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.
