2133MHz DDR3 vs 2133MHz DDR4 - Which has more bandwidth?

[Energycore]

Been thinking about how an increase in memory bandwidth yields more performance in high-end GPU systems, and I wonder if people on Devil's Canyon i5s and i7s, which are perfectly capable CPUs today, could upgrade to faster RAM to increase their gaming framerates. Here's a DF video showing the bandwidth mattering

 

Now since 2133MHz DDR3 is going for as little as $34 for 2x4GB kits, I wonder if it will actually have more bandwidth than 2133MHz DDR4, because it's running on a lower CAS latency of 10 cycles instead of 15?

 

The only reason why DDR4 would be faster is if some technology in DDR4 was in place to increase bandwidth given the same speed and latencies, so my question is, is there such an improvement on DDR4?

[vgfan1995]

What are using your computer for? Purely gaming or video editing as well? In my opinion, for gaming, RAM isn't that big a deal nowadays, maybe you can get 3-4 more frames after OC your RAM, but for the most part, it's not worthy. Again, this is just my opinion.

[Energycore]

1 hour ago, vgfan1995 said:

What are using your computer for? Purely gaming or video editing as well? In my opinion, for gaming, RAM isn't that big a deal nowadays, maybe you can get 3-4 more frames after OC your RAM, but for the most part, it's not worthy. Again, this is just my opinion.

This would be just gaming, but tests by Digitalfoundry showed memory bandwidth to matter quite a bit - so much so that a steck i3 + fast RAM gave out more fps than a OC i3 + 2133MHz RAM

[Nena Trinity]

Both has same bandwidth but the DDR3 RAM has lower(better) CAS latency(CL)...

[Energycore]

On 7/30/2016 at 6:33 AM, Nena360 said:

Both has same bandwidth but the DDR3 RAM has lower(better) CAS latency(CL)...

That should result in both lower latency and higher bandwidth though, right?

 

I guess I answered my question in that no one stepped up to say that DDR4 has some magic tech to increase bandwidth.

 

Is that from girls *cough* und panzer?

[Nena Trinity]

1 hour ago, Energycore said:

That should result in both lower latency and higher bandwidth though, right?

 

I guess I answered my question in that no one stepped up to say that DDR4 has some magic tech to increase bandwidth.

 

Is that from girls *cough* und panzer?

DDR4 allows more bandwidth for less voltage so if you go to 2666MHz or above then DDR4 is worth it!

yup

[Energycore]

2 minutes ago, Nena360 said:

DDR4 allows more bandwidth for less voltage so if you go to 2666MHz or above then DDR4 is worth it!

yup

But then, you can push voltage way higher (survived on 1.8V RAM in the past) on DDR3, whereas skylake's memory controller craps itself if memory voltage is over 1.35.

 

There's a lot of pros / cons here

[Nena Trinity]

Just now, Energycore said:

But then, you can push voltage way higher (survived on 1.8V RAM in the past) on DDR3, whereas skylake's memory controller craps itself if memory voltage is over 1.35.

 

There's a lot of pros / cons here

1.8 on RAM does not sound safe! o3o

[Energycore]

Just now, Nena360 said:

1.8 on RAM does not sound safe! o3o

As long as you can keep it cool (I made an aluminium foil heat spreader + thermal paste and pointed a fan at them) and you motherboard doesn't have crap RAM power delivery it should be fine

 

But 1.65V is a much safer max

[Nena Trinity]

3 minutes ago, Energycore said:

As long as you can keep it cool (I made an aluminium foil heat spreader + thermal paste and pointed a fan at them) and you motherboard doesn't have crap RAM power delivery it should be fine

 

But 1.65V is a much safer max

Yes my secondary rigs RAM sticks is at 1.65v! :3

[Sakkura]

1 hour ago, Energycore said:

That should result in both lower latency and higher bandwidth though, right?

 

I guess I answered my question in that no one stepped up to say that DDR4 has some magic tech to increase bandwidth.

 

Is that from girls *cough* und panzer?

Lower latency only means lower latency.

 

Though in practical situations lower latency does mean the useful throughput will be a little higher, even though the peak bandwidth is exactly the same.

[Energycore]

37 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

Lower latency only means lower latency.

 

Though in practical situations lower latency does mean the useful throughput will be a little higher, even though the peak bandwidth is exactly the same.

Ah, I seem to have misunderstood how RAM works. Cheers.

 

Is there a way to measure the impact of lower latency on actual computing experience?

[Sakkura]

8 hours ago, Energycore said:

Ah, I seem to have misunderstood how RAM works. Cheers.

