System setup and notes
Specifications| Memory | Corsair TR3X6G1866C9DF | Corsair TR3X6G1600C8D | Crucial CT3KIT12864BA1339 | Crucial CT3KIT25664BA1067 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Memory capacity | 6GB (3x 2GB) | 6GB (3x 2GB) | 3GB (3x 1GB) | 6GB (3x 2GB) |
| Memory speed and timings | 1,866MHz, 9-9-9-24 2T | 1,600MHz, 8-8-8-24 2T | 1,33MHz, 9-9-9-24 2T | 1,066MHz, 7-7-7-20 2T |
| Rated voltage | 1.65V | 1.65V | 1.5V | 1.5V |
| CPU | Intel Core i7 965 EE ES (3.20GHz) | |||
| Uncore speed | 3.73GHz | 3.2GHz | 2.66GHz | 2.66GHz |
| Motherboard | Foxconn Bloodrage X58 | |||
| BIOS revision | G17 (22/01/2009) | |||
| Graphics Card | Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 512MB | |||
| Disk drive(s) | Seagate 500GB SATA2 7200.11 | |||
| Mainboard software | Intel Inf 9.1.01007 | |||
| Graphics driver | Catalyst 9.1 | |||
| PSU | Corsair HX1000W | |||
| Operating System | Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit | |||
| Approx. price at time of writing | £344 | £190 | £82 | £145 |
Tests
| 2D benchmarks | SiSoft Sandra 2009 SP2 (15.72) Win64 memory bandwidth
(float) ScienceMark 2.0 memory latency HEXUS.PiFast wPrime (1024M calculation) DivX 6.8.3 encode of 1.2GB file Far Cry 2 benchmarking loading time |
|---|
| 3D Benchmarks | Far Cry 2 v1.01, 1,680x1,050 4x AA, vhq,
ranch long demo. Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, OpenGL, 1,024x768 0xAA, 0xAF low Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, OpenGL, 1,680x1,050 4xAA, 16xAF vhq |
|---|
Setup notes
Using a stock-clocked Intel Core i7 965 Extreme Edition CPU, we're comparing the Corsair 1,866MHz memory to a 6GB pack of recently-reviewed Corsair DDR3-1,600 C8, Crucial DDR3-1,066, priced at around £145, and, to see if capacity makes much of a difference, a 3GB pack of Crucial's DDR3-1,333 RAM. Bear in mind that the uncore speeds are different for each setup.
One difference with respect to the gaming benchmarks is that we've increased the resolution to 1,680x1,050 in Far Cry 2 and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, to see if the system runs back to main memory more often.