EntriesPatriot Memory Viper Extreme 2x1024MB PC3-15000
Patriot Memory has become an impressive power house lately. In a previous review that I wrote, we saw how well the Patriot Memory DDR3 modules go overclock and I speculated that high binned products would excel just as well.
In our review of the Patriot Memory Viper Extreme PC3-15000, we achieved some remarkable overclocking results. This kit almost broke 1000Mhz, it maxed out at a very impressive 981Mhz. Keep in mind that every kit will overclock differently and your success is proportional to the hardware you have the your overclocking knowledge/capability.
The kit comes in one of the nicest packages I have ever seen. Instead of a boring clamshell, you get a box with a strategically positioned window to show off the memory heatsinks. You’ll notice that the standard heatsinks have been replaced with a finned variation. They are staggered and allow Patriot Memory to maximize cooling efficiently.
Since the kit comes clocked at a very high frequency, we can expect great performance out of it, assuming your machine can handle the high speeds. Unfortunately, Asus Maximus Extreme users will not be able to take full advantage of the XMP profiles, this is a problem only with this board. P5E3 users and other x38 and x48 users will have no problems.
Patriot Memory has really stepped up their game with this Viper Extreme offering. An unrecognized name in a lot of enthusiast circles, Patriot Memory has obviously decided that they want to adjust that anonymous position with an impressive initial DDR3 offering. The PC3-15000 kit we looked at today is amongst the highest kits for rated frequencies of DDR3 memory available and to specify this kit for operation at 1.90v on both P35 and X38 is very industrious. Patriot hasn’t just put a set of extremely fast modules out there, they have put together a complete package from head to toe.
A whole new heat sink mated to these lighting fast modules wrapped in a mature and elegant package are all the elements a high-end computer user is looking for. There is no denying that the price attached to this impressive kit is not something that everyone will be able to budget for but Patriot does offer a lower binned PC3-12800 that is very reasonably priced as far as DDR3 memory goes. The PC3-12800 kit comes complete with the same innovative Viper Fin heat sinks and pedigree that we saw today.
Despite the fact that it is all but impossible to quantify the ability of memory heat sinks, there are a lot of things to like about the Viper Fin for people to excited about. They are made of a new composite material and the very elegant design that we saw doesn’t hinder installation much if at all. To top it off, they just look good. They have clean lines, a unique color palette, lots of surface area for functionality, and simply impress when you first lay eyes on them.
The lofty rated operating frequency of these modules had me a little concerned overclocking was going to be limited to CL8 and that there wasn’t going to be much over-head, but, this wasn’t the case. The CL6 and CL7 clocks were not the best we have seen but above average and the overhead offered at CL8 was certainly plentiful. Aside from the small issues with the XMP profile that Patriot will have to fix, the PC3-15000 Viper Extreme memory from Patriot really impressed. For those looking for guaranteed high frequencies, get your gold and platinum credit cards out and ready for action.
Tags: DDR3, Overclockers Online, Patriot Memory, PC3-15000, Review
. 17 Feb 08 | Reviews | Comments (0)
Overclockers Online Upcoming Events
Today marks a new month, a fresh beginning so to say. It was a good month for Overclockers Online. We published a total of 7 reviews:Patriot Memory 2GB DDR3 1333 (PDC32G1333LLK) Thermalright Ultima-90 Corsair Dominator PC3-14400 Noctua NF-P12 120mm Fan Super Talent Project X 2x1GB PC3-14400 CoolIT USB Chiller and Cooler Master Real Power Pro 850W.
You can expect the same number of reviews for February, I already have all of the month planned out. Products you’ll see include: AutumnWave onair GT, Ultra Products Aluminum Hard Drive Cooler, BlueLounge POP, Cooler Master 690, Audio FX Pro 5+1, Antec NeoPower 650W Blue, Noctua NH-U12, and Zalman CNPS7500-CU.
