Starcraft 2 Kingston 1866mhz amazing results.

My 2 cent.

If your like me, having the need to play Starcraft 2 on the x220 with the ips screen and the intel hd 3000 gpu, here is some remarkable improvement using faster memory from Kingston.

All results are done with medium settings, with texture on high at 1366x768. FPS is measured at the start of a 1v1 using the same replay.

x220 i5, 4gb 2 dimm at 1333 = 31 fps
x220 i7, 4gb 1 dimm at 1333 = 34 fps
x220 i7, 8gb 2 dimm at 1866 = 54 fps
x220 i7, 8gb 2 dimm at 1333 (corsair) = 48 fps

The Kingston memory cost me $138 from newegg. It is absolutely worth the upgrade until I tested it with 8gb at 1333mhz and saw that it only provided a 10% gain. But going from 4gb to 8gb provided a huge gain, roughly 60%.

Is 10% gain from 1333 to 1866 worth the double the cost (corsair costed me $70)? Probably not.

3dMark06 i7, 8gb 2 dimm at 1866 = 5396

And if you happen to use a 30 inch monitor:
x220 i7, 8gb 2 dimm at 1866mhz on 2564x1600 res, medium setting, high texture = 19 fps
x220 i7, 8gb 2 dimm at 1866mhz on 2564x1600 res, low setting, high texture = 56 fps

 

ugh how about hte most important test 8gb 2 dimm at 1333

 

If 6GB @ 1333mhz doesn't improve significantly, then we can assume that 8GB @ 1333mhz won't either.

 

damn it. The intel site listed 1333 Mhz as the highest supported memory on my CPU otherwise I would have gone for the hyper x. Ugh

 

That's quite an improvement. Did you happen to change drivers between testing?

Also, would you be willing to benchmark your memory using the free software that was suggested here, and post your results to that thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/580869-does-x220-utilize-dual-channel-ram.html ?

 

Driver is consistent. No drive change.

 

where do you see the 6gb

 

Updated with 8gb at 1333mhz, more surpises...

 

hey that's more than the 2-3% performance increase most benchmarks have been reporting. good test!

 

Well. I had like 4.5 score in Windows Experience Index (both graphics) w/ the stock 4gb. I upgraded to 8gb DDR3-1600 hyperx and my score went up to 6.2 in both graphics. This makes sense, as your graphics RAM is shared with your system ram, so if your RAM sticks are faster, your GPU will perform better too.

With the i7, I can confirm that it detects the sticks and HWiNFO32 detects them as clocked at the right speeds.

 

I am surprised that 4gb to 8gb made such a huge difference in starcraft 2. Needless to say I am very happy with my x220 now, this tiny little pocket monster rocks.

 

Wow did not know that faster memory increase IGP performances. Legit review has a article comparing the performance of 6gb ddr3 1333mhz vs 8gb ddr3 1866mhz. They concluded that there is a 6% to 86% gain in performance with the largest being graphic intensive applications!

Kingston HyperX 8GB 1866MHz PnP Memory Kit For Notebooks - Final Thoughts and Conclusions - Legit Reviews

 

Anyone able to post stats on 2x4 1600Mhz for comparison?

 

Any chance you could do a 3dmark 06 with stock vs hyperx?

Impressive if it nets such a big improvement due to the shared memory between cpu and ondie gpu

 

Those are much better FPS numbers (in general) than I expected, based on all the smack talk of the HD3000 card. Thanks for posting those numbers! Don't suppose you still have the i5 for testing with 8gb (normal speed RAM)?

 

They got the JEDEC certification late. It's dumb they don't update their spec site. When I found out in the middle of my ram upgrade I ordered and inquired on slickdeals. I was greeted with negative reactions from people stating that it won't work or it will clock down to the lowest bin. Though this assessment could be seen from intel processor spec we are all left to find out from third parties that they have tried it and the ram does indeed run at rated bin.

Intel Fail!

 

Don't have the i5 any more, its been returned.

 

Maybe in a few days, right now I am playing the game to get some real world feel. So far much smoother than before (with the 4GB configuration) and the lag that I exprience before is gone. Huge 3v3 showdowns will drop it into the teens. Big 1v1 showdowns maintain a good 27-31 fps.

