Haswell And Richland Memory Scaling: Picking A 16 GB DDR3 Kit

[none12345]

"and what we’ve really been fighting for the past nine years is a memory turnaround time of 7.5 nanoseconds."

Ive been saying this for the past decade. Memory hasnt gotten faster in a LONG time. A 4ghz processor is operating at the 0.25 nano second level. With memory at 7.5 nano seconds it is a very long wait to go out to main memory.

I really wish someone would invent some faster memory. Tired of buing the same stuff over and over because the buss changes. Sure i can buy more of it, but every time i do i throw away half the memory that was just as good.

 

[Fernandoemh]

I've been running my a10-6800k with 8gb ddr3 g.skill ripjaws @2400, no instability at all...

my specs:
a10-6800k + gemini II M4
ga-f2a85xn-wifi
gskill ripjawz 2400 2x4
480gb sandisk extreme II

 

[slomo4sho]

what fm2 boards support dual channel 2133/2400 memory natively ? I know many support it in oc profiles I have still run into 2400 only working with 1 dimm. This is one reason why i have been waiting on fm2+ it natively support 2133 ram.
first one to show up on newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132045

I never said any FM2 boards support dual channel 2133/2400 natively. I said that specific board only has native support for 1866 and no OC profiles. I was just illustrating the point that this "Richland Memory Scaling" article decided to include two 2400 kits and the board chosen to review was incapable of running 2400 stable...

Also, I am aware of the Asus FM2+ board, it has been available for a little while now

 

[Crashman]

You did it again. Another "let's make Intel looks better than it is" article.

Constant compliments on AMD's iGPU and frequent derision for Intel GPU are all meant to hide our true feelings, right?

I'm going to assume that 8GB equivalent kits would have had comparable performance - is that a reasonable assumption?

Yessir! We only used 16GB this time because 1.) We've had several requests 2.) it benefits one of our other benchmarks 3.) It's harder to O/C high-density modules (challenge!). The iGPU article was our first chance to compare 16GB modules, so we took it.

I know Tomshardware just use that Intel system for the sake of benchmark. But for anyone who really build an Intel i7 with HD4600 as gaming system should be shot onsite.... And gaming system builder with a brain will rather used a lesser CPU (saved at lease $100) + regular DDR31600 RAM (saved up to $70!!) and use it on a videocard.

I'm not so sure about the shooting part, getting shot isn't so fun.

I'm really surprised Intel scaled so terribly with bandwidth increases. I wonder what would happen if they put their 5000 graphics with 2400 MHz RAM...

It would be nice to see, but indicators to this point are not so great. I think it's a memory controller "thing".

I don't understand why you decided to pick a FM2 board that only has native ram support of up to 1866 when you are testing high speed ram... Why would you not pick a board that actually supports ram speeds of up to 2400 at the very least. Did no one think this through?

Native support? When was the last time overclockers about that? The F2A85V Pro gets an 1866 rating when paired with the PREVIOUS generation of APU, and THIS test appears to have bumped up against the limits of this particular NEW generation APU.

"and what we’ve really been fighting for the past nine years is a memory turnaround time of 7.5 nanoseconds."

Ive been saying this for the past decade.

So have we

 

[RedJaron]

You did it again. Another "let's make Intel looks better than it is" article.

How can we give an advantage or two to Intel?
Let's overclock both cpus. So Intel is getting 1GHz extra from it's default frequency while AMD only gets 400MHz. Then we call this fair.
So it's Tom's and Intel's fault that the Intel chip can clock so much higher than stock? They aimed both for 4.5GHz, only the Intel was able to actually hit it. Why is that biased to Intel?

Let's lower the resolution and graphics. That way the benchmarks will be less gpu intensive and Intel's much better cpu will make things look more even.
More even? Yes, the resolution was dropped so Intel could turn in usable numbers ( admitted as much in the article. ) But aside from BF3, the Intel was consistently 10fps+ behind. That's not even, that's a landslide in AMD's favor. I'll admit, I would've liked to see the APU at slightly higher resolutions, but as Tom said the AMD "wouldn't break a sweat," I think that's indicative that he already acknowledges AMD's vastly superior iGPU. And BTW, you yourself just said Intel has the better CPU.

