[i7] Frequency vs Timings

Robbo

Robbo

Robbo

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Ahoy,

My RAM (Patriot Viper) is XMP enabled, which allows me to select, in the bios, a "Profile1" setting.
That gives quite a large boost in Frequency, but slacks off the timings, its been a while since I fiddled with timings and the like and im not sure how important it is now on i7 systems (running a 920 @ 3.0ghz atm, stock fan being replaced soon!:p)

Also it drops the Command Rate to 2T over 1T, which is obviously not better.

I've taken a CPUZ screenshot of the Stock and Profile1 settings, just for your opinions and comparison purposes, which of the two will provide more responsive in benchmarks/games/general use etc.

Windows Experience Index on W7 (Sucks I know) rates the Profile 1 at a hefty 7.8 while "stock" is 7.5, but I wouldnt really listen to this as a reliable source.

"Stock" Freq/Timings/CommandRate -

ramstock.jpg


"Profile1" Freq/Timings/CommandRate -

ramoc.jpg



Long story short - Which of the two settings are better, Profile 1 or Stock?

Thanks in advance for any help :D
 
Profile 1, runs at 1660Mhz, Stock runs at 1066MHz. (over 50% increase)
Timing have only slackened by 1 tick. (less than 14% decrease)
Profile 1 is much much faster.

You should download Everest and run its memory benchmark tool, it'll give you a good overall profile of the entire memory bandwidth and throughput. Thats a fine XMP profile, as they are so easy to set.
 
Hi Jamesftw,

the second config is better I think! :)

DDR3-1066 CAS7 (13.1 ns)
DDR3-1680 CAS8 (9.5 ns)

I believe you generally want as much bandwidth as possible which comes from the Memory frequency, mixed in with as low a CAS as possible which helps reduce the memory latency.

It still seems early days for DDR3, the bandwidths great but these high timings need to come down before they really outshine DDR2!

DDR2-800 CAS4 (10.0 ns)
DDR2-1200 CAS5 (8.3 ns)
 
The XMP profile is definitely better!!!

However, you should also be able to tweak the timings to try tightening them up yourself... some people are able to run 1T command rate with XMP profile enabled..
 
Have a look at Anandtech for a good look at memory speed vs. Core i7 performance.

On average, expensive Gucci DDR3 makes no difference to overall performance. Much better at benching, but only zipping benefitted from more memory bandwidth.
 
I am absolutely not any expert, but from reading a lot of posts/articles/tests it seems indeed like frequenzy is what to focus on more than timmings,. but then again timings
being low at a certain speed MIGHT very well indicate that the frequenzy is more likely able to be raised, so when shopping arround I guess its still worth comparing CL also,..

Dunno in what situations low cl-timings are most important, but I guess its more a "gamer-thing" than f.eks. a "rendering thing" ,.. could be interesting to know ,.. maybe that article throws a little light on this ,.. I have a read
 
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