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Sandybridge has been dominating the press for many months, delivering high levels of performance for the mainstream enthusiast audience. Until the end of the year however, X58 still remains the best choice for designers, 3d rendering artists and wealthy gamers. Today we are looking at a new high density 12GB memory kit from Kingston which should sate the appetites of the high end professional user and hardcore gamer.
This high density 12GB kit is split into three 4GB sticks, meaning that a potential of 24GB is on tap for an X58 owner. Not so long ago this kit would have cost close to £1,000, but ADATA are managing to hit a £140 price point inc vat in the UK.
While the pricing right now is great, there is a good possibility in the next couple of months that memory costs as a whole will be increased, due to the Japanese disaster. The time has never been better to order a new kit of memory for your system build.
Today we are putting the ADATA 12GB Gaming series memory through a variety of tests, but we are also going to highlight how professional oriented applications such as Adobe Photoshop can be positively impacted with such a high memory count.
The ADATA 12GB DDR3 1600 memory kit arrives in a tough, oversized plastic container which has the product on full view.
This is a universal style container which ADATA use for all their memory products and with dual channel options, one of the rear storage sections is left empty. It isn't the most attractive box, but it works well for a shop environment.
The memory is supplied with the traditional ADATA black heatspreaders, which are only slightly oversized and can actually fit with many of the larger CPU coolers on the market.
Due to the high density, the timings aren't quite as high as some of the higher performance kits on the market, with some 2GB modules set to 7-7-7. Still, they are respectable figures.
For our review today, we are using the Asus Rampage III Black Edition, which is one of the best products on the market right now. You can read our full review over here.
Configuring the speed is easily, you can either use the XMP profile, or manually select 1600mhz from the frequency settings area.
The automatic settings configure to 1.65 volts although ADATA say that 1.75 volts is possible, even though that falls outside the recommended Intel specifications.
We were unable to force timings any tighter than this, even with increased voltage. All of the settings were configured automatically by the Rampage III Black Edition Motherboard, without a hitch.
System validation is available over here.
The ADATA memory didn't overclock that great, something we expected after our recent review of a similarly rated Kingston 12GB kit. We managed to overclock to around 1680mhz but it made basically no difference to the end result. We would expect the majority of the audience to be configuring the memory via the XMP profile, so that is how we will test it.
Test System:
CPU: Intel Core i7 990x @ 4.8ghz
Motherboard: Asus Rampage III Black Edition
Cooler: Antec Kuhler 620 H20
Chassis: Lian Li X2000F
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Graphics: AMD HD6990 QuadFireX
Memory: Kingston HyperX T1 12GB @ 1600
Hard Drives: Intel 128GB SSD (Boot), Samsung 2TB (storage), Crucial 128GB SSD.
Comparison memory: No Brand DDR3 1333mhz 4GB 9-9-9-24
Software:
SiSoft Sandra
Adobe Photoshop CS5 64 bit
3D Studio Max 2011
Cinebench R11.5 64 bit
Aida 64 Extreme Edition
MaxMemm
This version of the script has been thoroughly tested on Adobe Photoshop CS5 and CS4 and is compatible with Photoshop 7. It is important to document however that different versions of Photoshop give different end results. Adobe have been fine tuning the program over the years and enhancing specific filters and algorithms for better performance (some filters were rewritten during the CS2 time period). This means ultimately that comparing times with users running other versions of Photoshop is not going to give consistent results.
All results were gained from Adobe Photoshop CS5 64bit exe on Windows 7 64 bit ultimate and are marked in seconds. Lower times are better.
| KitGuru PS Bench 1(4) |
Standard
1333mhz 9-9-9-24 |
ADATA
1600mhz 9-9-9-24 |
| 1. Texturiser (1) | 1.7 |
1.7
|
| 2. CMYK | 1.8 |
1.8
|
| 3. RGB |
1.7
|
1.7
|
| 4. Ink outlines |
26.8
|
26.7
|
| 5. Dust & Stratches |
2.8
|
2.8
|
| 6. Watercolor |
25.3
|
25.1
|
| 7. Texturiser (2) |
1.7
|
1.7
|
| 8. Stained Glass |
18.7
|
18.6
|
| 9. Mosiac Tiles |
11.9
|
11.9
|
| 10. Extrude |
152.2
|
152.0
|
| 11. Rough Pastels |
10.7
|
10.5
|
| 12. Smart Blur |
87.0
|
86.9
|
| 13. Underpainting |
31.2
|
31.1
|
| 14. Mosiac Tiles |
11.7
|
11.7
|
| 15. Spherize |
2.1
|
2.1
|
| 16. Palette Knife |
18.5
|
18.5
|
| 17. Sponge |
36.4
|
36.3
|
| 18. Smudge Stick |
11.1
|
11.0
|
| Total: |
453.3
|
452.1
|
Not a huge performance increase in the filtering test, but we didn’t expect the modest frequency increase to have a dramatic impact on the results.
Having a large memory count with a 64 bit operating system means that you can allocate more to Adobe Photoshop. While this will make little difference when opening small files, it can play a part in increasing performance with larger, more demanding media.
Above: Memory available to Photoshop CS5 with 6GB installed (5311MB).
Above, the ‘performance’ subpanel of the main preferences pane. Here you can allocate the amount of memory you have available to Photoshop. 32 bit operating system and versions of this program are limited so we recommend the 64 bit platform for ultimate performance and memory availability.
Above: Memory available to Photoshop CS5 with 12GB installed (10913MB).
With 12GB of memory installed you have significantly more memory available to the program. This means that you can open larger (or more) files before Photoshop forces data into the application scratch disk.
