DDR3 SDRAM failed to show its advantages in our performance tests. At least at this time, when the fastest DDR3 SDRAM modules available work at 1333MHz. However, there is another aspect that makes DDR3 indisputably better than the previous generation DDR2. It is the power consumption that turns out lower in systems with DDR3 SDRAM. It is achieved at least due to lower memory modules voltage.
To check this statement we decided to measure the power consumption of platforms equipped with different types of memory. And for the sake of pure experiment we decided to use the same mainboard for both platforms: Gigabyte P35C-DS3R that supports both: DDR2 and DDR3 SDRAM. Other than that the testbed configuration remained the same as before.
To load the memory subsystem during our power consumption test session we used SP2004/ORTHOS utility running in Blend mode. All CPU power-saving technologies were enabled.
I don’t think any comments are necessary in this case. DDR3 SDRAM is really more economical than DDR2. At the same operational frequency it consumes 6W less power in burn and 2W less power in idle mode. Although these may seem like pretty insignificant numbers against the background of the entire system power consumption, we have to admit that it is very cool to be able to save so much power by simply replacing the memory modules.