I've told quite a few people in the Gigabyte forum here at TweakTown that RAM speed doesn't matter much, and I finally got around to run some benchmarks to prove my point.
Here's the system I used:
Core 2 Quad Q6600 @3.6GHz (400x9)
Gigabyte EP45 UD3P (BIOS F7)
EVGA GTX 260 Core 216 55nm
Transcend AxeRAM 1200 2x1GB (Micron D9GMH chips)
I only set the main timings manually, all the others except for tRead (set to 7 for 1000 and 1200) were on AUTO and Performance Enhance was on Turbo for all three speeds.
I did some memory bandwidth tests in Everest and the difference are quite significant:
DDR2 800 5-5-5-18 (strap B)
![](http://www.abload.de/thumb/everest800q90y.jpg)
7368 MB/s Read
DDR2 1000 4-4-4-12 (strap A)
![](http://www.abload.de/thumb/everest1000cl4403p.jpg)
8762 MB/s Read
DDR2 1200 5-5-5-18
![](http://www.abload.de/thumb/everest1200mbxu.jpg)
9256 MB/s Read
Looks good so far, almost 2000 MB/s more in read and write for DDR2 1200 than for 800.
Now, to check if this actually translates into any real performance benefit I used the CPU benchmark in the Crysis demo (same as in the retail game). I set all settings to Very High (DX10 mode) but only benched at 1280x1024 so the video card wouldn't completely limit the results.
DDR2 800
![](http://www.abload.de/thumb/crysis800i3ga.jpg)
Average FPS 32.69 (best run)
DDR2 1000
![](http://www.abload.de/thumb/crysis1000cl4a0ts.jpg)
Average FPS 32.65 (best run)
DDR2 1200
![](http://www.abload.de/thumb/crysis1200q8zd.jpg)
Average FPS 32.84 (best run)
Although the Everest results show a big difference in memory bandwidth we only see about 0.15 Average FPS more in Crysis with DDR2 1200 than with DDR2 800.
Edit:
Here are some Far Cry 2 benchmarks for 800 and 1200 as well:
DDR2 800
![](http://www.abload.de/thumb/farcry800d77e.jpg)
DDR2 1200
![](http://www.abload.de/thumb/farcry120018kv.jpg)
We have a difference of a little less than 5% here. That's not too bad, but the RAM speed difference is 400 MHz, if you use a 4GB kit you're not gonna reach 1200 MHz unless you do some extreme stuff. So with 4GB the difference between some relaxed DDR2 800 settings and faster settings with lower timings is maybe 3% at most, not anything you'll notice in a game.
Here's the system I used:
Core 2 Quad Q6600 @3.6GHz (400x9)
Gigabyte EP45 UD3P (BIOS F7)
EVGA GTX 260 Core 216 55nm
Transcend AxeRAM 1200 2x1GB (Micron D9GMH chips)
I only set the main timings manually, all the others except for tRead (set to 7 for 1000 and 1200) were on AUTO and Performance Enhance was on Turbo for all three speeds.
I did some memory bandwidth tests in Everest and the difference are quite significant:
DDR2 800 5-5-5-18 (strap B)
![](http://www.abload.de/thumb/everest800q90y.jpg)
7368 MB/s Read
DDR2 1000 4-4-4-12 (strap A)
![](http://www.abload.de/thumb/everest1000cl4403p.jpg)
8762 MB/s Read
DDR2 1200 5-5-5-18
![](http://www.abload.de/thumb/everest1200mbxu.jpg)
9256 MB/s Read
Looks good so far, almost 2000 MB/s more in read and write for DDR2 1200 than for 800.
Now, to check if this actually translates into any real performance benefit I used the CPU benchmark in the Crysis demo (same as in the retail game). I set all settings to Very High (DX10 mode) but only benched at 1280x1024 so the video card wouldn't completely limit the results.
DDR2 800
![](http://www.abload.de/thumb/crysis800i3ga.jpg)
Average FPS 32.69 (best run)
DDR2 1000
![](http://www.abload.de/thumb/crysis1000cl4a0ts.jpg)
Average FPS 32.65 (best run)
DDR2 1200
![](http://www.abload.de/thumb/crysis1200q8zd.jpg)
Average FPS 32.84 (best run)
Although the Everest results show a big difference in memory bandwidth we only see about 0.15 Average FPS more in Crysis with DDR2 1200 than with DDR2 800.
Edit:
Here are some Far Cry 2 benchmarks for 800 and 1200 as well:
DDR2 800
![](http://www.abload.de/thumb/farcry800d77e.jpg)
DDR2 1200
![](http://www.abload.de/thumb/farcry120018kv.jpg)
We have a difference of a little less than 5% here. That's not too bad, but the RAM speed difference is 400 MHz, if you use a 4GB kit you're not gonna reach 1200 MHz unless you do some extreme stuff. So with 4GB the difference between some relaxed DDR2 800 settings and faster settings with lower timings is maybe 3% at most, not anything you'll notice in a game.
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