Dissapointing Performance with Patriot Viper Memory

[cegalavis]

I am ashamed that my first post is a question, but had no choice (sorry guys!)

Anyhow, I recently upgraded my computer, replaced the motherboard, memory and video card in what I thought was going to be a dramatic improvement, but I am a bit disappointed with the results.

My previous setup included an EVGA 680i mobo with four OCZ SLI-Ready 2Gig DDR2 memory modules running at 800MHz. The new setup includes an EVGA 790i mobo with four Patriot Viper 2Gig DDR3 memory modules running at 1333MHz. The new memory modules are rated at 2000MHz, but the motherboard won?t support four modules at this speed, so I had to bring it down to 1333MHz in order to get a stable system. The OS is Windows Vista x64 in both configurations.

I used to get 5.9 in the Windows Experience Index for memory with the 680i and DDR2 memory, but I am getting 5.5 with the 790i and DDR3 memory. I reduced the latency on the DDR3 modules and saw no improvement. I also tried removing two memory modules and letting the memory run at full 2000MHz by enabling EPP2.0, and still no improvement. Any ideas?

Thanks,
-Carlos

 

[Denithor]

Welcome to the forums!

Hope most of your experiences here are better than your first, though. You should have asked around before buying that expensive DDR3 (8GB of 2000MHz !! OUCH).

I'm guessing you are running an X2/X3/X4 on that 790GX, correct? Unfortunately you're not going to find many benchmarks of AMD chips with high performance RAM, for two reasons: those chips just aren't considered high performance and RAM speed has very little impact on today's systems.

Take a look at these benchmarks comparing DDR2-800, DDR2-1066 and DDR3-1600 on a Core 2 Duo system. There's a minor difference between the 800mhz RAM and the other two but not much at all between the 1066mhz and 1600mhz sticks. Today's systems just aren't bandwidth limited anymore (the IMC on AMD chips & Intel i7 and the large L2 cache on C2D/C2Q prevents system memory from bottlenecking performance).

Does your motherboard support DDR2 RAM? If so, send back those expensive sticks and get a pair of these kits instead.
G.Skill 2x2GB DDR2-1066 $45 shipped

Otherwise - RMA both the board & RAM and get a new board that supports DDR2 & those sticks above.

 

[TC91]

What cpu, and are you overclocking? I think you may have to increase the fsb (if you havent already done so) to get that score up.

 

[Jessica69]

From what I've been able to read at Xtremesystems, the 790i board had problems supporting anything over two memory slots being filled and running at 2000MHz speed.....they had to be downclocked to no more than 1333 with all four slots filled, as you've found out.

Also, the dedicated 790 guide to OC'ing at XS has been dormant for almost 5 months now (last post was 8/5/08) with no new posts as it seems LOTS of people have abandoned this chipset for more stable/OC'able boards based on Intel chipsets, or other versions of nVidia chipsets. The 790 seems to be a flash and gone chip now.......guess a lot had to do with the data corruption issues it had early in its life.

 

[Zap]

Hello cegalavis, and welcome to the forums.

Like the saying goes, there's no dumb question.

However, timing is everything.

I don't know about why the Windows Experience Index goes down (or even if it is accurate) but if you had asked BEFORE buying, I would have told you to save your money. As long as your memory subsystem is not too slow, faster memory can only improve overall performance by a tiny bit - not nearly worth the money. The only real difference would be if the faster memory allowed you to overclock your CPU faster (as is the case with certain Intel Core 2 Duo/Quad chips with really low multipliers).

 

[BLHealthy4life]

You are not going to be able to run 4 x 2GB sticks at 2000 on any X48/790i mobo...that is wishful thinking. Do you really need 8GB?? Use two sticks and run them at 2000+; the 790i board will support that...

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: cegalavis
Anyhow, I recently upgraded my computer, replaced the motherboard, memory and video card in what I thought was going to be a dramatic improvement, but I am a bit disappointed with the results.

Welcome to the upgrade treadmill... :laugh:
Like a junkie, we're always chasing that first high.