I installed another 2 gigs of memory and 3Dmark score went down?

funkychimp · 20 Mar 2008 at 14:05

Hi,
I am running a PK5 Asus motherboard with a Quad Core Q6600 running at standard 2.4GHZ together with a 8800GT and Vista 32.

I have Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX (2x1GB) installed and bought another 2GB of the same from OC's

When I put the RAM in my score in 3DMark 06 went down from 11,500 to 11,000.

I know that Vista32 does not support 4gig and only shows about 3.3gigs.

Any thoughts as to why my score dropped?

Any help would be most welcome.

Paulh

Snakedoctor · 20 Mar 2008 at 14:07

The more RAM you have, the longer it takes to read it. Your Mobo may have also downgraded the memory performance due to the four sticks being installed.

funkychimp · 20 Mar 2008 at 14:12

Hi Turophobic,

Thanks for the quick reply. Mmm I just took a 1gig stick out and ran 3D mark again and it went up by 250 so I think you may be right.

If so was there any point in me upgrading to 4Gigs - Doh?

If you right about the MB downgrading the mem, is it safe to manually adjust back to correct speed?

Or would an upgrade to Vista64 solve the issue?

Thanks

Paul

Skyboat · 20 Mar 2008 at 14:18

2x2Gb pairs will be faster than 4x1Gb pairs.

Jonnygrunge · 20 Mar 2008 at 16:04

Yeah thats right the more banks of RAM (chips) you have it will take longer to refresh each one. Also the RAM will probably not run at its rated speed, and you may have to change this slightly, as well as loosen the timings, more so tRAS (Active to Precharge Delay. How long the memory has to wait until the next access to the memory can be initiated). You may also have to adjust your North Bridge voltage a tad in the BIOS.

funkychimp · 20 Mar 2008 at 16:07

Thanks for the advise Gents

Paulh

helmutcheese · 20 Mar 2008 at 16:12

Benching is not real use so dont worry esp 3DMARK.

Make sure your Timings were as before (set manually to Rams specs), may have set voltage to 2.2v if 2.1v is default and increase NB voltage.

Yellowbeard · 21 Mar 2008 at 15:28

helmutcheese said:
Benching is not real use so dont worry esp 3DMARK.

Make sure your Timings were as before (set manually to Rams specs), may have set voltage to 2.2v if 2.1v is default and increase NB voltage.

Good point, a benchmark for 3D is not memory intensive. If you are playing modern games like Crysis or doing memory intensive tasks and running short on memory at 2gb, that's when you'll see the diffrence between 2gb and 4gb. If you want to see your scores go up, OC your CPU.

funkychimp · 23 Mar 2008 at 16:27

Thanks for advice guys