G.Skill 6GB PC3-12800 Triple Channel DDR3 Kit Review

Gaming Benchmarks

You asked for it, so we have finally included 3DMark Vantage, Futuremark’s latest release in their renowned line of 3D benchmarking software. This latest DX10-only 3DMark comes with a variety of presets, but for our tests will be use the standard Performance preset which is suitable for a much greater range of system specifications than the other more demanding presets.


Although there is slight evidence of scaling in 3DMark Vantage, generally speaking the memory is not having a significant impact on the results, at least not at these clock speeds. This is to be expected though, since 3DMV places a considerable amount more emphasis on GPU performance than the other various sub-systems.



Far Cry 2 is the hot new new first-person shooter from Ubisoft's Montreal studio, and the first game to utilize the new visually stunning Dunia Engine, which will undoubtedly be used by numerous future games. Using the provided Benchmarking Tool, we ran the Ranch Small demo in DX10 mode at 1680x1050 with all settings set to very high.


Finally, a concrete example of increased memory bandwidth having a sizeable performance impact. Across the board, we can see that the CL10 setting is achieving noticeably better frame rates than the CL7 setting. A 6FPS increase in average is excellent, especially considering the fact that all other system settings are equal (aside from the Uncore, of course).



This test consists of actual gameplay using a single mission (Authie: Boudica's Boys from the British Campaign) since it holds a bit of everything the game has to offer: vehicle battles, artillery barrages and house-to-house fighting. We recorded framerates using FRAPS up until the 15 minute mark of the mission and excluding any in-game briefings / cut scenes. The game was run in DirectX 10 mode at 1680x1050 with all settings maxed out.


When it comes maximum and average frame rates, DDR3-1600 and above certainly appears to be a sweet spot in COH: OP, which DDR3-1066 being left in the dust. Since this test does consist of actual gameplay, and thus the performance can be somewhat erratic even when averaged out, we can disregard the peak maximum frame rate figures, but the average numbers don't lie, and this certainly appears to benefit from the additional memory bandwidth.



Left 4 Dead is the latest disorienting, fast-paced zombie apocalypse mega-hit from Valve. L4D uses the latest version of the Source engine with enhancements such as multi-core processor support and physics-based animation. We test here with in-game details at their highest levels, with MSAA 4X and AF 8X. For benching, we used a pre-recorded 20 minute timedemo taken on the No Mercy campaign during The Apartments mission.


We see a similar trend in L4D, which is to say that the higher bandwidth afforded by the DDR3-1866 10-10-10 setting does appear to contribute to improved overall performance, and this translates into solid average frame rate improvements. CPU and memory bandwidth scaling has excellent been a strong point of the versatile Source engine, and we are glad to see this aspect maintained in this latest iteration of the engine.