ASRock 775Dual-VSTA: Does DDR2 matter?
by Gary Key on August 8, 2006 6:35 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Application Performance
We decided to test some real world applications that typically stress the CPU, memory, and storage systems to see if the results from our synthetic memory tests carry over to the desktop. Based upon those results, our DDR2-533 memory settings should outperform both the DDR2-667 and DDR-400 configurations, with all three outperforming DDR-333.
Our tasks include three activities that are common on the desktop. Our first test was to measure the time it takes to shrink the entire Office Space DVD that was extracted with AnyDVD into a single 4.5GB DVD image utilizing Nero Recode 2. Our second test utilizes WinRAR 3.6 and measures the time it takes to compress our test folder that contains 444 files, 10 folders, and 602MB of data.
Our third test consists of utilizing Exact Audio Copy as the front end for our version 3.98a3 of LAME. We set up EAC for variable bit rate encoding, burst mode for extraction, use external program for compression, and to start the external compressor upon extraction. (EAC will read the next track while LAME is working on the previous track, thus removing a potential bottleneck with the drive). Our test CD is INXS Greatest Hits, a one time '80s glory masterpiece containing 16 tracks totaling 606MB of songs. The results of our tests are presented in minutes/seconds with lower numbers being better.
We see that our DDR2-533 memory setting places first in all applications but the largest margin of victory is a 16 second advantage in the Nero Recode 2 test over the DDR-333 setting (a 3.9% performance advantage). Our DDR-400 results are impressive as they finish slightly ahead of the DDR2-667 settings, though both come close to the DDR2-533 configuration. The effects of the other platform components have basically negated the pure performance advantage of our DDR2-533 setting in the synthetic memory tests. While this particular ratio still offers the best overall performance, it would be difficult to tell the actual performance difference between it and our other memory without a benchmark.
We decided to test some real world applications that typically stress the CPU, memory, and storage systems to see if the results from our synthetic memory tests carry over to the desktop. Based upon those results, our DDR2-533 memory settings should outperform both the DDR2-667 and DDR-400 configurations, with all three outperforming DDR-333.
Our tasks include three activities that are common on the desktop. Our first test was to measure the time it takes to shrink the entire Office Space DVD that was extracted with AnyDVD into a single 4.5GB DVD image utilizing Nero Recode 2. Our second test utilizes WinRAR 3.6 and measures the time it takes to compress our test folder that contains 444 files, 10 folders, and 602MB of data.
Our third test consists of utilizing Exact Audio Copy as the front end for our version 3.98a3 of LAME. We set up EAC for variable bit rate encoding, burst mode for extraction, use external program for compression, and to start the external compressor upon extraction. (EAC will read the next track while LAME is working on the previous track, thus removing a potential bottleneck with the drive). Our test CD is INXS Greatest Hits, a one time '80s glory masterpiece containing 16 tracks totaling 606MB of songs. The results of our tests are presented in minutes/seconds with lower numbers being better.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
We see that our DDR2-533 memory setting places first in all applications but the largest margin of victory is a 16 second advantage in the Nero Recode 2 test over the DDR-333 setting (a 3.9% performance advantage). Our DDR-400 results are impressive as they finish slightly ahead of the DDR2-667 settings, though both come close to the DDR2-533 configuration. The effects of the other platform components have basically negated the pure performance advantage of our DDR2-533 setting in the synthetic memory tests. While this particular ratio still offers the best overall performance, it would be difficult to tell the actual performance difference between it and our other memory without a benchmark.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
55 Comments
View All Comments
Kougar - Tuesday, August 8, 2006 - link
They mention the OCing details in their Conroe: Feeding the Monster article. IIRC this board was about 300FSB give or take 5. Not bad, considering the nForce4 & 5 series maxes out at 320 tops!poohbear - Tuesday, August 8, 2006 - link
thanks for this great article, i hope ASrock's efforts w/ PCI-E/agp and ddr/ddr2 solutions gets noticed by some of the big dogs cause im still using my ASrock Dualsata2 and intend on keeping it for my upgrade to dualcore and hang on to it for atleast another year. After that, looks like i'll keep my DDR memory and head on over to the Core duo camp. ASrock really knows how to squeeze the life outta all your components especially since most of these "upgrades" like DDR-DDR2 and AGP-PCI-E do NOT provide ANY performance improvements. just marketing BS so these companies can sell hardware.:(Calin - Wednesday, August 9, 2006 - link
Moving from DDR to DDR2 allows you to buy cheaper components (a bit cheaper). As for AGP and PCI-E, top of the line cards are PCI-E, on AGP you can find only mainstream (maybe because PCI-E x16 gives more juice to the card than AGP can?)poohbear - Wednesday, August 9, 2006 - link
erm, moving to ddr2 isnt cheaper if i hafta ditch my 1gb of ddr ram.;) as for the PCI-E, im taking about bandwidth wise, PCI-E hasnt offered any performance increases at all. Sure, what's available now is only high end PCI-E, but if they did make a high end 7900GTX in AGP im sure it wouldnt perform 1 fps less than the PCI-E version. AGP8x was simply never saturated enough.saiku - Tuesday, August 8, 2006 - link
Yes!! I would love to know if I can bring over my AGP 6800GT and my 2 GB of Ram from my Socket 754 world to the Core 2 Duo platform. Great article !!Anandtech, just when I thought that you had stopped caring about the "common man", here comes this great article !
Thank you for remembering those of us who don't spend 500 bucks on 2 GB of RAM !!
Rike - Tuesday, August 8, 2006 - link
Second that. Thanks, for looking out for those of us who still have some tight budgets.VooDooAddict - Tuesday, August 8, 2006 - link
What I find interesting is that even DDR-333 works very well on the platform.This makes it tempting to upgrade my existing Dual Xeon 2.66 to Core 2 Duo. It's got 2 gigs of low latency (2-2-2-5) DDR-333.
VooDooAddict - Tuesday, August 8, 2006 - link
Also looking forward to the PCIe / AGP comparison.KingofL337 - Tuesday, August 8, 2006 - link
Does this board allow for any overclocking at all?Gary Key - Tuesday, August 8, 2006 - link
Yes, figure about 10~15% on average. There is not a VCore adjustment on the board and it is limited already due to design.