Memory bandwith more important then processorspeed

[Guest UlfB]

I read the forum and it looked like more than 25% (on an 8800GTX rather than GT. That is not due to the GTX285 on its own, but rather in a system with best cpu and best memory.RegardsSimon

Simon,I've made several flights and I might add that the performance and smoothness is very much better with this OC:ed 285 card than with the 8800GTX OC:ed card. I just flew through a valley in the Vancouver+ scenery and it was so smooth :( With my previous card the amount of trees on the mountains would cause stutters. I guess you need all your components to be top notch to get this kind of performance boost by replacing a 8800GTX with a GTX285. With my old pc (X6800 at 3.4GHz and Asus P5W DH Deluxe) I guess the GTX285 wouldn't have made that much difference. But you have to remember that all this come with a big price tag :( Is it worth the money? I'll guess it's not the "best performance for the buck", but it's a lot of fun :( I really wish that everybody could afford this kind of pc or even better!

[Guest simjunkie]

So does this mean that i7 users should be persuing higher Bclocks/lower multiplier vs. higher multiplier/lower Bclocks? It seems that higher Bclocks provide significantly lower Everest (ver4.6 beta, haven't experimented with ver 5.00 yet) latency numbers at the same or higher bandwidth. Or is it six-in-one, half-dozen-in-other kind of thing?-jk

[flying_w 58]

Simon,I've made several flights and I might add that the performance and smoothness is very much better with this OC:ed 285 card than with the 8800GTX OC:ed card. I just flew through a valley in the Vancouver+ scenery and it was so smooth :( With my previous card the amount of trees on the mountains would cause stutters. I guess you need all your components to be top notch to get this kind of performance boost by replacing a 8800GTX with a GTX285. With my old pc (X6800 at 3.4GHz and Asus P5W DH Deluxe) I guess the GTX285 wouldn't have made that much difference. But you have to remember that all this come with a big price tag :( Is it worth the money? I'll guess it's not the "best performance for the buck", but it's a lot of fun :( I really wish that everybody could afford this kind of pc or even better!

Hi UlfThe smoothness itself is a compelling reason to upgrade. I love the forests of FTX, but with my current set up (Q6600@3.5Ghz, 8800GT) it can be a a struggle to push the autogen slider to the right. I'll ride the year and see what hardware comes along, 32nm cpu and 40nm gpu offer lots to look forward to.RegardsSimon

[Noel 4,483]

". . . Stuttering/jerkiness from grossly apparent to subtle can be huge show stoppers to user experience and framing them as subjective in no way detracts from their impact on "performance."", and once a set of modern components are assembled, FS performance is going to be 95% CPU influenced. Once a modern 7200RPM harddrive/88-9800GT Vcard/4G-ram/64bit op system is established, any remaining 5% available improvement remains (only arguably) ram speed based. And intractably, any 5% difference will always remain only subjectively arguable.

So really, the argument becomes how much does ram speed, or some other mem sub sys element, factor into the smoothness AND IQ component of performance. In my interpretation of user experience, CPU power best translates to frame rate, NOT smoothness or IQ per se, though it does factor in.

[Guest D17S]

My understanding of frame rate has evolved to only count unique frames per second. Perhaps a new acronym might be helpful. How about "UFPS" or Unique Frames Per Second. For instance, when stutters are obvious but the frame counter is at 30+ FPS, clearly the same frame is repeating over and over. That's a stutter. The Vcard just repeats the last dataset it received from datapath over and over again, while it patiently waits for the next Unique frame's dataset. This data set can only come from one of two sources. Stored data from a ramstick, or directly from the CPU. Given this dynamic, it's hard to imagine how ram transfer speed (latency) could affect the - Amount - of data that is available to the Vcard, at least for very long. Ram is a short term storage buffer. If the CPU could not keep the ramstick "refilled" fast enough to keep up with that (speedier) ramstick's ability ability to transfer data onto the datapath, that ram-buffer would soon be depleted (and we're talking 'in a matter of nanoseconds'). Once this 'burst capability' was depleted, the system would be back to a 1:1 transfer capacity between the CPU and its users (ram, Vcard, et al). If ram subsystem "flow-through" was an - actual- pacing factor (ie, ram latency), faster ram transfers would directly translate into increased dataflow to the Vcard, ie, fewer repeated frames and therefore more UFPS. Users claim this is occurring, but it is taking 100% increases in ram subsystem performace to provide only subjectively arguable results. If this was really happening, a decrease in ram latency from 80ns to 40ns would produce obvious results. It doesn't.

