Ask Me Anything - Official G.SKILL Representatives

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jpishgar

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Tom's Hardware Ask Me Anything - G.SKILL
Ever wanted to ask one of the big hardware or software giants something directly? Why’d they do that? Where’d the idea come from for that last product? What’s in store next? Well, now you have the chance!

Tom’s Hardware is proud to announce a follow-up of our brand new community features – ASK ME ANYTHING.

On Wednesday, September 25th, we’ll be hosting the next in a series of Tom’s Hardware Ask Me Anythings, and our guests will be official representatives from G.SKILL!

This thread will be unlocked, open and live for 24 hours starting at 9:00 p.m. eastern on September 25th, and questions will be moderated and supervised by Tom’s Community Manager, Joe Pishgar, and a full team of Senior Moderators.

Ask Me Anything Rules
• No tech support questions, as these require in-depth personal follow-up and diagnostics.
• All Rules of Conduct apply.
• Keep questions direct and to the point.
• Avoid opinion bias - ie: "Why are all your products awesome/bad/smelly?"
• Be respectful of our guests, no insults, no leading questions.
• Do not post duplicate questions, or repost your question multiple times.
• Not all questions may be answered. Questions may not be answered in the order in which they are received or posted.

Only registered users will be able to ask questions, so if you haven’t yet, be sure to register now for your chance to participate!

The official representatives will reply periodically over the time the AMA is active using a recognized and verified account.

Please join us on this date to throw your questions into the mix and ask G.SKILL what you've always wanted to ask!

What: Ask Me Anything – G.SKILL
When: Wednesday, September 25th, 9 p.m. EDT
Where: This thread itself!
Who: Kay, Product Marketing, Mark, Product Marketing Engineer and Tim, US Tech Support

This thread is now unlocked and the AMA is live! Ask away!!
 

jpishgar

Splendid
Overlord Emeritus
We have a few questions already from our article commentary thread for the reps from G.SKILL:

tonyzet asks-
Why and when should I pick G.SKILL over other companies?

Cwright7930 asks-
How do you keep your pricing so consistent through multiple ranges? Like your X series goes from 1600-2400 yet all remains around the same price point.

kevikom asks-
What is the future of memory? Not just with your company, but memory in general? I've seen a lot of possibilities from using so-called memristors to TSVs for stacked memory to combined CPU/GPU memory, each promising bandwidth. But in the real world, what will we see in the next couple of years?

bharatwd asks-
When can we expect a DDR4 3200? Also, with DDR4, would consumers require dual or quad channels, or will we be able to get the same bandwidth on a single channel?

damric asks-
How about some DDR3-200cl7 flares?

Formata asks-
Would it be possible to develop an online ordering system, where you could choose your spec of RAM and then select from a range of colors for the heat spreaders so you can match it with the color scheme of the rest of your system?
 
Does G.Skill provide motherboard makers with an extensive selection of ram modules to test and put on their motherboard QVL list. Or are we better of going to G.Skills website and see if the board is on the list for the ram module?
 

gskill hq

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Hello everyone!

Thank you for participating and reading the G.SKILL AMA! And lots of thanks to Tomshardware for holding this event, so you have the opportunity to get to know us!

I'm Mark, Product Marketing Engineer, and will be helping to answer questions in the next few hours. I already see some great questions, and we will answer them one by one.

My fellow colleague, Kay, Product Marketing, will also be joining us. Both of us will be using the same username/account, so to distinguish between us, we'll use different signatures.

-Mark
 

gskill hq

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tonyzet asks-
Why and when should I pick G.SKILL over other companies?

I think our customer- and fan-base speaks for themselves, and will1220 answered this question fairly succinctly here.

Not only are we the highest rated, our memory kit quality is top-notch. Quality here refers to two things: reliability and performance.

Our memory kits go through at least 4 rounds of hand testing before being shipped out, so we try to weed out all the bad ones before it even hits the shelves. Occasionally, there will still be RMAs and need for tech support, so we try to make these solutions available to the users. Just visit our website and look under RMA or Contact Us for more ways to contact us directly.

If you've been keeping up with the news on RAM overclocks, our RAM products have been beating, holding, and retaking world records in the past few years. This goes to prove our manufacturing, selection, and testing process will give you the best overclocking results and outstanding daily performance.

-Mark
 

gskill hq

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Cwright7930 asks-
How do you keep your pricing so consistent through multiple ranges? Like your X series goes from 1600-2400 yet all remains around the same price point.

