PC Gamer Presents - PC Hardware Handbook - May 2018

Our test bed consists of an Asus Z370 Maximus X Hero for the Core i7, and an Asus X299 Prime Deluxe motherboard for the Core

i9. All memory tests were performed with either 8GB or 16GB Corsair Dominator Platinum DIMMs, with a CAS latency of 16.

8GB DDR4 Cinebench R15 Single/Multi

(Index)

AIDA 64

Memory

Read

(MB/s)

AIDA 64

Latency (ns)

Total War

Warhammer II

(Low and

Avg fps)

Middle Earth

Shadow of War

(Low and

Avg fps)

10GB WINRar

Archive Time

(Seconds)

Core i7-8700K @ 2,400MT/s 204/1,521 35,933 65 38/43 22/51 245

Core i7-8700K @ 2,666MT/s 205/1,522 39,418 53.1 39/43 28/53 232

Core i7-8700K @ 3,000MT/s 205/1,527 44,130 51.2 39/43 25/53 223

Core i7-8700K @ 3,200MT/s 204/1,526 46,802 47.3 31/43 34/51 215

16GB DDR4 Cinebench R15 Single/Multi

(Index)

AIDA 64

Memory

Read

(MB/s)

AIDA 64

Latency (ns)

Total War

Warhammer II

(Low and

Avg fps)

Middle Earth

Shadow of War

(Low and

Avg fps)

10GB WINRar

Archive Time

(Seconds)

Core i7-8700K @ 2,400MT/s 204/1,515 35,282 57.5 38/43 34/51 245

Core i7-8700K @ 2,666MT/s 205/1,532 38,936 53.4 33/43 24/51 231

Core i7-8700K @ 3,000MT/s 205/1,544 43,662 49.3 33/43 35/52 225

Core i7-8700K @ 3,200MT/s 204/1,541 46,153 47.1 38/43 24/52 216

32GB DDR4 Cinebench R15 Single/Multi

(Index)

AIDA 64

Memory

Read

(MB/s)

AIDA 64

Latency (ns)

Total War

Warhammer II

(Low and

Avg fps)

Middle Earth

Shadow of War

(Low and

Avg fps)

10GB WINRar

Archive Time

(Seconds)

Core i9-7900X @ 2,400MT/s 195/2,175 62,432 84.4 33/43 29/52 197

Core i9-7900X @ 2,666MT/s 194/2,167 70,065 77.3 36/42 32/51 192

Core i9-7900X @ 3,000MT/s 191/2,197 77,599 73.8 31/43 24/51 185

Core i9-7900X @ 3,200MT/s 194/2,177 83,063 70.3 34/43 26/52 182

BENCHMARKS

Memory Matters

FEATURE

HOW MEMORY SPEEDS AFFECT INTEL CHIPS

INTEL

When it comes to memory, over the years

Intel’s architecture has benefitted very little

from increased frequencies. Certainly, the

current mainstream platform sees little to no

performance increases when fixed up with

higher frequency memory with lower

latencies. When it comes to mainstream

applications, gaming, and even video editing to

some degree, if you’re sitting pretty on Z77 and

above, you’ll likely have enough bandwidth to

do anything you want, without having to shell

out for higher frequency kits for the additional

bandwidth. There is one area where Intel does

benefit from higher frequency memory,

though, and that’s file compression. If you’re

exporting and sending compressed files on a

day-to-day basis, memory speed does help

significantly. That said, it’s a fairly niche

scenario. All we can suggest, then, is that the

best thing to do when speccing out a new

system is to find a reasonable frequency (2,400

or 2,666MT/s) memory kit at a capacity that

suits your needs. We’ve recommended a few

kits as examples (see opposite), so pick a kit

with similar specs for as little money as you

can find. The good thing here is that unless

you desperately need the higher frequencies

you can shop around the different

manufacturers and you’re likely to find better

deals, because you’re mainly focusing on

capacity rather than worrying about whether a

particular brand works better with Intel CPUs.