G.Skill Trident Z DDR4-4000 Review

[Crashman]

Skylake's advanced memory controller makes overclocking easier, but are memory modules keeping up? We put G.Skill's DDR4-4000 through its paces.

G.Skill Trident Z DDR4-4000 Review : Read more

 

[jkhoward]

What a waste of money, good article nonetheless!

 

[ipwn3r456]

This RAM is faster than our CPUs (or atleast more than 90% of us, expect the overclockers)...

 

[Aspiring techie]

This RAM is faster than our CPUs (or atleast more than 90% of us, expect the overclockers)...

RAM clock speeds are 1/2 the rated data rates. So, DDR4 4000 runs at 2GHz, still pretty good.
If programs could use that extra bandwidth.....

 

[Onus]

That this RAM really isn't worth the money is made clear by the article.

 

[Crashman]

That this RAM really isn't worth the money is made clear by the article.

G.Skill has some great DDR4-3400 at 2x 8GB for the same price.

 

[heroictofu]

I'd like to see an article like this actually suggest programs/games/etc that could truly take advantage of higher memory bandwidth. They might be edge cases, but who knows, maybe there's some random game we've always enjoyed and never knew that RAM speed could make said game so much better. Or some application. Either way.

 

[chaosmassive]

price aside, just how high this DDR4 memory will go?
over last 6 months, too many products of DDR4 has released to racing for top speed.

 

[vaughn2k]

DDR3 1066. Still working fine here..

 

[cats_Paw]

WE have been getting imperceptible improvements a few years now... We are still on 4 cores, even 2 in CPUs.
So... if game devs and hardware manufacturares dont want to improve, they wont get my cash .

 

[McWhiskey]

WE have been getting imperceptible improvements a few years now... We are still on 4 cores, even 2 in CPUs.
So... if game devs and hardware manufacturares dont want to improve, they wont get my cash .

Fully agreed. I finally took the plunge and bought a new system this Christmas. Tired q6600 ==> skylake i7 , 5770 crosfire ==> 980ti. ALL of my day to day activities take the same amount of time. I am in no way wowed by any of the general computing activities. Games went from high/ultra settings to full ultra. Now I'm adding sweetfx to games and trying to find something to really show off a return on my investment.

I'm happy to have some bragging rights and no reason to ask "but can I run it?" But largely I feel like I could have waited a bit longer.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

For years we saw posts saying everything above 1600 was a waste because 3 benchmarks said so ... but as reviewers went beyond the surface and widened the testing, we saw that most games were GPU, limited, others were CPU limited and some (i.e. F1) were bandwidth limited. THG showed that 2400 was in fact 11% faster with 2400 in F1 as compared to 1600. And as it cost just $20 more for 2400 at the time, it was certainly an option worth considering.

So while I appreciate the effort here, as it does give a general idea of what might be expected, until I see a bit wider range of testing, including 2x/3x/4x SLI and minimum frame rates ... and including games known to to be impacted by RAM like F1... , as before, I don't think I'm ready to write off faster RAM as being totally useless.

 

[ammaross]

I'd like to see an article like this actually suggest programs/games/etc that could truly take advantage of higher memory bandwidth. They might be edge cases, but who knows, maybe there's some random game we've always enjoyed and never knew that RAM speed could make said game so much better. Or some application. Either way.

That's exactly what Grid2 and Battlefield 4 were.....it didn't make a tangible difference at these levels.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

I have not seen either of those affected by memory speed. If you want to see RAM impacts, three things required:

1. Use multiple graphics cards
2. measure minimum fps, not just average
3. Use games actually known to be affected by RAM speed / bandwidth like F1

177 / 159 = 11.3% ... or about what you would get jumping from an nVidia x70 to an x80

 

[heroictofu]

I'd like to see an article like this actually suggest programs/games/etc that could truly take advantage of higher memory bandwidth. They might be edge cases, but who knows, maybe there's some random game we've always enjoyed and never knew that RAM speed could make said game so much better. Or some application. Either way.

That's exactly what Grid2 and Battlefield 4 were.....it didn't make a tangible difference at these levels.

That's not what I was getting at. I meant something along the lines of... maybe a game like Civ 5 or EVE Online, or some other less popular game where the higher memory bandwidth does show a tangible difference. As in to seek out a few hidden gems that can take advantage. Saying Grid2 and Battlefield 4 were those examples... That isn't at all what I was suggesting.

 

[smatharuby]

exactly like Grid2 nd battlefield4 i will try something new http://goo.gl/G0849K