Core i7 Memory Scaling: From DDR3-800 to DDR3-1600

Normalized Results: Synthetic, Video, Game Benchmarks

We decided to provide the most important benchmark results normalized to DDR3-800 (= 100%). Keep in mind that we don’t list the benchmarks in which the performance difference is insignificant. The results always reflect percentage, while the legend reflects the benchmark unit. In the case of time results, 98% means the better result, while score or throughput results are better with increasing percent numbers.

Synthetic Benchmarks

Upgrading from DDR3-800 to DDR3-1600 (with low latencies) will result in a 72.3% increase in gross memory bandwidth. Unfortunately, most applications don’t take advantage of it.

According to PCMark Vantage’s overall score, you’ll get a 2.2% performance benefit when doubling RAM speed from DDR3-800 to 1600.

Audio/Video Benchmarks

The fastest RAM configuration only takes 96.6% of the video transcoding time of the slowest setting.

Game Benchmarks

Far Cry 2 delivers 2.6% better performance on low latency DDR3-1600; GTA 4 only speeds up by 1.5% when compared to DDR3-800.

The 8% performance increase in Left 4 Dead is nice, though.