News - Corsair explains: why quality coolers are essential for Core i7 PCs using perf

[HEXUS]

Corsair highlights the benefits of high-end CPU coolers, namely its own Hydro H50.

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[Scarlet Infidel]

This is an interesting point I hadn't previosuly considered. On a quick glance the 8-page pdf is actually fairly scant in detail, ill check it over again later.

Were the test conditions such that the CPU frequency remained constant but the memory speed was increased and therefore the VTT was increased to cope with this? This increase in VTT/memoery frequency caused a large increase in power consumption so the tmeperature increased.

If this is the case, then my initial thought would be not to run such fast ram. Having been out of the loop for a while I will need to look up some information. In the past, however, I have found that CPU frequency was far more important than ram speed in terms of performance. of course the cpu based memory controller may change this.

[kalniel]

If this is the case, then my initial thought would be not to run such fast ram. Having been out of the loop for a while I will need to look up some information. In the past, however, I have found that CPU frequency was far more important than ram speed in terms of performance. of course the cpu based memory controller may change this.

Actually you're even more correct - the triple channel bandwidth to RAM for the i7 is so fat that RAM speed is never a bottleneck, so it's definitely better to concentrate on CPU frequency only as increasing RAM speed hardly makes a difference.

[Scarlet Infidel]

So running RAM faster than you need to is going to increase temperatures without increasing performance. This in turn will reduce the maximum CPU overclock which is fundamental for performance.

Seems like a good advert of why not to buy fast ram from Corsair or similar.

[GaryRW]

I'm betting Kalniel and especially Scarlet Infidel aren't on Corsair's xmas card list anymore

[Scarlet Infidel]

I'm betting Kalniel and especially Scarlet Infidel aren't on Corsair's xmas card list anymore

I can live with that, as long as I get a birthday card.

[haveron]

This just makes me want to buy lower speed memory which will be bad for corsair. Seems this may backfire on corsair