Low End Dual Core + New Memory Dividers
With the X2 4800+, we saw that DDR436 offered basically no performance improvement, while DDR480 was a little more useful, bringing us anywhere between 1% and 5% of a performance improvement in our selection of tests. Given that the X2 4200+ has half the cache, its dependence on a faster memory bus should go up. But counteracting that relationship is the fact that the 4200+ runs 200MHz slower than the 4800+.
According to our table of supported DDR frequencies by the DFI board, the 2.2GHz 4200+ gives us two options above DDR400 - mainly, 220MHz and 244MHz, or an unofficial DDR440 and DDR488, respectively.
Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004
We start off with MCC Winstone 2004 again:
| Memory Speed |
MMCC Winstone 2004 |
% Improvement over DDR400 |
| DDR400 |
38.9 |
N/A |
| DDR440 |
39.1 |
1% |
| DDR488 |
39.4 |
1% |
3D Rendering
3D rendering is another area where we see good use of dual core processors, but these tests also showed us a 0 - 1% increase in performance when comparing DDR480 to DDR400:
| Memory Speed |
3dsmax 6 - SPECapc Rendering Composite |
% Improvement over DDR400 |
| DDR400 |
2.54 |
N/A |
| DDR440 |
2.54 |
0% |
| DDR488 |
2.54 |
0% |
| Memory Speed |
Cinebench 2003 |
% Improvement over DDR400 |
| DDR400 |
584 |
N/A |
| DDR440 |
586 |
0% |
| DDR488 |
587 |
1% |
Despite the decrease in cache size, the faster memory bus didn’t do anything more for the X2 4200+.
Video Encoding
| Memory Speed |
DivX 6 + AutoGK |
% Improvement over DDR400 |
| DDR400 |
47.3 |
N/A |
| DDR440 |
47.9 |
1% |
| DDR488 |
48.5 |
3% |
Here, DDR488 only gives us a 3% bump in performance. Nothing to write home about, but if your memory can support it, you might as well enable it.
| Memory Speed |
Windows Media Encoder 9 (fps) |
% Improvement over DDR400 |
| DDR400 |
3.88 |
N/A |
| DDR440 |
3.91 |
1% |
| DDR488 |
3.92 |
1% |
Gaming
| Memory Speed |
Doom 3 (1024 x 768 fps) |
% Improvement over DDR400 |
| DDR400 |
108 |
N/A |
| DDR440 |
111.2 |
3% |
| DDR488 |
113.6 |
5% |
In Doom 3, the X2 4200+ gets slightly more of a performance boost than the 4800+. But despite our theories, it seems that the X2 4200+ doesn’t really get any more of a performance boost than what the 4800+ did.
Just for curiosity's sake, we performed a DVDShrink encode while running the Doom 3 test, to see how two relatively memory bandwidth intensive tasks running simultaneously changed the picture, if at all. Note that alone, DVDShrink saw no performance boost due to DDR488 over DDR400:
| Memory Speed |
Doom 3 (1024 x 768 fps) w/ DVDShrink running |
% Improvement over DDR400 |
| DDR400 |
102.5 |
N/A |
| DDR488 |
109.2 |
6.5% |
The performance boost in Doom 3 in this scenario went up another 1.5%, to 6.5% for DDR488 over DDR400. It wasn’t a huge jump, but once you start getting into those heavy usage scenarios, then the faster memory speeds make a lot of sense for the dual core Athlon 64 X2s.
Other lighter multitasking scenarios offered no real difference in performance for the X2.
| Memory Speed |
DVD Shrink (Time in Mins) w/ Firefox & iTunes Running |
% Improvement over DDR400 |
| DDR400 |
9.9 |
N/A |
| DDR488 |
9.9 |
0% |
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ElJefe - Monday, July 11, 2005 - link
Well, I could say this would have been a great test if only one thing: to show the effect of TIMINGS on this. I know the OCZ had sickest tight timings, but im talking about the difference of say, using 4 single gig memeory modules and then messing around with the timings, showing which is best. I know at 1 gig, most of those l33t ram flashy types of dual channel matches drop off and kinda go into hum-drum land.If i had an X2 system it would have 2 gigs on two chips or 4 gigs on 4 chips. I couldnt see a dual proc system built for simply faster gaming, it's meant to be a cookie monster of processes.
KristopherKubicki - Monday, July 11, 2005 - link
bupkus: DDR2 comes with the M2 socket next year. At least, thats according to the roadmap.Kristopher
fishbits - Monday, July 11, 2005 - link
"The ceil() function is a pretty basic mathematical function that returns the smallest integer value greater than its argument..."Think that should be "greater than or equal to." ceil(10.0)=10. Not that it exactly matters much in this context. Anyhoo...
I'm glad AMD is further ahead of supporting mem speeds than needed, as opposed to playing catch-up. Additional options and capability for their future items will pay off down the road if not now.
brownba - Monday, July 11, 2005 - link
#1"keeps getting better and better."
huh? did you look at the benchmarks?
what is better?
Anand just showed us to save our money, we don't the very fastest ram, so I guess that is better.
Wesley Fink - Monday, July 11, 2005 - link
#2 - The OCZ PC3500 GX is specially binned BH5. Anand had planned to use VX memory but it was out of stock as this article was being developed. OCZ binned some BH5 at 3.3V for 2-2-2 operation at DDR500 to meet the requirements of this review and turned it around in a few hours. The point is that OCZ PC3500 GX will NOT all operate at 2-2-2 at DDR500. The OCZ VX and Mushkin Redline, on the other hand, are both rated 2-2-2 at DDR500 at 3.5V. The VX/Redline are based on Winbond CH5 blanks.Wesley Fink - Monday, July 11, 2005 - link
#20 - There is a new official DFI BIOS in the works that is to post soon. However, as I mentioned in the nF4 Ultra roundup there are over 60 BIOS revisions avaialble for the DFI nF4 boards. Oskar Wu of DFI has posted many of the BIOS' at www.dfistreet.com, the DFI Forum website, or in the Forums at www.xtremesystems.org.yacoub - Monday, July 11, 2005 - link
[In keeping with our recently growing practice,] "We chose three CPUs to investigate the impacts of these new memory dividers: [The three you are least likely to own]: the Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (2.4GHz/1MB L2), the Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (2.2GHz/512KB L2) and the Athlon 64 FX-57 (2.8GHz/1MB L2)."hehehe
ksherman - Monday, July 11, 2005 - link
I know this is going to sound like a dumb question, so here it is. Where did you get the BIOS update for the DFI board? I have that board, and their website only lists an update throung March, nothing as recent as July...Stinger22 - Monday, July 11, 2005 - link
One small correction..There is also an Athlon 64 3000+ that is a Socket 939 and is Revision E.
Hacp - Monday, July 11, 2005 - link
#13, I know of one other mobo that supports 3.3 volts and many other ram sticks can get 2-2-2-5 at ddr500.