DDR3 1600MHz misreported and giving low memory benchmarks

[smegoid]

Hey,

 

Was wondering if anyone has had any luck getting 10.5.7 (retail install, chameleon 2, etc.) to identify and use DDR3 1600 ram? This post suggests that it's unsupported: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...amp;mode=linear but that OS X should still run the ram at full tilt.

 

I'm not sure I agree. I geekbenched my system:

• Intel Core i7 920
  
• Asus P6T Deluxe V2
  
• XFX Geforce GTS 250 1GB
  
• WD Caviar Black 1gb 7200RPM
  
• LG 22x SATA DVD+-R
  
• 6x2GBCorsair Dominator DDR3
  
• Corsair PSU 550w
  

And got 7600, a bit below the norm for my mobo+chip of 8000-9000. I have comparable numbers on integer and floating point. But RAM and stream are bringing me way down (3700 for both compared to 4700-4900 for same build but with 1066MHz RAM.

 

Hmm, bing, just got the idea of trying to force my 1600 to work at 1066 in bios. If it works and helps the benchmarks I'll report back. Otherwise any tips?

 

Cheers.

 

UPDATE: Forced RAM to 1066 in BIOS. Still being misreported in OS X (still says DDR2 667MHz) and benchmarks stayed same.

[TechWiz]

I still think its just cosmetic and that there's something else affecting your benchmark....

 

But either way DDR3 is only partially supported now only because apple decided to ship some macs with DDR3 1066. You can't "Forced RAM to 1066 in BIOS" because hardware is what it is. All you can do is limit what you have available, but it will still be what it is, in this case a DDR3 1600. Maybe with Snow Leopard it will be all set and the Mac Pro will sport an i7

 

Im afraid theres probably nobody in this forum who can help you only because Apple hard codes everything for MACs not PCs and Macs don't use DDR3 1600 ergo it is pretty close to impossible atm.

 

Now if you want to be really persistent about it, i recommend learning some Objective-C, C and C++ then looking for the kernel source to take a crack at that or something along those lines.

 

You can also use OSx86Tools to "Modify About this Mac" and set the correct settings there but that is also purely cosmetic. Who knows maybe it will fix your issue as well since the tool has a detection tool built in to find the appropriate information to fill the gaps.

[KariNeko]

Hey,

 

Was wondering if anyone has had any luck getting 10.5.7 (retail install, chameleon 2, etc.) to identify and use DDR3 1600 ram? This post suggests that it's unsupported: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...amp;mode=linear but that OS X should still run the ram at full tilt.

 

I'm not sure I agree. I geekbenched my system:

• Intel Core i7 920
  
• Asus P6T Deluxe V2
  
• XFX Geforce GTS 250 1GB
  
• WD Caviar Black 1gb 7200RPM
  
• LG 22x SATA DVD+-R
  
• 6x2GBCorsair Dominator DDR3
  
• Corsair PSU 550w
  

And got 7600, a bit below the norm for my mobo+chip of 8000-9000. I have comparable numbers on integer and floating point. But RAM and stream are bringing me way down (3700 for both compared to 4700-4900 for same build but with 1066MHz RAM.

 

Hmm, bing, just got the idea of trying to force my 1600 to work at 1066 in bios. If it works and helps the benchmarks I'll report back. Otherwise any tips?

 

Cheers.

 

UPDATE: Forced RAM to 1066 in BIOS. Still being misreported in OS X (still says DDR2 667MHz) and benchmarks stayed same.

 

 

smegoid, I think there is something wrong in your system, because when I run geekbench I got:

Memory Memory performance 5245

Stream Memory bandwidth performance 6027

I'm running the same as you: 1600Mhz DDR3, Asus P6T Deluxe V2, Intel Core i7 920