 

can you provide a link to the newegg site with the 1866 Mhz speed memory? I seem to be only able to find the 1066 and 1333 variants.

 

Excellent news - especially seeing that its a cheap, user-doable upgrade that we can do latter on down the track

 

Newegg.com - Kingston HyperX 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1866 HyperX Plug n Play Laptop Memory Model KHX1866C11S3P1K2/8G
i got mine yesterday and just found out that if i ordered today instead i'd get free trendnet internet security worth 40 bucks... crap!

 

so can you say that sc2 is playable (30fps+) on medium shader and high texture with native res?

 

Directron going for 127;
I paid additional 15 for USPS shipping to Canada.

 

After playing a dozen games I would say 8gb is a must have for SC2. With 8gb the game is totally playable at medium and high texture. 1333mhz to 1866mhz only nets another 10% in fps not sure if that is worth double the price.

With only 4gb in the system the game was not playable, as the framerate will dip to the high teens quickly once the screen is filled with more units. At that point it gets more laggy and choppy.

 

I'm not sure if it's worth it either... especially with this deal going on right now:

Newegg.com - G.SKILL 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Laptop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBSQ

 

Just ran 3dMark06, pretty good score for a integrated gpu. My 4 year old macbook pro 15 with a 8600 gt pulls about the same score.

3dMark06 i7, 8gb 2 dimm at 1866 = 5396

 

Hi dreamwonder

I have a x220 and i really want to buy the kingston memory, but i read somewhere that lenovo limits the sandy bridge. so even if i buy kingston, i will still be limited. is that true?

 

Well if you look at those results, it would appear that's NOT true.

 

Yep, the only noticeable benefit of increased memory bandwidth is gaming with integrated graphics. Though if you're up for a little hard work and a bit more money, you'd get even more benefit with a DIY ViDock.

 

what about overheating does the kingston memory heat more than 1333?

 

Kingston HyperX SO-DIMM Rams Certified for Intel XMP

2133MHz memory now. Though the chipset still limits the speed to 1333 or at best 1600 (by using a multiplier with the memory speed), so gains will be diminishing as you increase memory speed as it will be less and less bottlenecked by memory bandwidth. As for heat, I doubt it will be significantly more than a regular stick since power consumption of memory is among the lowest of the main components in a laptop.

 

Those considering the Hyper-X RAM as a iGPU performance upgrade may want to consider a GTX460-768MB eGPU instead. It can be made for $154-$174 that will get you 3dmark06 > 15k a plus can drive the internal LCD. See X220 implementation with 3dmark06/vantage/RE5/dmcv4 benchmarks you can compare against.

$89AR - GTX460-768MB
$65-shipped - PE4L-EC2C
$20 - ATX PSU, or $0 if can find a 12V/18A spec one lying around somewhere.

 

Exactly Awesome work, nando4.

 

I am not aware of any limition but heard alot of the throttling issue that same i7 x220 has, which I did not exprience while playing starcraft 2. As for the heat, they feel about the same to me.

 

So I just have to order the 8gb 1866MHz Kingston RAM kit & it will work fine with my brand new i7-version of the X220? or do I have to switch some settings?

what do you think how long the 2133-stuff will take to be availible in an 8gb-version?

 

Hey nando4,

Thanks for pointing out that a working eGPU solution exists for the X220.

May attempt it myself once a mature 5 GT/s implementation becomes available or if I can’t resist any longer I may just go for it with the 2.5 GT/s.

Your contribution towards the forum helped me choose the i5 2410 over the i5 2520 as I was confident that you guys "nando4 et al" would come up with something.

HD 3000 for work & media, eGPU for gaming, Excellent!!!

 

If we can get the expresscard work at 2.0 speed for the x220 with vidock that would be awesome, from what I read currently it only works at 1.0 speed and with a older firmware.

 

The memory is plug and play. So all u got to do is install it and it should work. I am not sure if the 2133 is plug and playable as I heard that the fastest jedec spec for sandy bridge is 1866.