Reviews that I expect to see completed include the Samsung CLP-610ND, Samsung 2693HM, Tagan BZ 900W PSU, Silverstone KL02, Mitron Hard Drive selector, HIS HD3870X2, Cooling Jag Programmable Mini LED Flash Fan and Patriot Memory Viper Series DDR3 1866.
If all goes well, the following samples are expected to arrive in February: OCZ 2x2GB DDR2 PC2-8000 Platinum Edition Dual Channel , Samsung T22, Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5500 Revolution and Biostar TF-7150UF. I will of course make every attempt possible to bring in more samples and get some contests rolling again.
Tags: Antec, Audio FX, AutumnWave, Biostar, Cooler Master, Cooling Jag, CoolIt, Corsair, HIS, Logitech, Mitron, Noctua, OCZ, Overclockers Online, Patriot Memory, Silverstone, Super Talent, Thermalright, Ultra Products
Partiot Memory 2GB DDR PC3-10666 7-7-7-20 Review
Manufacturer: Patriot Memory
Patriot Memory is not a new name in the game. Many of you may recall the days when we looked at some products by PDP Systems. After organizational restructuring, Patriot Memory was born and we’re pleased to welcome them back.
Today we have the opportunity of introducing one of Patriot Memory’s DDR3 products. As many of you know, DDR3 is the latest product available on the market and while the top end kits cost upwards of $600, you won’t have to worry about spending nearly that much for this kit. Our Patriot Memory PC-10666 7-7-7-20 modules are a great stepping stone for those looking to entertain themselves with DDR3.
Package & Contents
Memory packages have not changed since DDR was introduced and it looks like Patriot Memory has more or less stuck with the simple but effective blister package. From the package, we can see that they have also stuck with the tried, tested and true aluminum heat spreaders. Apart from color, they look exactly like the 2GB PC4000 ELK and 2GB PC5300. To the backside of the package we very clearly see the specifications of the modules: PC3-10666 (1333Mhz), 2GB (2x1GB) Kit, 7-7-7-20 and 1.7V.
If you’re new to the game of memory installation or how to install DDR3 modules, the included insert doubles as an installation guide, complete with pictures for your reference. The insert also outlines where to get support, there is no 1-800 number, and the lifetime warranty included in the kit. There is no mention about warranty after you overclock the modules and crank up the voltage supplied.
Removing the modules from the blister package we get our first good look at the sticks. Everything you need to know about the modules is included on the sticker. I’m taking a guess at this, but it looks like I have modules number 97 to come out of the manufacturing process. I could be wrong because I didn’t bother verifying this with Patriot Memory. If it is the case, then it’s possible that Patriot Memory is keeping tabs on how well each product performed during in-house testing.
Taking a close look at the PCB, you can see production name: B63URCA 0.71. These are BrainPower PCBs and Patriot Memory is not the only organization using them. Jody has revealed in his PC3-10666 review that OCZ is also using them. There’s very limited information about this PCB so we won’t know if it’ll be a huge success like other BP products.
The aluminum heatspeader used on the Patriot Memory modules are very low profile and will not restrict your ability to use any CPU cooler.
You can also see from the photo above that the modules are single sided, unlike the OCZ modules, and while the PDC32G1333LLK doesn’t have the same bling factor as OCZ, it’s all about performance.
Specifications
As per my standards, we’ll start with a brief look at the specifications. Here’s what Patriot Memory has to say about their own lineup:
Quote:
Patriot Extreme Performance (EP) Low Latency line is engineered to expand your gaming options. These modules are designed to operate at 1333MHz at 7-7-7-20 timings and are available in 2GB kit capacity. It is equipped with Patriot Aluminum Bladed Heat Shield Technology to improve module stability and performance while operating under extreme overclocking conditions. Engineered with quality and Performance in mind, Patriot Extreme Performance line is the ultimate solution for extreme overclockers, gamers, and PC enthusiasts.