We increased the memory count with both configurations, leaving a little for the system. (9,000MB for 12GB system and 4,000MB for 6GB system).
First we opened a large rendered image, and resized it to 45,000 x 54,864 pixels, creating a final image of 6.9gb in size.
With 9,000MB of memory available to Photoshop the scratch disc is never accessed, saving 5 seconds of conversion time when compared to the settings with 6GB of system memory available.
Next we changed the colour mode to CMYK, mirroring a common task required by a printing agency or newspaper. This increases the file size to 9.20GB.
With 9,000MB of memory available it took 58 seconds to complete the task. With 4,000MB of memory accessible this increased to 88 seconds. Substantial performance improvements.
AIDA64 Extreme Edition is a streamlined Windows diagnostic and benchmarking software for home users. AIDA64 Extreme Edition provides a wide range of features to assist in overclocking, hardware error diagnosis, stress testing, and sensor monitoring. It has unique capabilities to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives. AIDA64 is compatible with all current 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows operating systems, including Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.
Performance increases are noticeable, gaining over 1000MB/s in both read and write tests.
SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.
Sandra is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.
It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.
Native ports for all major operating systems are available:
- Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
- Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
- Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
- Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
- Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)
All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:
- SMP – Multi-Processor
- MC – Multi-Core
- SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
- MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
- GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
- NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
- AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
- IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit
Memory bandwidth increases from 21GB/s at 1333mhz to 23 GB/s at 1600mhz with the Kingston T1 12GB kit.
V2011 is the first release of 3DStudio Max to fully support the Windows 7 operating system. This is a professional level tool that many people use for work purposes and our test will show any possible differences between board design today.
Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011 software offers compelling new techniques to help bring designs to life by aggregating data, iterating ideas, and presenting the results.
Streamlined, more intelligent data exchange workflows and innovative new modeling and visualization tools help significantly increase designers’ creativity and productivity, enabling them to better explore, validate, and communicate the stories behind their designs.
Major new features:
- Slate: A node based material editor.
- Quicksilver: Hardware renderer with multithreaded rendering engine that utilizes both CPU and GPU.
- Extended Graphite Modeling Toolset
- 3ds Max Composite: A HDRI-capable compositor based on Autodesk Toxik.
- Viewport Canvas toolset for 3D and 2D texture painting directly in the viewport
- Object Painting: use 3D geometry as ‘brushes’ on other geometry
- Character Animation Toolkit (CAT): now integrated as part of the base package
- Autodesk Material Library: Over 1200 new photometrically accurate shaders
- Additional file format support: includes native support for Sketchup, Inventor
- FBX file linking
- Save to Previous Release (2010)
We render a KitGuru custom created scene at 1920×1080 and record the time taken, lower is better.
By increasing the memory bandwidth and efficiency the time taken to complete the render is reduced by over a second.
MaxxMem2 PreView is a handy, free program to rate memory performance. It can be downloaded over here
Solid results and noticeable improvements when compared against the reference clocked 1333mhz memory.
The ADATA DDR3 1600 12GB Gaming series memory is clearly not just an option for gamers. We have shown that in demanding situations for the X58 platform 12GB is much better than 6GB.
The mainstream focus for the major memory manufacturers is still based around 1GB or 2GB density sticks, but as user demands increase, we will see more of these high density kits being released to market. If you own an X58 board and need an upgrade, then memory prices right now are as good as we can remember. With the recent Japan disaster we can assume prices will rise in Q3, so if you can afford it, now is an ideal time to part with the cash. At around £140 for this 12GB kit, fully populating the majority of X58 boards with 24GB of memory costs under £300.
The only real trade off is based around looser timings. With these high density configurations, 9-9-9 is generally as good as you will get. That said, while this doesn't seem impressive on paper, it really is basically impossible to tell the difference in the real world between this kit and one tagged with a 7-9-7 profile.
If you are just interested in gaming, then 6GB is perfectly fine for now, and I have spent a long time testing various games with 6GB and 12GB system builds, coming to the conclusion that there are very few, if any tangible benefits between the two configurations. This might change in the future.
Applications such as Adobe Photoshop reap the rewards with higher memory counts, obviously depending on your demands. If you are simply editing a couple of 72 dpi web graphics then it won't make a difference, but for serious SLR photographers or designers, then 12GB of ram is a worthwhile investment. Large documents with multiple layers will demand more memory before paging into the scratch disc causing slow down. The benefits of 12GB can mean the difference between a responsive system and one that is continually shifting data between hard drive and memory. If you have configured Photoshop to page data to a fast Solid State Drive the data lag will not be so dramatic, but it is still noticeable.
Also if, like myself, you work with multiple screens and have many programs open simultaneously then a higher memory count will aid productivity dramatically. Upgrading to 12GB boosted performance by up to 40% in our Photoshop tests.
At £140, it is hard to fault this kit and when compared to the Kingston T1 12GB we reviewed recently, the smaller ram heatspreaders offer slightly improved compatibility with oversized CPU coolers. I still can't get over current memory prices, because it seems like only yesterday when 4GB of quality memory cost as much as this 12GB kit. It won't hold forever at these prices though, that's for certain.
Pros:
- heatspreaders are only slightly oversized meaning more compatibility with big CPU coolers
- great performance
- pricing is extremely competitive
Cons:
- timings are looser than 2GB density sticks at the same frequency
- overclocking capabilities aren't good
Kitguru says: X58 owners with higher multitasking or professional oriented demands should consider this kit as a cost effective upgrade.