Simply, to maintain our competitive edge on the memory market and to provide to all users the best cost/performance value possible.
 

gskill hq

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damric asks-
How about some DDR3-200cl7 flares?

The Flare series has been officially discontinued. So we don't manufacture them any more, unfortunately.

Perhaps you can try your luck on Ebay or Amazon?

-Mark & Kay
 

gskill hq

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Formata asks-
Would it be possible to develop an online ordering system, where you could choose your spec of RAM and then select from a range of colors for the heat spreaders so you can match it with the color scheme of the rest of your system?

We are still currently evaluating the feasibility and the possibility of an online ordering system.

Thank you for the suggestion. We'll take custom made memory kits into consideration if and when we come to that stage of planning.

-Kay
 

gskill hq

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SirProudNoob
When you're designing new chips, do you intentionally give them headroom for overclocking so people will buy them?

We don't produce the chips. The chips are from IC manufacturers, but we take those chips and put them through a selection process (called binning) and design the modules.

Then this is where the 4 rounds of handing testing comes in, to test for the most stable frequency/timing. And it just so happens that under the most stable conditions, there may be a little headroom for overclocking. Please note that overclocking headroom varies from kit to kit, so only the rated specs are guaranteed.

-Mark
 

gskill hq

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rolli59 asks-
Does G.Skill provide motherboard makers with an extensive selection of ram modules to test and put on their motherboard QVL list. Or are we better of going to G.Skills website and see if the board is on the list for the ram module?

We work with various motherboard makers and try to provide them with memory kits to test with when possible. However, they might not have all the latest models, so it's recommended to check both QVLs. As long as it's on either QVL, it's been tested by either us or the motherboard manufacturer.

If it's not on either QVL, or if the QVL is very outdated, feel free to contact our tech support to check for compatibility.

-Mark
 
I have a friend who is a programmer and emphasizes system stability. As such, he uses ECC memory. Now, I know that your average user probably won't require it at all, but I was curious as to any insight or opinions you may have about ECC memory, particularly in the sense of the market.

My main question: a lot of companies seem to be branching out into other markets, does G.skill have any plans for such ventures?

Lastly, and (slightly) connected to my second question, what plans do you have in store for your Solid State Drives?
 

gskill hq

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bharatwd asks-
When can we expect a DDR4 3200? Also, with DDR4, would consumers require dual or quad channels, or

will we be able to get the same bandwidth on a single channel?

At Computex 2013, we already have live demo'd DDR3 3200MHz on the current Z87 platform. With that in mind, 3200MHz under DDR4 is inevitable, but due to the fact that DDR4 is still under development, we are unable to provide a specific time frame for a DDR4 3200MHz release at this time.

You can expect to begin with quad channels when DDR4 is released. The bandwidth, of course, will be wider than the current DDR3 memory kits. Do keep in mind that you will still need four modules minimum for quad channel operation.

-Mark
 

gskill hq

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Sep 5, 2013
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kevikom asks-
What is the future of memory? Not just with your company, but memory in general? I've seen a lot of possibilities from using so-called memristors to TSVs for stacked memory to combined CPU/GPU memory, each promising bandwidth. But in the real world, what will we see in the next couple of years?

Excellent question. In the world of ever-changing technology, it's difficult to say for sure what will happen in the future.

Possibilities like memristors and TSV stacked memory are promising technology and methods to create better and faster memory products, but practicality on a large scale has yet to be determined. Implementation is also another challenge, since everyone has to agree to a standard for something to be produced and available to the market worldwide. The best we can hope for is integration of new manufacturing methods to increase bandwidth or density.

What's for sure is that the standard is DDR4 in the next few years. Introduction of DDR4 is expected next year, increased use of DDR4 in the PC market in the few years after that, and then development of a standard for future generations of memory is expected when DDR4 has gained maturity.

Realistically, only time will tell.

-Mark
 

gskill hq

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Calculatron asks-
I have a friend who is a programmer and emphasizes system stability. As such, he uses ECC memory. Now, I know that your average user probably won't require it at all, but I was curious as to any insight or opinions you may have about ECC memory, particularly in the sense of the market.

My main question: a lot of companies seem to be branching out into other markets, does G.skill have any plans for such ventures?

Lastly, and (slightly) connected to my second question, what plans do you have in store for your Solid State Drives?


About ECC memory, it’s a whole different segment of the memory market. Since G.SKILL focuses on high performance memory that’s geared towards overclocking and gaming, we direct our attention mainly toward non-ECC memory.

