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There was a time when a good kit of memory cost as much as a few weeks salary … how times have changed. With the recent earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan many analysts had predicted that memory prices would rise. While they might still increase by the end of the year, G.Skill are on a selling rampage, offering 2133mhz gaming memory for only £50 inc vat in the UK. Is this the enthusiast upgrade bargain of the year?
G.Skill have been very active in recent months, offering a wide variety of memory configurations for every possible demand. The 2133mhz RipjawsX kit we are reviewing today is not only a CAS 9 product, but it is supplied with a high quality, eye catching heatspreader design.
G.Skill RipjawsX 4GB DDR3-2133mhz Specification list:
Designed For 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ Processors
| System | Desktop |
| System Type | DDR3 |
| M/B Chipset | Intel Z68
Intel P67 |
| CAS Latency | 9-11-9-28-2N |
| Capacity | 4GB (2GB x2) |
| Speed | DDR3-2133 (PC3 17000) |
| Test Voltage | 1.6 Volts |
| Height | 40 mm / 1.58 inch |
| Registered/Unbuffered | Unbuffered |
| Error Checking | Non-ECC |
| Type | 240-pin DIMM |
| Warranty | Lifetime |
|
Qualified Motherboards List
|
|
| ASUS | P8Z68 DELUXE |
| ASUS | P8Z68-V PRO |
| ASUS | P8Z68-V |
| ASUS | Maximus IV Extreme |
| ASUS | SABERTOOTH P67 |
| ASUS | P8P67 DELUXE |
| ASUS | P8P67 EVO |
| ASUS | P8P67 PRO |
| ASUS | P8P67-M PRO |
| ASUS | P8P67-M |
| ASUS | P8P67 |
| Gigabyte | GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 |
| Gigabyte | GA-Z68X-UD5-B3 |
| Gigabyte | GA-P67A-UD7 |
| Gigabyte | GA-P67A-UD5 |
| MSI | P67-GD65 (Bios Ver 1.B) |
| MSI | P67-GD55 (Bios Ver 1.B) |
| MSI | P67-GD53 (Bios Ver 1.B) |
| ASRock | Fatal1ty P67 Professional |
| ASRock | P67 Extreme 6 |
| ASRock | P67 Extreme 4 |
| Biostar | TP67XE |
The G.Skill RipjawsX 4GB DDR 2133mhz kit arrives in a standard blister pack with the product on full display. Not a bad thing, especially when the heat spreaders are finished in bright red.
The heatspreaders are a great size, they are only slightly larger than the DIMM PCB structure, but not that big that they interfere with the fitting of large CPU coolers, such as the Noctua NH D14.
The heatspreaders are easy to remove, with a simple catch mechanism at top and adhesive thermal tape on the insides. The PCB design is pure black which is extremely attractive.
Today, we are using the excellent Asus P8P67 Deluxe motherboard.
The memory was immediately detected and a voltage of 1.65 was applied. Overclocking memory with today's boards isn't quite as versatile as it used to be due to Sandybridge platform changes.
The memory speed was accessible via the pop down frequency panel in the bios as seen in the image above left. We tried to tighten RAS to CAS Latency timings to 9 and then 10, but the system wouldn't boot, even with extra voltage.
System Validation is available here.
Even with extra voltage we couldn't get the generalised timings tighter, although we did get the Command Rate to 1T. We managed to overclock the memory to 2230mhz via FSB overclocking, but it made little, if any difference to the results. We are therefore concentrating the review on the default ‘2133mhz' profile settings in the bios, and by manually adjusting the command rate to 1T.
Test System:
CPU: Intel Core i7 2600k @ 4,388mhz
Motherboard: Asus P8P67 Deluxe
Cooler: Thermaltake Frio OCK
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10 GT
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Graphics: AMD HD6850
Hard Drives: Intel 128GB SSD (Boot), Samsung 2TB (storage), Crucial 128GB SSD.
Comparison memory:
No Brand DDR3 1333mhz 4GB 9-9-9-24
No brand DDR3 1600mhz 4GB 9-9-9-24
Software:
SiSoft Sandra
Adobe Photoshop CS5 64 bit
3D Studio Max 2011
Aida 64 Extreme Edition
MaxMemm
This version of the script has been thoroughly tested on Adobe Photoshop CS5 and CS4 and is compatible with Photoshop 7. It is important to document however that different versions of Photoshop give different end results. Adobe have been fine tuning the program over the years and enhancing specific filters and algorithms for better performance (some filters were rewritten during the CS2 time period). This means ultimately that comparing times with users running other versions of Photoshop is not going to give consistent results.
