Sandybridge systems are selling well, and many memory manufacturers are offering dual channel kits to capitalise on the growing market. Opting for a 4GB kit is certainly the cheapest option but with memory prices at an all time low is it worth looking at one of the higher density options for additional future proofing down the line?
ADATA sent us their latest V2 8GB kit which runs at 2,000mhz and will be priced competitively when it reaches the United Kingdom next month at only £140. Is this a cost effective, performance related choice you should be contemplating for a system upgrade?
The ADATA XPG 8GB Gaming memory we received for review operates at 2000mhz with 9-11-9-27 timings and a supported voltage rating between 1.55-1.75.
The ADATA 2000mhz Gaming memory arrives in a colourful, tough plastic container which offers good protection during shipping. One of the sticks is positioned at the rear of the box, with space for a third. This means the same packaging can be used for X58 triple memory configurations.
ADATA have opted for a smaller heatspreader size, which we like because they can be used under the more substantial CPU heatsinks, such as the Noctua NH D14. They operate at 9-11-9 timings with a programmed profile of 2,000mhz.
ADATA are using Hynix H5TQ2G83BFR-H9C memory which is 44nm DDR3 featuring a decreased chip size via copper implemented triple metal layer and WN barrier metal techniques. This Hynix memory offers fully synchronous operations referenced to both rising and falling edges of the clock. While all addresses and control inputs are latched on the rising edges of the CK (falling edges of the CK), Data, Data strobes and Write data masks inputs are sampled on both rising and falling edges of it. The data paths are internally pipelined and 8-bit prefetched to achieve very high bandwidth.
The heatspreaders are held together with two small screws and an adhesive backing. They are easily removed. The black PCB underneath looks great.
For testing today, we are using the Sapphire Pure Black P67 Hydra motherboard which we reviewed a few weeks ago.
Validation available here.
The Sapphire board detects 2 XMP profiles with the ADATA memory, however it sets both of them up wrongly at 931mhz – or 1862mhz effective. By simply altering the frequency, we we able to manually configure the ram to 2000mhz at 9-11-9-1T timings. We had to manually set voltage to 1.65, for complete stability.
With this particular motherboard we were able to overclock the memory to 2090mhz at the same timings, any higher would result in instability, causing a CMOS reset. Loosening the timings didn't result in a substantially better overclock, gaining only another 15mhz with worse performance results.
Test System:
Processor: Core i7-2600k
Memory: ADATA 8GB 2000 XPG V2
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200W
Motherboard: Sapphire Pure Black P67 Hydra motherboard
Cooler: Noctua NH D14
Thermal Paste: Noctua NT H1
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10
Graphics: AMD HD6850
Hard Drive: Intel 80GB SSD
Operating System: Windows 7 64 bit
Comparison memory: No Brand DDR3 1333mhz 4GB 9-9-9-24
SiSoft Sandra
Adobe Photoshop CS5 64 bit
3D Studio Max 2011
Cinebench R11.5 64 bit
Aida 64 Extreme Edition
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
2000 mhz 9-11-9-27 |
GSKILL
2090mhz 9-11-9-27 |
1. Texturiser (1) | 1.9 |
1.9
|
1.9
|
2. CMYK | 2.0 |
1.8
|
1.8
|
3. RGB |
2.0
|
1.9
|
1.9
|
4. Ink outlines |
29.8
|
29.5
|
29.4
|
5. Dust & Stratches |
3.1
|
3.0
|
3.0
|
6. Watercolor |
28.8
|
28.5
|
28.4
|
7. Texturiser (2) |
2.0
|
2.0
|
2.0
|
8. Stained Glass |
23.7
|
23.3
|
23.3
|
9. Mosiac Tiles |
14.6
|
14.3
|
14.3
|
10. Extrude |
164.2
|
162.1
|
162.0
|
11. Rough Pastels |
12.7
|
12.4
|
12.4
|
12. Smart Blur |
97.0
|
95.9
|
95.7
|
13. Underpainting |
36.2
|
35.9
|
35.9
|
14. Mosiac Tiles |
14.4
|
14.3
|
14.3
|
15. Spherize |
2.9
|
2.8
|
2.8
|
16. Palette Knife |
23.3
|
23.1
|
23.1
|
17. Sponge |
41.3
|
40.2
|
40.2
|
18. Smudge Stick |
13.1
|
12.7
|
12.7
|
Total: |
513.0
|
505.6
|
505.1
|
Script times reduced by around 7 seconds when moving from generic 1333mhz memory to 2000mhz ADATA gaming memory. Our additional manual overclock helped reduce the overall time by half a second, not really noticeable under real world conditions.
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.
Synthetic improvements are easy to see and explain the real world Photoshop gains we documented on the last page.
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 28 GB/s at 2000mhz with the ADATA Gaming memory.
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 taken taken to complete our render is reduced by a couple of seconds.
CINEBENCH R11.5 64 Bit is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.
CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all: It’s completely free.
Even though Cinebench R11.5 is primarily a CPU intensive test, system bandwidth and efficiency can effect the scoring, slightly. Our scores improved when moving to the faster ADATA memory product.
This is the first time we have reviewed an ADATA Gaming Series memory kit and our impressions are positive. We deliberately selected a lesser known motherboard from Sapphire to see how compatible the memory would be. We have had other memory from well known manufacturers cause problems in this particular motherboard. While the XMP profile was picked up at slightly slower speeds, a little manual adjustment was all it took for us to get it running at specification.
The ADATA 8GB 2000 XPG DDR3 memory allows for some additional overclocking – right up to 2100mhz if you play a little with the voltages and considering the density, this is very impressive. Our testing shows that moving from standard 1333mhz memory to a performance related 2000mhz kit offers tangible benefits, especially when using system bandwidth intensive programs such as Adobe Photoshop and 3D Studio Max.
There is no doubting that the memory market is exceptionally crowded now, with manufacturers trying to tempt enthusiast consumers with high levels of performance combined with competitive pricing. This is when the ADATA 8GB 2000 XPG really shines, because at £140 including VAT this is clearly one of the better deals on the market, especially as 4GB really should be considered as almost entry level in 2011.
When compared against other leading 8GB memory kits available in the UK right now, the 8GB Corsair Vengeance memory for example is the same price but rated at a slightly slower 1866mhz. The heatspreaders on the ADATA modules are also slightly smaller allowing the Noctua NH D14 to be fitted.
Pros:
- 8GB means a high level of future proofing with the option to double this at a later date
- high quality Hynix modules onboard
- 2100mhz is possible with the right settings and voltage
- This kit supports voltages right up to 1.75v
- small heatspreader design allows for any CPU cooler to be fitted
Cons:
- We would like to see tighter timings in the future
140 quid for 8GB of 2000mhz memory? damn thats really good.
Good deal for the price. memory prices are really low right now, cant stay this way forever. wonder if the japan disaster will make them go up soon.
Very good all round purchase, not sure I would buy from ADATA however, never heard of them 🙂
biggest problem I have is what about ADATA uk warranty? they are one of the many far eastern makes I know very little about. last time I ended up with patriot memory it took a dump and no one helped me replace it. so I ended up out money with a dead product. ill stick with one of the big UK names for suppotr im afraid. I can find no warranty terms about ADATA online for UK.
Oh my! This thing amazing!!