Five Overclockable 32 GB DDR3 Kits, Reviewed

Features
By Thomas Soderstrom
published

Eight gigabytes per DIMM has become de rigueur for high-end builds, even though you get the best data rates and latencies from lower-density modules. We test five 32 GB products to see if it's still possible to squeeze out enthusiast-class performance.

Overclocking And Bandwidth

We were really surprised that G.Skill didn't send in one of its Trident DDR3-2933 quad-channel kits to take on Corsair’s top-market Vengeance Pro. Unfortunately, a top data rate of DDR3-2600 isn’t going to help the firm win in this overclocking competition.

So, why would a company that does sell a DDR3-2933 kit submit one of its DDR3-2400 offerings for today’s round-up? Perhaps because I said there would be a performance comparison, and G.Skill knew something I didn’t about how this platform would deal with higher data rates.

The top three bandwidth numbers are established at DDR3-2400 settings. Data rates beyond DDR3-2400 require longer secondary timings, and the motherboard responds with looser tertiary timings.

Additional testing confirms that memory bandwidth continues to climb with higher data rates applied to locked-in DDR3-2400 timings, and that DDR3-2400 bandwidth drops to 25 GB/s when manually configured to DDR3-2666 timings. "Best Timings" in the chart labels only refer to the use of optimized primary timings discussed on the previous page.

I kept playing with the timings of Corsair’s top-overclocking modules until I hit 30.4 GB/s at DDR3-2800. That’s still a little short of the DDR3-2400 numbers, but it’s a clear indicator that secondary and tertiary timings are an issue for the Sandra Memory Bandwidth test using Asus’ Z87-based motherboard.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
30 Comments Comment from the forums
  • jasonelmore
    I've had the Gskill Kit for over a year now and i love it. All these other kits are late to the party.

    I use mine for RAM DISK, which is a Asus Program that lets me install games to my RAM and have nearly instant loading times. 10,000 Mbps, where as the fastest m.2 PCIe ssd's will only do 1/10th that.

    I cant wait for Broadwell because i need 64GB so i can put a full Battlefield 4 install (42GB and going up with each expansion) on it.

    Whats great is the asus RAM DISK program can move the installation freely without you having to mess with the registry or installation directory settings.
    Reply
  • jasonelmore
    also the Gskill kit is Quad Channel Compatible. i know it's up to the chipset to set channels, but some kits wont work quad channel.
    Reply
  • s3anister
    @jasonelmore RAM disks have been around for ages and is not an exclusively ASUS thing. Also if you actually NEED that much space on a RAM disk then you'd be better served by using an LGA2011 platform since you could easily drop 64GB in it.
    Reply
  • Amdlova
    i have used g-skill on my last 3 builds and work hard. never get an blue scren. but with corsairs i lost my count. i prefer use kingston value ram to buy corsair memory again
    Reply
  • Crashman
    13325424 said:
    also the Gskill kit is Quad Channel Compatible. i know it's up to the chipset to set channels, but some kits wont work quad channel.
    All of these kits are designed for Quad-Channel mode, but the Quad-Channel CPUs we have won't push the high data rates needed for a memory overclocking evaluation.

    Reply
  • jasonelmore
    @jasonelmore RAM disks have been around for ages and is not an exclusively ASUS thing. Also if you actually NEED that much space on a RAM disk then you'd be better served by using an LGA2011 platform since you could easily drop 64GB in it.

    The connectivity on LGA 2011 is behind quite a bit. I'd rather have faster IPC, and more than 2 native sata 6g. I wish intel would not keep it's enthusiast line a year behind in tech.
    Reply
  • mapesdhs
    I've used a lot of GSkill kits, they're very good, but one thing surprises me about
    the choice, namely the absence of the GSkill TridentX kit. I find it's more stable
    than the Ripjaws series, especially in max-RAM configurations with 32GB on Z68,
    or 64GB on X79, etc. I wonder why GSkill chose to supply the RipjawsX... I was
    going to say maybe it was just price, but TridentX is cheaper now, at least in the
    UK anyway, but even if it cost more I'd still always recommend the TridentX if a
    buyer can afford it. Note the TridentX is CL10 vs. the RipjawsX's CL11. Here's my
    config with two TridentX 2400 kits, set for the moment at 2133 as that was my
    target speed (at the time it was cheaper than buying native 2133 kits, and I've
    not had a chance yet to optimise at 2400):

    http://valid.canardpc.com/r9ibvb

    Ian.

    Reply
  • Vlad Rose
    I have been using G.Skill RAM since the early days of the Athlon when no one had heard of the company. It has always been rock solid for me and have had great luck overclocking it over the years.
    Reply
  • kyle382
    good gravy those are some hideous looking sticks.
    Reply
  • damric
    I can run my G.Skill 2133CL10s at 2500CL10 rock solid on an Athlon 760K so suck it, intel!
    Reply