BENCHMARKRESULTS
If you’rebuyinga newsystemorupgradingyour
oldone, you’re already going to need a new
motherboard and the chances are you might be in
for a memory upgrade too, in order to either boost capacity or
speed. We recommend at least 16GB of memory for a new
system these days, as we see more than 8GB regularly being
used on a modern PC, meaning that a dual-channel 8GB kit
could be slowing you down.
Meanwhile, the optimal memory frequency is trickier to
nail down on Intel systems than on current AMD systems,
especially while the coronavirus pandemic plays havoc
with hardware prices. However, we’ve carried out some
benchmarks (shown on the right), to ascertain if there’s any
difference between previous-generation Intel CPUs and the
latest Comet Lake models when it comes to memory speed.
In the recent past we’ve seen little benefit of opting for
memory much faster than 3200MHz (effective) with Intel
systems, and our benchmarks point at a similar conclusion
for Comet Lake. There were just 300 points separating the
speed of 3200MHz and 3466MHz memory in our GIMP
image editing test, and a little more in percentage terms in our
Handbrake video encoding test, but overall, there was a far
bigger leap when going from 2666MHz to 3200MHz memory
than from the latter to 3,466MHz.
That’s not surprising, given that there’s a smaller
difference between 3200MHz and 3466MHz than between
2666MHz and 3200MHz. However, even if you account for
that difference, the scaling in performance by going up to
3466MHz is still minimal. The faster kit did win the test, though,
with consistently higher results, albeit by small amounts.
Cinebench offered a clear conclusion, which is that memory
speed matters little when it comes to rendering, at least with
this benchmark, as the performance gap between memory
frequencies was under 30 points. Finally, in Far Cry New Dawn,
there was still a small amount of scaling with the move from
3200MHz to 3466MHz memory, but it’s clear that you should
avoid frequencies of 2666MHz or lower, and definitely stump
up a bit more cash for a 3000MHz or 3200MHz kit.
Price is key though – in the past we’ve seen little difference
between 3000MHz, 3200MHz and 3466MHz kits. At the
moment, 3466MHz kits are a little more expensive compared
with 3200MHz ones - for example, Corsair’s Vengeance RGB
Pro 3466MHz kits will set you back an extra £30.
Our advice is to aim for 3200MHz, but if the upgrade to
3466MHz costs less than £20, then it’s worth the punt.
Also, bear in mind that many 3200MHz kits will overclock
to 3466MHz anyway, although as overclocking is always a
lottery, you shouldn’t rely on that as a cast-iron guarantee.
ANTONY LEATHERWHAT MEMORY
DO YOU NEED
FOR COMET LAKE
PROCESSORS?
1,920 x 1,080,Ultrasettings
FAR CRY NEWDAWN0 50 100 150100fps 131fps98fps 129fps91fps 121fpsGIMPIMAGEEDITING0 20,000 40,000 60,000 80,3466MHzStock speed 99th percentile Stock speed avgLower is better64,3200MHz 64,2666MHz3466MHz3200MHz2666MHz3466MHz3200MHz2666MHz3466MHz3200MHz2666MHz3466MHz3200MHz2666MHz3466MHz3200MHz2666MHz64,HANDBRAKEH.264VIDEOENCODING0726,719,702,HEAVYMULTITASKING0 100,000 200,000 300,000 400,200,000 400,000 600,000 800,100,000 200,000 300,000 400,293,291,283,SYSTEMSCORE0319,316,310,CINEBENCH R20 MULTITHREADED0 2000 4000 6000 80006,6,6,