| VisionTek Ultimate Performance 1866Mhz DDR3 |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Memory | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Written by Austin Downing | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Wednesday, 28 September 2011 | |||||||||||||||||||||
VisionTek Ultimate Performance 1866MHz DDR3
Manufacturer: VisionTek Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by Visiontek. Although it has been many years since VisionTek has produced memory they have recently started selling again with their Performance, High Performance, and Ultimate Performance memory kits. We will be looking at the VisionTek Ultimate Performance 1866MHz 10-10-10-24 (2x4GB) memory kit. Priced competitively at $80 VisionTek is attempting to enter a already crowded market. Benchmark Reviews will see if VisionTek Ultimate Performance memory stands out or just blends in with the rest of the crowd. Years ago using the fastest possible memory was the only way to get the full potential out of a processor. This is because in the days before Sandy Bridge getting the highest clock possible was achieved using a combination of changing the clock multiplier, and increasing the FSB or base clock. Because changing these also increased the base speed of the memory using the fastest memory possible was only the only way to push a processor to its upper limits. But things have changed since the Sandy Bridge platform debuted, the only effective way to overclock is to increase the clock multiplier of the K SKU's meaning that memory speed is less important for overclocking and therefore companies are concentrating on dropping prices, and timing to compete with each other. As prices have dropped, users have started demanding more RAM for their systems. Mushkin's Redline has been a well-received product for many years and now they have updated their Redline series to be compatible with Intel's newest P67 chipset. This means that each kit of memory has a speed that is divisible by 266.6MHz so as to provide optimum speed in a user's system.
Benchmark Reviews wants to be able to provide the most accurate information on the performance of components to its readers and therefore has a very specific way in which tests are run on components. For RAM, each set is run first run through Memtest86+ at its advertised speed to insure that that there are no errors. Once passed a combination of pure benchmark based, and application based tests will be run a total of three times each. Once the results have been acquired the worst score of each test will be thrown out and the final two will be averaged resulting in the final score that will be presented to our readers. Specifications
Closer Look: VisionTek 1866MHz DDR3Unlike cases, the aesthetics of RAM will not be something that a user will need to deal with on a daily basis. This means a user can pick the ugliest piece set of ram they can find and as long as it has the same timing, and speed will perform just as well as a tricked out set of RAM. None-the-less enthusiast with Plexiglas windows on their case may want RAM that goes along with the color scheme being used in their system.
For its external packaging VisionTek opted to veer away from a traditional blister pack for its memory and instead has used a Cardboard box with individual blister packs for each stick of memory.
VisionTek uses traditional multi-tined heat spreaders for the Ultimate Performance memory. None-the-less due to the lower voltages used on DDR3 the use of custom heat spreaders is no longer needed and it comes down to what design a consumer would like in their system.
VisionTek used a nice black paint with embedded glitter to help give the Ultimate Performance some unique flair. At the same time VisionTek did used a fairly traditional green PCB board for the underside of the Ultimate Performance memory kit.
VisionTek did not use any type of decipherable model number for the Ultimate Performance 1866MHz kit instead opting to use 400828 as designation for this kit.
One thing to be wary of with the VisionTek Ultimate Performance memory kit is that at 2" tall the Ultimate Performance memory kit may be too tall for many of the largest tower coolers on the market. RAM Testing & ResultsTesting MethodologyWhen testing RAM the preferred method is to remove as many bottlenecks as possible. This ensures that any changes in the benchmarks are dependent on the RAM that is being tested as much as possible. For this reason no games have been included because at the moment games are far more dependent on computers GPU's and CPU's, rather than their memory subsystems. Instead the tests used will be focused on being more memory intensive tasks such as fluid dynamics simulations, compression, and real-time rendering. These benchmarks will be run alongside traditional benchmarking tests that will scale more effectively with speed but will be an unrealistic indication of real world performance. In order to test each RAM kit in the most effective fashion a multistep process was required. First in order to verify the advertised speed each set of RAM they will be initially run the Memtest86+ for one run. Once no errors are found, Windows 7 Professional 64-bit with all of the need tools will be loaded. In order to make sure that fluctuations in other subsystem do not influence the scores, each test will be run a total of three times. At the end of the benchmark the lowest score will be dropped and the final two tests scores will be averaged. The test being used for benchmarking will be as follows.
