DDR3 2133 vs DDR4 3000. Which one is faster?

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clairvoux

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Nov 2, 2011
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Hello there.

Im currently using G.Skill 2133mhz CL9 RAM in dual channel.

Skylake has arrived, and im still using my old and reliable Q9400 at 3,7Ghz, so I thought this is the time to upgrade. Unfortunately I'll have to pick up new ram too, as my 3 months old DDR3 ram wont be compatible. Sucks...

So, the new DDR4 memory is clocked much higher, but also has much higher latencies, and I was wondering what would I need to buy to at least equal my current DDR3 memmory speed. I found this kit and like to know how does it fare against my current memmory:

http://www.pccomponentes.com/g_skill_ripjaws_v_red_ddr4_3000_pc4_24000_8gb_2x4gb_cl15.html

If it happens to be faster, and you guys like it, this will be the one im buying, together with the i5 6600K. I'm also open to suggestions, but they must come from the same page.

And yes, i am aware that my current CPU is nowhere close to fully using my RAM's speed. It's just that if im going to buy new hardware, it should be AT LEAST as fast, if not faster than my old hardware, even if it was not being bottlenecked to begin with.
 
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Yes. i thought the same. It's always better to go for the newest technology available. As for the Q9400 im still not sure if ill keep it or sell it. It sure has served me well, but nowadays almost everything is either faster or more power efficient, and often both, so it will be hard finding a new home for it.

But back on topic, that doesn't really answer my initial question. Will the DDR4 memmory in the link be at least as fast as my cucrrent memmory? And if it isn't, which one should I get?
 
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Yes. I checked that link before making this post. It really didn't gave the infornation I was looking for unfortunately. They just compare DDR3 memmory and DDR4 at the same speed which gives an inherent advantage to DDR3. It was still pretty surprising to see that DDR4 could hold its own against DDR3 so well, even winning some tests, despide the higher latencies.
 
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That "True Latency Table" in the link DonkeyOatie provided was extremely insightful for me. That was pretty much what i was looking for. Some way of checking how both memmories compare (theoretically speaking at least) without taking anything else into account. After doing some calculations on my own I came to the following conclusions (assuming I havent made any mistakes):

The DDR3 Cl9 2133 mhz kit has a true latency of 8.46ns.
The DDR4 CL15 3000 mhz kit has a true latency of 10ns.

Makes sense to me. Then the author uses a simpler method of determining how fast the memmory is. He calls it "PI-Performance Index". According to this, my DDR3 ram is still slightly faster.
 
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There may (likely) be differences in practice due to dual, and quad channel and dual vs single rank which will have a practical effect.

I have been benchmarking memory and CPUs vs synthetic benchmarks. On DDR3, changing from CL11 down to CL8 at 1333Mhz is detectable from the numbers, but is often less than 1% in actual performance.
 
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Yes, Im aware the differences will be neglegible. I was just looking for a way to quickly figure out how DDR3 RAM and DDR4 compare. That true latency table and performance index just makes it that much easier. Also the extra bandwidth from the DDR4 RAM is likely to improve real world performance versus DDR3 memmory, even though just using "PI" doesn't show it. Thanks :)
 
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But you don't have two apples... so the comparison is not really possible unless you tested on a dual ram type motherboard. I don't think there have been any since the LGA775 days.

That being said I am not sure where the need for this comparison comes about as you won't be able to buy a system that uses either or type of ram. Rather it would be one or the other.
Going with one system over the other makes that question a bit redundant.

I always question the information available about this topic as the on cpu memory controller makes the actual results skewed, giving no way to really offer an apples to apples comparison as the results hinge on the memory controller just as much if not more than the ram itself.
 
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Yeah. Actually I'm using one such motherboard right now. The GA-EP45C-DS3. It supports both DDR2 and DDR3. I would only reccomend it if you were to transition to DDR3 without changing the rest of the system. It has given me quite a few headaches.

But anyway, and back on topic; I know we cant make a real apples to apples comparison. But DDR3 and DDR4 memmory are not so radically different from each other. So I thought there had to be a way to compare the performance of both consistently in such a way that it gives you a rough idea of where one memmory compares to another, regardless of platform, because like you said, things like the memmory controller will probably have a much larger effect than the RAM itself. Dividing the frequency of the memmory by the CAS latency gives me a number I can use to more easily compare DDR4 and DDR3 memmories.

Unfortunately, like 99% of the people here I don't have the resources to just test all the memmory i want across 2 equally performing systems until I find one that I like and keep it. So I have to rely on something else. The performance index is the best I could find until now.

So now if I want DDR4 that is equally as fast as my current DDR3 memmory I can just go to the shop and look for something that has a performance index equal or greater than the one I have. This of course that doesn't really tell the whole story because there is much more to RAM than that, but at least it helps me a lot. At least I'll know that at equal PI's, DDR4 will probably be faster due to the much higher bandwidth and other factors that I don't even know of. I believe this thread will help some people in the future looking to upgrade to DDR4.

 
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I'm not a native english speaker, so I can't really explain myself any better, but hopefully you will see that this thread wasn't as much about comparing whole systems as much as it was just comparing memmory, without taking anything else into account. And I know that it makes this question kind of redundant since I can't use both memmories in the same system, but this was really curiosity and wanting to know more about memmory than anything else.:)
 
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