OCZ Blade 3x2GB PC3-16000 CL7 Memory Review

3D/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.

Before we get into any kind of game benchmarks, let's discuss the 3DMark 06 results. We had no idea that memory was going to play such a big role in 3DMark 06. As we mentioned earlier, we have never ran memory as low as we have today but the results are rather impressive for the higher memory clocks. The CPU frequency in the three comparable results is also rather low so perhaps with higher CPU clocks the gains in score from memory performance will be reduced, but this is still an interesting set of results for us.

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 no AA. 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.

Another 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 FarCry 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.

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.

Well...that is pretty much that. Another example of how little effect memory performance has on gaming performance. We have previously never tested this wide a spectrum of memory clocks but today we have, and the results are the same. We simply can't find any performance in gaming from memory. Obviously this isn't an exhaustive look with multiple video card setups or an extensive list of games, but we think the results accurately echo the general reality of memory performance on FPS in games.