Not to mention the instability problems with AMD and 2400MHz memory, the problem reaching 4.5GHz. We all know that AMD is unstable and hot. Nice job.
"Unstable and Hot," aren't positive adjectives for electronics. I thought you were trying to defend AMD here?

You are pros in what you are doing. But off course you where just testing memory here. Yeah right. You lowered the resolution even lower than 1366X768 which is the resolution for hdready displays. I guess lowering the resolution and overclocking was necessary so that Intel gpu can reach 30fps in all tests. Nice work.
Again, it was specifically stated this was the reason for the resolution drop, and they admitted AMD can go higher.

Next time try 800X600 and overclock with LN2.

Hmmm, let's look at this objectively.

 

[Fernandoemh]

This cpu clocks better than haswells actually... and with cheaper boards...

took me 3 seconds to google this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGwQWk11PIA

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/amd_a10-6800k_richland_overclocked_review/21

http://archive.benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1169&Itemid=63&limit=1&limitstart=11

there's a lot more info, just google some

i could post the info from my setup later too if you want.

i own intel on my other systems, but i was pleasantly surprised with this little chip, best bang for buck for an htpc and extremely high oc capabilities

 

[RedJaron]

I would like to see the APU at a higher resolution and see how much difference the RAM speeds make there. I know the Intel can't go that high so I'd drop it and just focus on APUs alone.

And I know this is an interesting experiment, but I can't help but think this is a niche practice. In some of the more demanding titles, I can see that the premium RAM bumped it up enough to better keep framerates in the smooth range. The titles that saw the biggest increase didn't really need it though. If you want smooth gaming performance on an APU, you can spend an extra $20 on premium RAM for marginal gains, or $80 for a 7750 for serious power. And I don't think anyone actually would use 16GB of high-density RAM when you can get 8GB RAM + 7770 for the same price, but Tom explained why they used it here.

Unless your budget is so tight you can't afford that extra $60, I just don't know why you wouldn't drop in a discrete rather than pay for premium RAM.

 

[alextheblue]

As many people pointed out, a cheap discrete card would be better than spending money on fast memory even for an APU. Cheap DDR3 1600 is good enough for the CPU side of things. Even low-profile systems with no additional power headroom above the PCIe slot could use a low-profile sub-75W card to great effect, instead of high-end memory kits.

But what about laptops? Are there any (integrated graphics only) APU-based laptops out there that support XMP/AMP or fine-grained manual tuning? That's about the only serious use case I could really see - slap faster memory in there and get ~15-20% better framerate. More if they used really crappy memory from the factory. I'd be curious to know what budget laptop models might support this, if any.

 

[vertexx]

As many people pointed out, a cheap discrete card would be better than spending money on fast memory even for an APU. Cheap DDR3 1600 is good enough for the CPU side of things. Even low-profile systems with no additional power headroom above the PCIe slot could use a low-profile sub-75W card to great effect, instead of high-end memory kits.

This test used 16GB for reasons Crash indicated above. But you should be able to get the similar results with 8GB of 2133. So 8GB CAS 9 2133 can be had in the $65-70 range, or about $10 more than a budget 1600 8GB kit.

 

[Fernandoemh]

As many people pointed out, a cheap discrete card would be better than spending money on fast memory even for an APU. Cheap DDR3 1600 is good enough for the CPU side of things. Even low-profile systems with no additional power headroom above the PCIe slot could use a low-profile sub-75W card to great effect, instead of high-end memory kits.

But what about laptops? Are there any (integrated graphics only) APU-based laptops out there that support XMP/AMP or fine-grained manual tuning? That's about the only serious use case I could really see - slap faster memory in there and get ~15-20% better framerate. More if they used really crappy memory from the factory. I'd be curious to know what budget laptop models might support this, if any.

i agree, that's why i use intel and the 780 on my main system, for my mini itx htpc however, the 6800k is working wonders, and everything fits my 9,4' x 3.2' x 11.2' case

 

[damric]

Whatever happened to the g.skill flares ddr3-2000cl7?

7.0 ns!

 

[rootheday]

There's a different way to read this - the lack of memory speed sensitivity says that HD4600 is not memory bandwidth bottlenecked here...

