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AMD Phenom X4 Memory Controller in the Ganged/ Unganged Mode



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Professional photo processing


Test Ganged Unganged Ratio
Photoshop
Blur 0:06:14 0:06:12 -0.5%
Color 0:01:24 0:01:24 0.0%
Filters 0:06:06 0:06:06 0.0%
Light 0:02:14 0:02:14 0.0%
Rotate 0:02:48 0:02:46 -1.2%
Sharp 0:02:48 0:02:46 -1.2%
Size 0:01:02 0:01:02 0.0%
Transform 0:02:22 0:02:22 0.0%
Group Score 94.1 94.4 -0.4%

In this group the Ganged mode is either on par or losing by similarly negligible values.

Scientific suites


Test Ganged Unganged Ratio
Maple 0.025711665 0.0258 -0.2%
Mathematica
Internal 3.0290 3.0390 -0.3%
MMA 1.1388 1.1242 1.3%
MATLAB
LU 0.0851 0.0833 -2.1%
FFT 0.1593 0.1582 -0.7%
ODE 0.2710 0.2697 -0.5%
Sparse 1.7875 1.8073 1.1%
2D 0.3338 0.3368 0.9%
3D 0.5745 0.5702 -0.7%
Group Score 65.1 65.1 -0.1%

MATLAB gets close the "record" of 3ds max, but in general it's all same as in the previous tests.

Web server


Test Ganged Unganged Ratio
PHPCalculator 176 176 0.0%
PHPSpeed
Synthetic PHP 2866 2746 4.4%
SyntheticMySQL 2629 2624 0.2%
SyntheticRead/Write 1898 1884 0.7%
Real WorldPHP 4266 4051 5.3%
Real WorldPHP & MySQL 2472 2466 0.2%
Server 1877 1881 -0.2%
Group Score 99.2 97.7 1.5%

At last we can see some more or less significant values of up to 5%. It's interesting that they don't speak well for the Unganged mode.

Archiving


Test Ganged Unganged Ratio
7-Zip 0:02:33 0:02:32 -0.7%
WinRAR 0:01:23 0:01:23 0.0%
Ultimate ZIP 0:02:19 0:02:19 0.0%
Group Score 96.2 96.4 -0.2%

The difference is negligible.

Media encoding


Test Ganged Unganged Ratio
FLAC 0:01:13 0:01:13 0.0%
LAME 0:02:04 0:02:04 0.0%
Musepack 0:02:17 0:02:17 0.0%
Vorbis 0:04:42 0:04:42 0.0%
CanopusProCoder 0:05:17 0:05:17 0.0%
DivX 0:01:21 0:01:21 0.0%
x264 0:02:44 0:02:44 0.0%
XviD 0:09:42 0:09:42 0.0%
Group Score 93.3 93.3 0.0%

And in this group there's no difference at all.

Games


Test Ganged Unganged Ratio
Call of Duty 4 116 124 -6.5%
Company ofHeroes 55 55 0.0%
Call ofJuarez 46 46 0.0%
Crysis 19.14 19.69 -2.8%
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 112 112 0.0%
UnrealTournament 3 96 100 -4.0%
World inConflict 45 45 0.0%
Group Score 93.0 94.8 -1.9%

Games definitely favor the Unganged mode. At that 3 of 7 show rather considerable values. Call of Duty is this article champion, showing the record 6.5% difference between the Ganged and Unganged modes (Unganged wins).

Non-professional photo processing


Test Ganged Unganged Ratio
ACDSee 0:12:12 0:11:28 -6.0%
IrfanView 0:22:33 0:22:47 1.0%
Paint.NET 31151 30972 -0.6%
xat.com Image Optimizer 0:40:57 0:41:58 2.5%
XnView 0:25:24 0:25:53 1.9%
Group Score 82.9 83.1 -0.3%

ACDSee is another application rather sensitive to the mode of AMD Phenom memory controller. And it also likes the Unganged mode.

Conclusions


Test Ganged Unganged Ratio
PRO SCORE 89.4 89.0 0.5%
HOME SCORE 91.3 91.9 -0.6%
OVERALL SCORE 90.4 90.5 -0.1%

In general, this is a draw. With certain rare exceptions, we can't state an obvious advantage of either mode. Moreover, there are no trends or regularities related to application class, including single- and multi-threaded nature, which could at least conform to the official positioning of these modes. The 0.1% total loss of the Ganged mode doesn't indicate anything, since another application can turn it into a complete draw or even a victory.

Thus, our conclusion is brief: in terms of real-life desktop software, it's generally the same, in which mode Phenom's memory controller is working. There are certain rare exceptions, but their character can hardly be predicted (at least, based on our test).

As for the question if we were right, the 0.1 point (0.1%) difference is hardly a reason to start using the Unganged mode in primary tests. Especially as the Ganged mode is motherboard default, and even the 10 times higher value (1%) would still be negligible as a possible measurement error.


Memory modules provided by Corsair Russia.

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