Test System
Memory Test
Also because each IC produced is slightly different and will have different overclocking characteristics any overclocking results obtained may vary from user's actual experience. In the end this means that spending the time to overclock our system memory will be unbeneficial to our readers and therefore will be omitted from the results except for in special cases, such as when a product is advertised as having a great amount of headroom. We have recently introduced the Euler3D Computational Fluid Dynamics benchmark into our memory test suite and so I would like to give a small explanation as to what is being used. Our newest test simulates the fluid dynamics of a wing and therefore is very memory and CPU intensive. Each test is run and the final result is given in Hertz(Hz). For our purposes the final Hertz score is what will be used for comparing each set of memory to its competitors. It has been found that this benchmark is particularly sensitive to both memory speed and timing and therefore makes a perfect benchmark to add to Benchmark Reviews memory suite. Synthetic BenchmarksBenchmark Reviews users synthetic benchmarks to more effectively show difference between the hardware being tested. These tests are very sensitive to the most minor changes and therefore can highlight the performance difference that exist between different sets of RAM.
AIDA64 provides a benchmarking tool that scales well with speed but unfortunately does not respond nearly as well to tightening timings. Due to this the Ultimate Performance 1866MHz 10-10-10-24 kit performs 5.3% better than the more expensive Mushkin 1600MHz 7-9-8-24 kit in the Read benchmark at 21383MB/s.
One of our newest benchmarking applications MaxxMEM2 provides results that are more responsive to speed changes rather than tightening of timings. Compared to the Mushkin 1600MHz 7-9-8-24 kit the Ultimate Performance kit has 5.7% more read bandwidth at 22084MB/s and a 5.3% better memory score at 22350MB/s.
Using STREAM SiSoft's Sandra provides a near linear performance increase as the speed of RAM increases. Due to this the VisionTek 1866MHz 10-10-10-24 kit scores show an increase of 12.2% compared to our stock 1600MHz 9-9-9-24 kit. Application BenchmarkApplication benchmarks are a look at real world performance of the memory being tested. During this review we will be employing a combination of rendering, compression, and simulation to see how timing and speed of memory affects their performance.
Much like games that use DirectX or OpenGL to render their scenes CINIBENCH sees very little in gain by using higher performance RAM. This means that between our baseline 1600MHz 9-9-9-24 kit and our VisionTek 1866MHz 10-10-10-24 kit we see less than 1% of a difference well within our margin of error.
Using the benchmarking tool that was built into WinRAR 4.00 we were able to effectively gauge how many kilobytes per second our test bed was able to compress. WinRAR is responsive to speed and timings and as such our VisionTek 1866MHz 10-10-10-24 has to give up some of its lead to the other 1866MHz 9-10-9-28 kits still compared to our 1600MHz 9-9-9-24 kit we look at a 3.2% boost in performance.
The speed of Euler 3D simulation is obviously sensitive to both speed and timings. Unfortunately, for this VisionTek kit that means that it performs 1.4% worse than the comparable 1866MHz kits that we have tested due to its looser 10-10-10-28 timings. VisionTek DDR3 Final ThoughtsRAM is a vital component in any system and although VisionTek has created a fine looking set of RAM with its Ultimate Performance line it is ultimately let down by its inability to keep up with our less expensive 1866MHz kits with tighter 9-10-9-28 timings. It is nice the VisionTek provides a lifetime warranty on this kit of memory sadly the final nail in the coffin is the 2" tall heat spreader which drastically limits what CPU heat sinks can be used the VisionTek Ultimate Performance kit of memory.
Ultimate Performance ConclusionPerformance in RAM is about being able to complete real world benchmarks faster the competition. Sadly although the VisionTek Ultimate Performance surpasses our stock 1600MHz 9-9-9-24 kit it is repeatedly passed up by its 1866MHz brethren with tighter timings. Appearance is one area where the VisionTek Ultimate Performance kit excels with its beautiful black heat spreader that gives the Ultimate Performance kit a nice look without being overly flashy. The VisionTek Ultimate Performance is well made with no flexing in the PCB or heat spreader. At the same time each stick also has a nice heft to it helping the Ultimate Performance feel like it is built to last. Functionality in RAM is all about being able to perform at its specified speed and timings without any errors. To its credit the Visiontek Ultimate Performance kit is able to perform at 1866MHz 10-10-10-24 @1.65v without any error in Memtest86+. Even better VisionTek is standing behind the Ultimate Performance kit by providing a limited lifetime warranty to users who buy it. Priced for $80.31 at Amazon, the VisionTek 1866MHz 10-10-10-24 is a bit more expensive than the other 1866MHz 9-10-9-28 kits that perform better in the real world benchmarks. For their first outing into the memory market in many years VisionTeks Ultimate Performance 1866MHz kit is out for a strong start. If VisionTek where to give the next iteration of the Ultimate Performance some tighter timings and a shorter heatspreader then they could have a real winner on their hands. Even with these problems I have no problem recommending the VisionTek Ultimate Performance to any of our readers and therefore award it the Benchmark Reviews Recommended Product badge. Pros:
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Comments
The Patriot RAM worked just as well in an Intel box that I had. It can be a real crap-shoot picking out RAM to use.
Thanks