Couple reasons why:
1) Intel GPUs have access to the CPU's LLC (6-8MB on quad core; 3-4MB on dual core). This acts as a buffer against system memory bandwidth to some degree. AMD APUs don't. As a result, AMD APUs are more sensitive to memory bandwidth and thus are more urgenly in need of more expensive high end memory kits (partially offsetting the "value" argument so often used for APUs.

2) The HD4600 isn't generating as much memory bandwidth demand because it last less compute/texture throughput to feed. In an experiment like this, if bumping up the memory speed doesn't show scaling, then the right thing to do is to bump up the GPU frequency till memory sensitivity becomes more visible. Most Intel GPUs can OC to ~1.6GHz or more. Give that a try first AND then try the different memory kits/timings to see if they make a difference. Given the power delta between Haswell desktop cpus and AMD A8/A10, there should be plenty of room for a GPU OC to make things both more interesting/competitive and to push things to an operating point where the memory would matter.

Also, for people who feel that i7 is overkill, look at it as a stand in for nearly all of other Haswell skus with HD4600 that are priced lower. It isn't like an i5 (4c/4t) or even an i3 (2c/4t) is going to be CPU bound on these titles at these frame rates.

 

[sbuckler]

Silly article. A proper graphics card would blow all those gaming results away so the only reason you wouldn't have one is if it was too expensive. If you can't afford that then how are you going to afford this expensive high end memory?

 

[Crashman]

Silly article. A proper graphics card would blow all those gaming results away so the only reason you wouldn't have one is if it was too expensive. If you can't afford that then how are you going to afford this expensive high end memory?

What if your primary concern is having high-end memory for other applications and you just want to see what ELSE it can do? Lots of guys who use their systems for productivity and/or content creation don't really need the extra GPU muscle of a discrete card, and lots of guys play games casually on their work PC (when the boss isn't looking).

 

[vertexx]

Silly article. A proper graphics card would blow all those gaming results away so the only reason you wouldn't have one is if it was too expensive. If you can't afford that then how are you going to afford this expensive high end memory?

What if your primary concern is having high-end memory for other applications and you just want to see what ELSE it can do? Lots of guys who use their systems for productivity and/or content creation don't really need the extra GPU muscle of a discrete card, and lots of guys play games casually on their work PC (when the boss isn't looking).

I view it as more than that. I view the APU as displacement technology, not just incremental, and memory speed is part of that equation. This article shows that the faster memory speed of the Richland APU is not just gimmick - it results in real performance improvement. Sure, gaming performance is still not as good as a Pentium G series with a 7750, but that's the way displacement tech often works. It starts out as a niche, with lower performance than current mainstream tech, but then it creeps up. Before you know it, it becomes the mainstream.

The jury is still out as to whether AMD can deliver over the long haul with the APU, but there are definitely applications where a current gen APU with 2133 memory is the right choice. AMD HAS made progress from one generation to the next, and this article shows that. I think a lot of people got hung up with the choice of 16GB in this article, but 8GB of 2133 is only a $10-15 upgrade from 8GB/1600 - IMO a pretty good buy for the performance bump shown here.

It will be interesting to see how APU tech develops - and this article has been quite informative in that regard.

 

[Wisecracker]

With the difference in price between CPUs / Motherboards, an 'enthusiast' could buy a Radeon HD 7970 for the AMD rig.

It's good to add to the APU baseline data - and confirm the scaling from faster RAMs. AMD lacks bandwidth and low latency ... Not.A.New.Revelation.

I don't expect massive bandwidth and latency gains from Kaveri, but the graphics engine will still make a big leap even with its limitations.

DDR4 and incremental improvements to the arch will make things much mo' bettah ... even as some are poo-pooing the concept/design of unified memory.

You know, I try to be a team player --LOL-- but THG is going a bit off-course as of late in their formation and presentation of data. Some may even call it 'unbalanced' as the Iris and Iris Pro chips would clearly be better competition for the APU ...

(snicker ...)

 

[slomo4sho]

What if your primary concern is having high-end memory for other applications and you just want to see what ELSE it can do? Lots of guys who use their systems for productivity and/or content creation don't really need the extra GPU muscle of a discrete card, and lots of guys play games casually on their work PC (when the boss isn't looking).

