchmark as we opted for a fixed time demo.

The title is very CPU and memory dependant, as you can see, and thanks to the extremely fast Radeon HD 5870 even the fastest AMD processor to date runs into CPU limitations. In yellow the Core i5 750 with stock clocked ADATA memory at 1333 C9 (JEDEC specced). Then in blue a Core i7 940 on an X58 board with triple channel memory at 1333 C9. All the way on top the 200 USD Core i7 750 overclocked at 4200 MHz with the memory running at 2000 MHz at C8. Platform differences and overclocks certainly matter you guys.

Again these are relative results, not memory specific but more a combo of memory being real fast and the processor overclock,

Far Cry 2

Throw your memory back to the year 2004 and the release of the innovative Far Cry on PC. Developer Crytek managed to fashion one of the most convincing and striking locales in all of gaming, and satisfied gamers with the freedom to pass through the landscape and tackle enemies in almost any way they saw fit. You surely remember Jack Carver and that things were about to get seriously messed up for you? Well, tough luck. You are no longer at that deserted tropical island but hop into a jeep and arrive at the sandy savannah surroundings of Africa. And that's a change... as much as you'll no longer run into any mutants, aliens, or any superpowers or psychic powers. Also - you are no longer Jack Carver, you assume the role of one of nine different mercenaries who are embedded in the midst of a brutal civil war which rages in an imaginary African nation.
Everything that goes down is involved in a dirty little bush war in central Africa and you'll have to use a rusty AK-47 and whatever bits of scavenged land mine you can duct-tape together. Two factions struggle for supremacy: the United Front for Liberation and Labour and the Alliance for Popular Resistance, and both are known for blood and control.

Far Cry 2 I like very much. Not so much for the gameplay anymore, yet the rendered environment and how the game can react to it. We are in high-quality DX10 mode with 4x AA (anti-aliasing) and 16x AF (anisotropic filtering).

Here you can see that the title is a little more GPU bound, none the less the A-Data at 2000 MHz C8 / Core i5 750 overclock leads the pack significantly. But sure, it remains so-so as the overclocked CPU is the main dominator here.

We are writing this article as an overclocking experience with the memory as integral part of that.

3DMark Vantage (DirectX 10)

3DMark Vantage focuses on the two areas most critical to gaming performance: the CPU and the GPU. With the emergence of multi-package and multi-core configurations on both the CPU and GPU side, the performance scale of these areas has widened, and the visual and game-play effects made possible by these configurations are accordingly wide-ranging.

In 3DMark vantage exactly the same logic applies, take a look at the standard PC non overclocked with the memory in dual-channel at 1333 C9, and then the massive overclock + memory all teaked out at 2000 MHz. The end result is an increase of nearly 2000 points.

This was the experience with an overclocked Core i5 750. It sure doesn't suck to tweak and overclock ...

Now let's move onwards to a Core i7 870, which brings along a memory ratio of 2:12, allowing us to just select 2200 MHz for the memory from within the BIOS.