 

Is there a way to measure the impact of lower latency on actual computing experience?

Benchmarking, I guess, it's just hard to find much data.

[Energycore]

16 hours ago, Sakkura said:

Benchmarking, I guess, it's just hard to find much data.

So 2133MHz DDR3 has lower latency than 2133MHz DDR4

 

I'll try to figure out a way to bench on real world programs and stuff like geekbench / PCMark

 

As soon as I can afford a DDR4 machine that is

[Sakkura]

7 hours ago, Energycore said:

So 2133MHz DDR3 has lower latency than 2133MHz DDR4

At least when the DDR3 is CL10 and the DDR4 is CL15.

[Nena Trinity]

3 hours ago, Sakkura said:

At least when the DDR3 is CL10 and the DDR4 is CL15.

2133MHz can be found in CL9 flavor! :Q

[Sintezza]

Ah Digital Foundry overhyped nonsense "again"

 

I suppose that DF did not mention anything about terrible stutter that you might experiance in certain AAA games, due the lack of physical cores on the core i3.

Causing the cpu sitting at its max limmit all the time.

 

[arch_linuxos]

On 7/30/2016 at 1:29 AM, Energycore said:

This would be just gaming, but tests by Digitalfoundry showed memory bandwidth to matter quite a bit - so much so that a steck i3 + fast RAM gave out more fps than a OC i3 + 2133MHz RAM

Ram speed matters a lot if you're using the iGPU. If you have a GPU, ram speed does not really matter. I'd get skylake and ddr4 - the improvement from skylake is worth any "decrease" from the ram. You'll end up seeing higher FPS anyway, and it's not like DDR4 is bad - it's quite amazing.

[typographie]

14 hours ago, Energycore said:

So 2133MHz DDR3 has lower latency than 2133MHz DDR4

 

I'll try to figure out a way to bench on real world programs and stuff like geekbench / PCMark

 

As soon as I can afford a DDR4 machine that is

Some benchmarks do exist, but they're somewhat inconclusive.

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8959/ddr4-haswell-e-scaling-review-2133-to-3200-with-gskill-corsair-adata-and-crucial/8

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/70775-intel-skylake-ddr3-vs-ddr4-comparison-4.html
(they actually used DDR3-2400 and DDR4-2400)

http://www.techspot.com/news/62129-ddr3-vs-ddr4-raw-bandwidth-numbers.html

 

It's usually too close to call and highly specific to each application, though I supposed that in itself means that lower latency does not always give DDR3 an automatic win. It's worth pointing out that WinRAR, probably the most memory-intensive thing tested by both Anandtech and Hardware Canucks, seems to signficantly favor DDR4 over DDR3 even at the same frequency.

[Energycore]

2 hours ago, typographie said:

Some benchmarks do exist, but they're somewhat inconclusive.

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8959/ddr4-haswell-e-scaling-review-2133-to-3200-with-gskill-corsair-adata-and-crucial/8

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/70775-intel-skylake-ddr3-vs-ddr4-comparison-4.html
(they actually used DDR3-2400 and DDR4-2400)

http://www.techspot.com/news/62129-ddr3-vs-ddr4-raw-bandwidth-numbers.html

 

It's usually too close to call and highly specific to each application, though I supposed that in itself means that lower latency does not always give DDR3 an automatic win. It's worth pointing out that WinRAR, probably the most memory-intensive thing tested by both Anandtech and Hardware Canucks, seems to signficantly favor DDR4 over DDR3 even at the same frequency.

The one thing I found about DDR4 is that on the hardware side, it stores twice as much memory per bank when compared to DDR3. Perhaps that makes a difference somehow

3 hours ago, arch_linuxos said:

Ram speed matters a lot if you're using the iGPU. If you have a GPU, ram speed does not really matter. I'd get skylake and ddr4 - the improvement from skylake is worth any "decrease" from the ram. You'll end up seeing higher FPS anyway, and it's not like DDR4 is bad - it's quite amazing.

No I agree, I asked the question more because of people who already own DDR3 systems and might snag some more fps for $35 which is what 8GB of DDR3-2133 C10 is priced at the time of writing of the OP.

[Energycore]

3 hours ago, Sintezza said:

Ah Digital Foundry overhyped nonsense "again"

 

I suppose that DF did not mention anything about terrible stutter that you might experiance in certain AAA games, due the lack of physical cores on the core i3.

Causing the cpu sitting at its max limmit all the time.

 

I honestly only recommend BCLK OC for people who want to pay $70 less and get an i5-6400

 

Because yes, 2HT cores hasn't been enough for a high-end gaming experience since a while ago