Test System and Procedure
Methods & Tests
In our RAM reviews we keep things relatively simple. We put the RAM kit that is being tested into our test system and we benchmark it at its primary XMP profile using a variety of benchmarks and tests. Once complete we then overclock the kit to see how far we can push it in raw frequency terms, then benchmark it again using the same combination of tests with a CPU-Z validation of the overclock.
- Cinebench R15 Multi-threaded Test
- AIDA64 Engineer Edition Memory Bandwidth and Latency Test
- SiSoft Sandra Tech Support (Engineer) Memory Bandwidth Test
- WPrime 32M Calculation Test
- 3DMark Fire Strike Physics Test
Test System #1 (Intel Z97 DDR3)
- Motherboard – Asus Maximus VII Ranger Z97
- Processor – Intel Core i7 4770K at Stock With Turbo Enabled
- RAM – Varies By Review
- Graphics Card – Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X 4GB Graphics Card
- CPU Cooler – Corsair H100i with Quiet Fan Profile and Noctua NT-H1 Thermal Paste
- Power Supply – Be Quiet Straight Power E9 680W
- Main Storage Drive – Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB SSD over SATA III interface
- Chassis – Lian Li T60 Test Bench
- Operating System – Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
Test System #2 (Intel X99 DDR4)
- Motherboard – Asus Rampage V Extreme X99
- Processor – Intel Core i7 5960X at Stock With Turbo Enabled
- RAM – Varies By Review
- Graphics Card – Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X 4GB Graphics Card
- CPU Cooler – Corsair H100i with Quiet Fan Profile and Noctua NT-H1 Thermal Paste
- Power Supply – Be Quiet Power Zone 1000W
- Main Storage Drive – Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB SSD over SATA III interface
- Chassis – Lian Li T60 Test Bench
- Operating System – Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
Before we delve into any testing we would like to take this opportunity to review our test system and thank those sponsors who kindly provided us with test equipment to make our work possible. We offer our thanks to:
Intel for supplying us with a Core i7 4770K processor, which we reviewed here, and a Core i7 5960X processor, which we reviewed here.
Kingston for supplying us with a Hyper X 3K 240GB solid state drive, which we reviewed here.
Corsair for supplying us with a Hydro Series H100i liquid CPU cooler, which we reviewed here.
Be Quiet for supplying us with a Straight Power E9 680W power supply unit, which we reviewed here, and a Power Zone 1000W power supply unit, which we reviewed here.
Sapphire for supplying us with an AMD R9 290 Tri-X graphics card, which we reviewed here.
ASUS for supplying us with a Maximus VII Ranger Z97 Motherboard, which we reviewed here, and a Rampage V Extreme Motherboard, which we will have reviewed soon.
Lian Li for supplying us with a PC-T60A test bench.
Noctua for supplying us with NT-H1 thermal compound.
Software Used
Where are the 16GB/32GB DDR3 2133/2400 kits in the Fire Strike benchmark? I call shenanigans :
I’m pretty sure this particular kit uses Micron ICs going by the serial number. All of the G.Skill kits that used Hynix thus far have had digits 5~8 of the serial number be the numbers “3400”. Samsung-based kits have “3500.” This kit has “3300”. Of course that isn’t to say ALL F4-2400C15Q-16GRB use Micron chips. It’s pretty frustrating really that the OC memory vendors don’t keep the IC consistent for each SKU.