Patriot Viper Steel Memory Now Available As SODIMM

The best-performing DRAM we’ve ever tested, Patriot Viper Steel, is now available in the SODIMM format. System tuners might need to work a little harder with these though as the SODIMMs aren’t available at the frightening DDR4-4400 rating of their larger siblings. They’re not even available at the DDR4-4000 we tested in a four-SODIMM kit a year ago, or even at the DDR4-3800 data rate of last year’s roundup. Instead of pushing for overclocking insanity, Patriot hopes its competitive pricing will appeal to the larger market of portable gaming enthusiasts that occasionally uses gaming notebooks and SODIMM-equipped mini desktops.

The pursuit of an expanding market for increasingly portable LAN gaming configurations is the boldest part of Patriot’s strategy. Understanding that few of the notebooks can even support the voltage increases demanded by the highest XMPs, the modules instead have a higher non-XMP starting point of DDR4-2400 for the slowest modules and DDR4-2666 for the faster models. A quick search of Patriot’s website revealed information for the DDR4-3000 kit that wasn’t specified in its press release, even though it was mentioned. And, as it turns out, that kit is the only one that even needs XMP to reach its rated timings at a close-to-stock 1.25V.

Patriot has announced immediate availability, which might be true by the time you read this. We couldn’t find these part numbers for sale prior to publishing.

The last and most confusing detail could be that even though these are dual-channel compatible, Patriot Steel SODIMMs will only be sold in single packs. So buy two?