OCZ 6GB PC3-12800 Platinum DDR3 Triple Channel Memory 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 a healthy 4% performance improvement between the DDR3-1600 CL9 and DDR3-1922 CL9 results, the remaining results are effectively identically, so it's clear that memory timings do not have an appreciable impact in 3DMark Vantage. This situation may change sometime in the future, when faster graphics cards turn the benchmark increasingly CPU dependent.



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 Long demo in DX10 mode at 1680x1050 with all settings set to very high.


At first glance, the results seem to be effectively identical across the board. However, there is a noteworthy 4% performance improvement in minimum frame rate between the DDR3-1600 CL9 and DDR3-1922 CL9 results. There is a 2.5% improvement between the DDR3-1600 CL9 and CL7 results, which suggests that timings are at least having a minimal impact. A 1-2FPS improvement is nothing to write home about, but all gains are good gains.



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.


Although aging, COH: OF is not quietly fading away. With all settings set to max this remains a very graphically intensive game, bringing our GeForce GTX 280 to its knees on several occasions. There is a roughly 2.5% average frame rate difference between the DDR3-1600 CL9 and CL7 results, suggesting that memory timings do play a role in this game. There is a fairly noticeable scaling of maximum frame rates as the timing tighten and the memory bandwidth is increased.



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.


L4D seems to place precedence on bandwidth over latencies, as the DDR3-1600 are all effectively identical, but the DDR3-1922 result is a healthy 3.3% higher, equating to an extra 5 FPS. CPU and memory bandwidth scaling has always been a strong suit of the versatile Source engine, and it appears that this quality is also present in this latest iteration of the engine.