[Guest Nick_N]

repeating frame? LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!OK... I'm not going there... I have seen some whoppers but that is some grade A prime cut BSThis is simple folks.. If anyone on a Q/C2 wishes to check this on their own go into your BIOS, leave CPU speed alone and reduce the the memory speed. Set it as low as you possibly can and dont worry about the timing just leave it as it is, remember the professor here said memory speed and timing doesn't matter or equate to much of anything. Reboot and fly your sim. On the same settings in a flight you know is smooth in a dense scenery area running your normal memory speed see if your typical frame rate remains the same.. much less the image and flight qualityand remember... a the professor says what you are seeing is VERY subjective. Just the suggestion that you have reduced the memory speed is enough to make you think the sim is not running anywhere near as well, including frames,.. but its all in your mind. :(

[GSalden 4,651]

reduce the the memory speed. Set it as low as you possibly can and dont worry about the timing just leave it as it is, remember the professor here said memory speed and timing doesn't matter or equate to much of anythingImho you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that slower memory will result in worse performance. Otherwise I would like to have my SDRam 133 mhz back..... :(

[tfm 169]

reduce the the memory speed. Set it as low as you possibly can and dont worry about the timing just leave it as it is, remember the professor here said memory speed and timing doesn't matter or equate to much of anythingImho you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that slower memory will result in worse performance. Otherwise I would like to have my SDRam 133 mhz back..... :(

Yes, you might think it would be obvious. But some people say that RAM speed is either irrelevant, or of such marginal relevance as to be insignificant. Nick is making the sensible suggestion that if you have a configurable BIOS, you can find out easily enough for yourself.This topic has been done to death on many, many occasions. Nick and others persuaded me to give faster RAM a try. And sure enough, in my experience, faster / well-tuned RAM gives appreciably better results. It's not like the difference between a 2GHz and a 4GHz CPU (all other things being equal): but nobody said it would be, and every little bit counts with FSX. Some people, though, will never be convinced: but that's their privilege and provided everyone visiting the forums gets to see that there is a contrary (and, I think, better) opinion then, personally, I couldn't give a hoot.Tim

[Guest simjunkie]

So does this mean that i7 users should be persuing higher Bclocks/lower multiplier vs. higher multiplier/lower Bclocks? It seems that higher Bclocks provide significantly lower Everest (ver4.6 beta, haven't experimented with ver 5.00 yet) latency numbers at the same or higher bandwidth. Or is it six-in-one, half-dozen-in-other kind of thing?-jk

Bump on this Q

[GSalden 4,651]

But some people say that RAM speed is either irrelevant, or of such marginal relevance as to be insignificant. Nick is making the sensible suggestion that if you have a configurable BIOS, you can find out easily enough for yourselfOfcoarse if you are having a "slower"processor and buy the fastest memory than this memory will not make much difference compare to slower memory.Bandwith OCZ DDR1600

[Mace 1,896]

So does this mean that i7 users should be persuing higher Bclocks/lower multiplier vs. higher multiplier/lower Bclocks? It seems that higher Bclocks provide significantly lower Everest (ver4.6 beta, haven't experimented with ver 5.00 yet) latency numbers at the same or higher bandwidth. Or is it six-in-one, half-dozen-in-other kind of thing?-jkBump on this Q

I haven't messed with an i7, but let me throw this out there:Let's say I have an E8500 overclocked to 3.9 ghz, and my mem timings are, say, 9-9-9-24 with CR of 2.Now, let's say I clock the E8500 to 3.8 ghz, but I can now run timings of 7-7-7-20 with a CR of 1.I'd take the latter setup in FS, probably.Is this kind of the overall gist of what you all are saying?

[Guest simjunkie]

I haven't messed with an i7, but let me throw this out there:Let's say I have an E8500 overclocked to 3.9 ghz, and my mem timings are, say, 9-9-9-24 with CR of 2.Now, let's say I clock the E8500 to 3.8 ghz, but I can now run timings of 7-7-7-20 with a CR of 1.I'd take the latter setup in FS, probably.Is this kind of the overall gist of what you all are saying?

Thanks for the reply Mace,I'm actually thinking for the same cpu speed. So for i7 @ 4GHz that could be 30x133 or 20x200, or any option in between. From what I've seen in Everest the 20x200 option shaves around 5ns off the memory latency. There may or may not be an actual "subjective :( " difference in the sim but theoretically it should be better @ 20x200, right?

[Guest Nick_N]

Thanks for the reply Mace,I'm actually thinking for the same cpu speed. So for i7 @ 4GHz that could be 30x133 or 20x200, or any option in between. From what I've seen in Everest the 20x200 option shaves around 5ns off the memory latency. There may or may not be an actual "subjective :( " difference in the sim but theoretically it should be better @ 20x200, right?

i7 is an enttirely different animal. It removed a primary bottleneck and unlike AMD made use of that move. The user will not see the same amount of change going from ie; CAS 9 to CAS 7 in i7 they would in the past however its still aways best to to run the highest stable memspeed on the lowest timing possible. How you get there makes no difference. When we talk about reducing CPU speed to gain memspeed, in GSaldens case he is already in a CALWI running 4GHz+ and 1600 on the FSB so his move to back down the CPU a tad to gain memspeed placed him in a better postiion with the application.

[Guest Nick_N]

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[Ben Johnson 3]

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