Click here for a direct link to their product page.
Everything you need to know about this kit and what configurations you can buy them in can be found on this image:
After booting up my machine, here’s a look at the SPD table determined by CPU-Z.
Normally at this stage of the review I would be more than happy to rip off the heatspreader to see what’s under the hood. However, I don’t want to risk damaging my first kit and will hold off until later. My guess is that they are using Elpida or Qimonda modules for this kit as they have been seen in other Patriot Memory products.
Installation
There’s not a whole lot to show with DDR3 installation. Once you’ve seen the process on DDR or DDR2, DDR3 is no different.
There’s plenty of room for the largest heatsink you can find that will fit your motherboard and from the view below, you can see that the DIMM is no thicker than the tabs on the memory slots.
Overclocking
This is the section that really makes or breaks a kit of memory. After all, all memory at the same frequency and timings will perform the same. What sets a kit apart from the others is the ability, or lack thereof, to overclock… at least for me it is. The following is a complete list of components used for the DDR3 overclocking and benchmarks. Below that is a list of the hardware used for the comparison DDR2 benchmarks.
DDR3 Bench Setup:
Quote:
CPU: Intel Q6600 (G0 SLACR L731B434)
CPU Cooling: Thermalright HR-01 w/ 120mm Antec Trispeed Fan on Medium Speed
MB: Asus P5E3-Dlx Wifi-AP Edition
GPU: PowerColor X1550 SCS
PSU: Antec Quattro 850W
Case: Silverstone TJ-04
HD: Seagate SATAII 80GB 8MB NCQ
OS: Windows XP SP2 (with all updates)Memory:
Patriot Memory 2GB (2x1GB) PC3-10666 Kit (PDC32G1333LLK)
DDR2 Bench Setup:
Quote:
CPU: Intel C2D E6600 (L629B383)
CPU Cooling: Thermalright Ultra-120
MB: Asus P5B-Dlx Wifi-AP Edition
NB Cooling: Noctua NC-U6
GPU: Biostar 8600GTS 512MB DDR3 ForceWare 162.18
PSU: Silverstone Zeus 560W
HD: Seagate SATAII 80GB 8MB NCQ
OS: Windows XP SP2 (with all updates)Memory:
Buffalo FireStix 2x1GB PC2-9600
My stability testing consists of a number of programs including the following list.
The modules actually scaled much better than I had thought. You can see a rather large jump when going from 6-6-5-15 1T to 7-7-7-20 1T while there’s marginal benefit when further relaxing the timing to 8-8-8-20 1T. As we loosened the timings and increased the voltage beyond 1.96V, the success of the overclocking process didn’t improve all that much more. Here are some screen shots of the best overclocks I achieved.
DDR3-1480Mhz 1T @ 2.00V
DDR3-1680Mhz 1T @ 1.96V
DDR3-1720Mhz 1T @ 1.90V
We will now do some benchmarking at the stock frequencies and timings as well as overclocked and compare the results with a few DDR2 results.
Memory Benchmarks
Comparing the results of a DDR2 machine to a DDR3 machine isn’t exactly easy, especially when the two machines are so incredibly different. However, that’s the type of situation you might find yourself in when building a whole new machine. You don’t exactly expect to carry one part over to the next. With that said, the DDR2 results will only be available for your reference and I will not be commenting on its performance. To kick things off, we’ll begin with a few memory specific benchmarks.
SiSoft Sandra Lite XII – Memory Bandwidth
Lavalys Everest Ultimate 07 v4.00 – Memory Bandwidth
ScienceMark v2.00 – Memory Bandwidth
While all three applications came up with different numbers, the ranking is very consistent. At the highest frequency, the Buffalo DDR2 and Patriot Memory DDR3-1700 go toe to toe. At any frequency less, the DDR2-1200 has the advantage. It’s quite interesting to see how Patriot Memory could have specified these as 6-6-5-15 as it was absolutely rock-hard stable at this timing.
