Application Test Results

For application testing I chose CineBench R11.5 OpenGL test. The intro of "The Gulag" from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (using Fraps to measure FPS). 7-Zip's built-in benchmark test, and the Retouch artists Photoshop CS4 Test, to see how the OCZ Blade ST DDR3-2000MHz 4GB memory would perform. First up: CineBench R11.5, this free benchmark tool by Maxon makes use of the same rendering code used in their professional "Cinema" line of products, and it performs several rendering tests to assess system performance. The OpenGL subtest uses a animated car chase scene rendered in real time, and reports the results in frames per second.

With test scores this close it is obvious that memory speed/timings have no influence on OpenGL, we should all know by now that higher end GPU's (even past generation) are powerful enough to handle graphics without calling up on the CPU or RAM for help. I think the 2000MHz score should be put down as an anomoly since all other results are so close.

For the next test I recorded FPS using Fraps during the intro of "The Gulag" level from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The test is run at 1680x1050 with 4xAA with all other settings enabled and texture settings on high. GPU in use is a 9800GT 512MB.

As we can see again, memory speed really doesn't have any influence over games any more, even with a card that is pushing three years of age. Let's have a look at some different applications now to see what really does benefit from faster memory.

Next up is the Retouch Artists Speed Test for Photoshop CS4. This program can benefit from both CPU and memory overclocks. Retouch Artists Test does a list of basic processes into an image similar to what someone would do to edit their vacation photos. There is some image resizing, duplicated layers, colors levels and image adjustments involved in the test. While this isn't a strict Benchmark (because you need to take the time with an external stopwatch), the results difference can be noticeable.

When we look at the Photoshop speed test results it's almost like we are looking at the synthetic benchmarks again, the performance to speed ratio is great up until when we overclock the RAM. I suspect that in this instance though, the CPU is playing an important factor in the results. At 2000MHz the CPU runs at 200x14 (2.80GHz) but at 2090 the CPU runs at 209x13 (2.71GHz) which would explain the difference in the top scores because Photoshop CS4 is highly dependant on the CPU also.

7-Zip is a very simple, yet useful application. How many times do you compress or decompress random files in a day? Well, 7-Zip has its own integrated benchmark which measures an average of KB/s compression. This application supports multi-threading, 64 bits OS, and it is very CPU dependant. We see again that increasing RAM speed will have an impact on overall performance but only when you adjust CPU performance accordingly.

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