G.Skill PI 2x2GB DDR3 PC3-12800 Review

Like PCMark, 3DMark is now into the Vantage stage. The most popular 3D benchmark series of all time was updated this year and we have finally gotten around to getting used to 3Dmark Vantage so it has beat out the spot of 3DMark 06 as the default 3DMark benchmark in memory reviews. It should be interesting to see how memory affects this benchmark. For now, we will simply rely on the Performance benchmark defaults for testing.

It appears that the extra room of the 4GB kit equals out to the 2GB kit running at 1T. Either that or the Performance preset of the Vantage doesn't show a lick of preference to memory size or timings. With such a small difference in results, it is hard to say whether it is just the benchmarks margin for error or if either one of the kits results in better scores. One thing is for certain though...increasing CPU frequency along with memory frequency definitely increases the score, as if that wasn't an obvious conclusion.

Like all other benchmarks, Crysis is benchmarked with all patches and updates done to it. We use the popular Crysis benchmark tool running the Sphere level time demo at 1680x1050 with detail levels set to High in DX9 and 64-bit. This level has all the elements of the Crysis environment that make the game so great so we chose to use it as the level to run our benchmarks on.

The results are pretty obvious and it doesn't take much effort to see what really changes in Crysis with 2GB less memory. After our initial results be re-checked all settings and repeated all steps only to come to the same conclusions time and time again. With the 2x2GB G.Skill PI memory, the minimum frame rate was consistently lower by almost 10FPS in our time demo. With other time demos recorded on other levels, we found similar results. Maximum and average frame rates were marginally different, but the minimum frame rate definitely changes when making the jump to 4GB of memory. This sort of caught us off guard but is good to see. Minimum frame rates are about as important as average because the average frame rates are only so good if you keep dipping minimum frame rates down to stuttering levels. Let's see if the same type of pattern shows up for COD4.

As with the Crysis benchmarking, COD4 was also benchmarked using a custom time demo, this time during a muli-player free-for-all on the Crash level. All details levels are set to high with 4X AA at 1680x1050 resolution. The time demo was recorded with more a dozen players and includes indoor/outdoor action as well as some heavy fire fighting throughout.

Those are hardly conclusive results, but we think it is safe to say that 4GB kits of memory may start to show their worth in 3D gaming minimum frame rates. Although not as dramatic, the 4GB kit at XMP defaults again shows a visible gain in the minimum frame rate achieved during our benchmark. The difference isn't going to save you $100 in a GPU purchase, but it certainly appears to be there, with this setup in this installation of Vista it does anyway.