Lavalys Everest / SiSoft Sandra – Memory Latency
The latency is pretty much all over the place, the lowest latency at the highest speed with the loosest timing. That said, DDR2 isn’t even in the same league as DDR3. DDR2 pulls ahead by a few nanoseconds.
System Benchmarks
FutureMark PCMark 05
It’s not even fair to compare the DDR3 to the DDR2 results because of the system differences, so I won’t. Focusing on the DDR3 results, we see the high frequency looser timing (1700-8-8-8-20) doesn’t give that many more advantages over the tighter timed but lower clocked 1512-7-7-7-20. A mere 3 point advantage isn’t a whole lot to be excited about.
WinRAR 500MB Benchmark
Only through sheer luck did the results show the WinRar timings completely independent of memory type and CPU speed. What we do see is that memory performance has a significant effect on the result. FOr the same speed, increasing the memory frequency from 1512 to 1700 shaved off 16 seconds from the time.
SuperPi Mod v/1.5 – 1M
SuperPi Mod v/1.5 – 8M
SuperPi Mod v/1.5 – 32M
The ultimate memory performance application. As Jody once mentioned, he who has the most bandwidth rules SuperPi… okay so he didn’t exactly say it like that. Basically we again see consistent performance coming out Super Pi results as we’ve seen in the bandwidth reports. If we extrapolate the results, it’s clear that DDR3 can compete with DDR2 in SuperPi performance.
3-D & Gaming Benchmarks
FutureMark 3DMark 01/03/05/06
If you wanted boring results, this page is where it’s at. There are negligible differences in performance once the CPU speeds are the same. Gaming benchmarks are heavily reliant on video cards, so once you reach your GPU bottleneck, your CPU can only carry you so far.
Gaming Benchmarks – Crysis Demo (CPU) / World in Conflict
Once again, it’s a dead draw with World in Conflict and Crysis. The system is limited to GPU performance and we can clearly see that here.
Overall with gaming, DDR3 helps in giving you that high CPU frequency so it doesn’t become the bottleneck, but like all systems out there, if the video card is the bottleneck, the world’s fastest CPU won’t help you very much.
Conclusion
We’ve looked at a few numbers and the Patriot Memory DDR3-1333 has a good future ahead of itself. The bandwidth performance is amazing. If you buy Patriot Memory’s higher binned gear, one can hope to expect higher performance.
The Patriot Memory DDR3-1333 had a good amount of headroom for the stock settings. If you’re dying to enter the DDR3 game but don’t have a lot of cash to your name, this wouldn’t be a bad place to start. DDR3 is still very expensive regardless of whom you buy from, but building a new machine around DDR3 will delay future upgrading… at least for a little while.
Advantages
Disadvantages
I would like to thank Patriot Memory for making this review possible.
Here’s a link to the original review I wrote at Overclockers Online.
Tags: DDR3, Overclockers Online, Patriot Memory
. 04 Jan 08 | Reviews | Comments (0)
Incoming Review: DDR3 from Patriot Memory and Corsair
I’ve exchanged a few emails with Corsair over this weekend and it looks like we can expect the hottest DDR3 modules to arrive at Overclockers Online. Jody’s been looking for the TWIN3X2048-1800C7DFIN G modules for a while and I got an email saying we should expect a press kit in the coming days. You can bet this kit will kick some serious ass when it comes to benchmarking and overclocking.
On the topic of new DDR3 reviews, I should be getting Patriot Memory 2GB PC3-10666 (PDC32G1333LLK) modules sometime next week. That means I finally have a reason to go quad core and build a new machine. Q6600, Asus P5E3 with a new video card will be more than likely. I’m hoping the RV670 launch will drive the prices down.
Tags: Corsair, DDR3, Overclockers Online, Patriot Memory
. 12 Nov 07 | Reviews | Comments (0)
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