Of course, it’s possible to make overclocking and gaming ECC memory. But do you really want to? Higher cost and the need to use ECC compatible motherboard and CPU isn’t logical for end users, when non-ECC memory has a lower cost and has widespread compatibility on gaming and overclocking systems.

We’ve been exploring several options. At Computex 2013 in June, we previewed two gaming headsets. These headsets are going through revisions and development stages now. You can also expect gaming accessories and peripherals in the future.

Regarding SSD, we’re currently evaluating the market trends right now. It seems like PCIe and mSATA is the way to go, so we will be assessing the viability of expanding our SSD line toward those two interfaces.

-Mark & Kay
 
Hey there G.Skill. From what i know, most if not all of your ram kits have a more aggressive look or "gamer-esque". As i know of many people who would just like a plain and elegant kit of memory to keep their overall system more subtle looking, have you ever decided to release a kit with more elegant heatspreaders?
 

Hunt4Epic

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Sep 11, 2013
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I could be mistaken, but is there any non-ecc reasonable priced ram available that has a thermo sensor in it? If not, have you heard of anything in the upcoming ddr4 to point towards this being in the standard? Currently ram is the only major pc component, in the mainstream, that does not consistently have temperature monitoring available. Is this something you would be interested in pushing for?
 



The G.Skill Ares and ECO series can fall into that category of a more subtle, elegant looking memory kit. The G.Skill Ares series is one of our latest designs that comes in a 33mm heatspreader with frequencies reaching up to DDR3-2400. Several models have an aggressive look or color because that is generally what extreme users prefer in their extreme build. For the future, we will definitely consider fresh colors and designs to provide a distinctive product. The creative team is always coming up with unique looks, so definitely be on the look out for the latest G.Skill heatspreader designs.

-Tim
 
What other parts you guys make other than RAM. I don't see much of G.Skill components. Why's that? Anyways you make good RAM for good price. I am currently having a G.Skill Ripjaws 8GB 1600Mhz and I am happy with it.

Do you guys have any plans to make other components other than RAM?

If you guys do plan, then you are always invited here at India, we need good companies here.
 

jpishgar

Splendid
Overlord Emeritus
And here's another good one:

"Based on what you've seen in the lab from DDR4 memory, will enthusiasts be excited about the next generation of high-end desktops or is its tweakability limited?"
 


As of now, in addition to DRAM, we have SSD and microSD flash products available. We are currently designing and working on several component parts, so you should hear about them very soon. We are always looking to innovative and produce quality hardware for users. Expect great things in the new year, there will be cutting-edge products by G.Skill.

Thank you for your warm regards

-Tim
 

gskill hq

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"Based on what you've seen in the lab from DDR4 memory, will enthusiasts be excited about the next generation of high-end desktops or is its tweakability limited?"

Since DDR4 is still under development, the tweakability is not yet finalized. We're hoping it will provide enough tweakability to allow extreme memory overclocks and break more world records.

-Mark
 

gskill hq

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"What's the most radical cooling solution G.SKILL has tested on your memory?"

We don’t understand the question, so we’ll assume this is you're trying to ask: "What's the most radical cooling solution G.SKILL has used to test memory?"

We typically use only two types of memory cooling: air and LN2.

Air, because that's the most common cooling solution, and that we have to ensure all our memory kits are able to withstand its temperature under its operating environment with just cooling on air.

LN2 (liquid nitrogen), because that’s just one of the most commonly available liquid gas available to lower temperature for overclocking. (There was an interesting incident involving a broken AC system, and LN2 was used to cool down the office that day.)

We don’t use water cooling. And we haven’t tried cooking oil. Yet.

-Mark
 

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Hunt4Epic said -
I could be mistaken, but is there any non-ecc reasonable priced ram available that has a thermo sensor in it? If not, have you heard of anything in the upcoming ddr4 to point towards this being in the standard? Currently ram is the only major pc component, in the mainstream, that does not consistently have temperature monitoring available. Is this something you would be interested in pushing for?

Unfortunately, no, if there were non-ECC memory with a thermal sensor, then it would most likely have a premium attached to it. DDR4 doesn’t seem to change this fact.

Thermal sensors on memory modules tend to be on memory used on servers, where they need to be alerted of any temperature spikes to preserve data integrity and maintain uptime.

However, that’s not the case for gaming, overclocking, or consumer PC systems. Therefore, adding on a thermal sensor is an extraneous feature that isn’t useful for most people.

We find that it’s just easier to use an infrared thermometer gun for temperature reading during overclocking or testing.

-Mark
 
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