Four High-End Quad-Channel DDR3 Memory Kits For X79, Reviewed

Complementing Core i7-3000 With Quad-Channel DDR3

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

Swipe to scroll horizontally
8 And 16 GB Premium Quad-Channel DDR3 Rated Settings
Row 0 - Cell 0 FrequencyTimingsVoltageXMP VCCA
Corsair Dominator GT CMGTX8 (4 x 2 GB)240010-12-10-271.65 V1.40 V
G.Skill Ripjaws Z F3-19200CL9Q-16GBZHD24009-11-10-281.65 V1.20 V
Geil Evo Corsa GOC316GB2133C9AQC21339-11-9-281.65 VAuto
Mushkin Redline 99399721339-11-10-281.65 VAuto

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!

Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.