I would love to see discrete GPU scaling with memory frequencies included in articles like these. Also, including more productivity software benchmarks would also be beneficial.

I was not aware this board was available in retail us outlets yet, what i want is fm2+ with 16x16 or 16x8 3.0 pcie. let me know if you run across one. Please .

I am not aware of any FM2+ boards that have PLX chips. There may be some in the future but as of the current lineup only x8/x8 PCIe 3.0 would be available. The following boards support x8/x8 configuration:

Gigabyte GA-F2A88X-UP4
ASRock FM2A88X Extreme6+
Asus A88X-PRO

The only board that has been available on the US market thus far since the launch in late July has been the ASUS A88XM-A (the rest of the boards should start hitting the retail outlets within a few months). It will likely be the beginning of 2014 that we will see a FM2+ board with a PLX chip if such a board is actually produced.

 

[computertech82]

This is pathetic using a on-board video as a 'gaming machine'. Gees. now for the facebook 'gamers', simple task, it would be different.
No matter what you do for a on-board, it will get STOMPED by the majority of video cards on the market. There is no contest....PERIOD.

 

[slomo4sho]

The 8670d will beat anything under a 7750 There is no contest.....PERIOD !

Kaveri is right around the corner

 

[justchuck69]

I would like to see both CPU's overclocked to 4.4 Ghz and 4 Gb ( 2 x a2 Gb) and 8 Gb ( 2 x Gb ) kits tested ! As i think they may have shown better speeds !

 

[Wisecracker]

This is pathetic using a on-board video as a 'gaming machine'. Gees. now for the facebook 'gamers', simple task, it would be different.
No matter what you do for a on-board, it will get STOMPED by the majority of video cards on the market. There is no contest....PERIOD.

Sorry to inform you but 2013 called and apu can play any game out there.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/a10-6700-a10-6800k-richland-review,3528.html

The 8670d will beat anything under a 7750 There is no contest.....PERIOD !

I just checked on The Egg ...

There are 295 video cards for less than $100 (under $75 - 228 cards) ... and 301 video cards from $100-$500.

It is reasonable to claim the integrated Radeon 8670d is already faster than 1/3+ of the discreet cards listed at The Egg, and the day is fast arriving that an AMD APU graphics engine will be faster than half the cards at retail for less than $500

 

[vertexx]

This is pathetic using a on-board video as a 'gaming machine'. Gees. now for the facebook 'gamers', simple task, it would be different.
No matter what you do for a on-board, it will get STOMPED by the majority of video cards on the market. There is no contest....PERIOD.

Sorry to inform you but 2013 called and apu can play any game out there.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/a10-6700-a10-6800k-richland-review,3528.html

The 8670d will beat anything under a 7750 There is no contest.....PERIOD !

I just checked on The Egg ...

There are 295 video cards for less than $100 (under $75 - 228 cards) ... and 301 video cards from $100-$500.

It is reasonable to claim the integrated Radeon 8670d is already faster than 1/3+ of the discreet cards listed at The Egg, and the day is fast arriving that an AMD APU graphics engine will be faster than half the cards at retail for less than $500

Totally agree, though I think the jury is still out on whether AMD can deliver. The APU is definitely displacement tech. Like I said above, displacement tech starts out as a niche, not quite fully capable, and with all the mainstream folks pooh-poohing it. But advances are made, and it eventually becomes mainstream. Of course, there are also plenty of examples of displacement tech not quite bridging that gap and falling into the chasm.

 

[Wisecracker]

While we tend to focus on the high-end (which is just dandy, and getting better), don't forget about the 'entry-level' which is becoming much more efficient and powerful.

Kabini's 128 Radeon cores can go toe-to-toe with HD4k graphics, and the Bay Trail Atom graphics will simply be Temash'ed. Review sites are doing a disservice by continually testing the APU graphics with 'modern titles' when even entry-level chips are quite capable of playing older gaming titles.

 

[logainofhades]

The 8670d will beat anything under a 7750 There is no contest.....PERIOD !

Kaveri is right around the corner

I am interested in Kaveri as an HTPC rig. My hope is it that can still at the very least play WoW well in 40 man battlegrounds if the need arises.

 

[akula2]

Don't we miss Corsair in this shootout? Now, I'm confused!