Corsair Dominator GT 3x2GB PC3-15000 Triple Channel Memory Review

Gaming Benchmarks

We have forced ourselves to step up to 3DMark Vantage results for all reviews because the public demands it. 3DMark Vantage is the newest in a long line of 3D benchmarking software from Futuremark and is the most elaborate to date. Featuring multiple presets for various system configurations, Vantage is the culmination of all 3DMarks past relying on system and GPU power for its results. We will stick to the Performance preset as it seems to be the most popular at this point in time. 3DMark 06 is the previous iteration of this successful 3D benchmark suite.

3Dmark 06 appears to appear memory volume as well as frequency. Keep in mind we run this benchmark in Vista and results are far from ideal. With that said, there is no denying the memory differences result in a different scores. 3DMark Vantage Performance preset doesn't seem to follow the same rules, or at least does in a much smaller way.

We all know what Crysis is and how much it beats up systems but we wanted to add it to the gaming benchmarks to see how system changes can improve performance on a mid-level system. Detail levels are all set to Very High with the resolution at 1680x1050 with 4xAA. We ran the benchmarks with a demo of the Sphere level in DX9 and 64-bit. The game looks great with this setup and plays just well enough to keep us happy.

I think it is about time to close the book on this 3x1GB VS 3x2GB comparison we have focused the last couple memory reviews. In all of our gaming testing with a single GTX 280, or a single GTX 295, we see no difference in performance amongst various setups. GPUs seem to be the bottleneck in these games and that is just the end of it. Perhaps it is a time to drop these games from benchmarks and come back with a little fresh meat.

Another new fall release of this past silly season Far Cry 2 has some beautiful scenery but does lack that buttery smooth game play in places. A lot of moaning and groaning has occurred with Far Cry 2 but acceptable frame rates are much easier to achieve than Crysis and the game play is plenty smooth enough to enjoy. We were really able to crank up the settings with this benchmark on this setup.

We won't continue to repeat ourselves here. The results speak for themselves and nothing is required to explain the numbers. At maxed out details FarCry 2 just doesn't seem to be affected by system changes after a certain point. Whether it be a quad core i7 at 3.2GHz or 3780MHz.

The newest game in our testing sweet, Left 4 Dead was just added after we were asked to include a Source powered game in our memory benchmarks. Being based on the Source engine, there is definitely a chance that system performance will heavily influence the results. We used FRAPs to measure frame per second on a custom time demo of the rooftop level.

The Source engine game does appear to be affected by memory and system changes. This was not at all un-expected as the Source engine has traditionally been inspired to run faster with a faster system. GPU power definitely plays a role, but that line ends a lot sooner with Source games over others.