All results were gained from Adobe Photoshop CS5 64bit exe on Windows 7 64 bit ultimate and are marked in seconds. Lower times are better.
| KitGuru PS Bench 1(4) |
Standard
1333mhz 9-9-9-24 |
Standard
1600 mhz 9-9-9-24 |
G.Skill
2133mhz 9-11-9-28 |
| 1. Texturiser (1) | 1.8 |
1.7
|
1.7
|
| 2. CMYK | 1.9 |
1.9
|
1.9
|
| 3. RGB |
1.8
|
1.9
|
1.8
|
| 4. Ink outlines |
27.1
|
27.0
|
26.8
|
| 5. Dust & Stratches |
2.9
|
2.7
|
2.7
|
| 6. Watercolor |
25.6
|
25.4
|
25.0
|
| 7. Texturiser (2) |
1.8
|
1.7
|
1.7
|
| 8. Stained Glass |
18.9
|
18.8 |
18.3
|
| 9. Mosiac Tiles |
12.3
|
12.1
|
12.0
|
| 10. Extrude |
154.2
|
153.7
|
153.2
|
| 11. Rough Pastels |
10.8
|
10.7
|
10.6
|
| 12. Smart Blur |
88.2
|
88.3
|
87.9
|
| 13. Underpainting |
31.4
|
31.3
|
31.0
|
| 14. Mosiac Tiles |
11.8
|
11.7
|
11.4
|
| 15. Spherize |
2.2
|
2.2
|
2.2
|
| 16. Palette Knife |
18.7
|
18.6
|
18.3
|
| 17. Sponge |
36.5
|
36.5
|
36.2
|
| 18. Smudge Stick |
11.3
|
11.3
|
11.2
|
| Total: |
459.2
|
457.5
|
453.9
|
Memory bandwidth has a reasonable impact on Photoshop CS5 performance, although the differences would be hard to see under real world circumstances. Still a saving of around 5 seconds when moving from standard 1333mhz to 2133mhz RipjawsX branded memory, is a decent time saving.
AIDA64 Extreme Edition is a streamlined Windows diagnostic and benchmarking software for home users. AIDA64 Extreme Edition provides a wide range of features to assist in overclocking, hardware error diagnosis, stress testing, and sensor monitoring. It has unique capabilities to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives. AIDA64 is compatible with all current 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows operating systems, including Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.
Performance increases are noticeable when moving up to the 2133mhz memory, especially when looking at the 1333mhz product which would be included as standard now in many system builds.
SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.
Sandra is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.
It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.
Native ports for all major operating systems are available:
- Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
- Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
- Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
- Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
- Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)
All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:
- SMP – Multi-Processor
- MC – Multi-Core
- SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
- MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
- GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
- NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
- AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
- IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit
Sandra highlights significant increases over the 1333mhz and 1600mhz memory on test with the G.Skill RipjawsX product scoring 27.37 GB/s.
V2011 is the first release of 3DStudio Max to fully support the Windows 7 operating system. This is a professional level tool that many people use for work purposes and our test will show any possible differences between board design today.
Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011 software offers compelling new techniques to help bring designs to life by aggregating data, iterating ideas, and presenting the results.
Streamlined, more intelligent data exchange workflows and innovative new modeling and visualization tools help significantly increase designers’ creativity and productivity, enabling them to better explore, validate, and communicate the stories behind their designs.
Major new features:
- Slate: A node based material editor.
- Quicksilver: Hardware renderer with multithreaded rendering engine that utilizes both CPU and GPU.
- Extended Graphite Modeling Toolset
- 3ds Max Composite: A HDRI-capable compositor based on Autodesk Toxik.
- Viewport Canvas toolset for 3D and 2D texture painting directly in the viewport
- Object Painting: use 3D geometry as ‘brushes’ on other geometry
- Character Animation Toolkit (CAT): now integrated as part of the base package
- Autodesk Material Library: Over 1200 new photometrically accurate shaders
- Additional file format support: includes native support for Sketchup, Inventor
- FBX file linking
- Save to Previous Release (2010)
We render a KitGuru custom created scene at 1920×1080 and record the time taken, lower is better.
When we increase the memory bandwidth and efficiency, the time taken to complete the overall render is reduced by several seconds. This seems like a minor amount on such a relatively small rendering process, but over the course of a week, many hours would be potentially saved.
MaxxMem2 PreView is a handy, free program to rate memory performance. It can be downloaded over here
Benefits are easily seen, especially in the memory read and copy tests, highlighting potential gains from moving to higher specification memory.
We wanted to review the G.Skill RipjawsX 4GB 2133mhz kit today because the crazy price point in the UK means that many people are going to jump onboard the ‘high performance' memory bandwagon. We also wanted to check in case there was something seriously amiss with the product. Because in case you missed it, this bundle deal is retailing for only £50 inc vat.
Our testing has indicated that G.Skill RipjawsX 4GB memory is a hell of a performer, giving bandwidth benefits to the end user under a variety of real world situations. The eye catching red heatspreader design also deserves a special mention, because unlike some competiting products it won't restrict the use of high mass CPU coolers, such as the Noctua NH D14. This is always a point worth making.
There doesn't appear to be much room for overclocking, but this really won't affect the majority of users on Sandybridge, as they will simply toggle the 2133mhz XMP profile for maximum performance and compatibility.
For the price however it is impossible to fault the RipjawsX 4GB 2133mhz kit, at £50 you are able to achieve performance levels that a few years ago were unattainable. Just be sure to get this deal quickly as we can forsee a jump in DDR3 pricing over the coming months.
Pros:
- heatspreader design isn't intrusive with a system build
- the red colour is very attractive
- price point is unbeatable
Cons:
- none we can think of
Kitguru says: How G.Skill are making any money is a question for another day.
