Four High-End Quad-Channel DDR3 Memory Kits For X79, Reviewed
Table of contents
- 1. Complementing Core i7-3000 With Quad-Channel DDR3
- 2. Corsair Dominator GT CMGTX8
- 3. G.Skill RipjawsZ F3-19200CL9Q-16GBZHD
- 4. Geil Evo Corsa GOC316GB2133C9AQC
- 5. Mushkin Redline 993997
You just bought the fastest (and most expensive) desktop platform on the planet. Which company's memory will you use to populate Intel's quad-channel controller? We tested four purportedly high-end kits in order to find out which set is the best.
Anyone willing to drop one thousand dollars on a CPU probably wants to match it up to the best possible memory kit, especially armed with the knowledge that Intel’s new quad-channel memory controller is located within that CPU. How are we to know which kit is the best, though?
We left it up to manufacturers to decide which quad-channel kit they thought would be best, making it clear that our judgement would be balanced between overclocking, minimum latencies, and capacity.
With such general terms for qualification, we ended up with one 8 GB kit (made up of four 2 GB modules) and three 16 GB sets (naturally composed of 4 GB modules), rated at DDR3-2400 or DDR3-2133, and with extremely similar timings
| 8 And 16 GB Premium Quad-Channel DDR3 Rated Settings | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frequency | Timings | Voltage | XMP VCCA | |
| Corsair Dominator GT CMGTX8 (4 x 2 GB) | 2400 | 10-12-10-27 | 1.65 V | 1.40 V |
| G.Skill Ripjaws Z F3-19200CL9Q-16GBZHD | 2400 | 9-11-10-28 | 1.65 V | 1.20 V |
| Geil Evo Corsa GOC316GB2133C9AQC | 2133 | 9-11-9-28 | 1.65 V | Auto |
| Mushkin Redline 993997 | 2133 | 9-11-10-28 | 1.65 V | Auto |
We're going to go ahead and start testing on our end. In the meantime, check out each kits details on the next few pages. We promise that by the time you're finished reading, the results will be ready for you!
- quad-channel ,
- ddr3 ,
- memory ,
- review
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what happens if you mix sets? do they run at the lowest speed of any of the installed sticks? Hearing a lot of opinion that they 'won't work' and would like a proper objective answer to help people out there with.
and is it ok to use 1.65 V memory on a 1.5V memory controller, or am I not up to speed enough on SB-E?
yes. you use the qpi volts to ballance out the extra memory volts as you would on the old x58 i7's i guess you will have to stay withing the same limit of .5v of the cpu volts... but thats a guess.