During the 16 month reign of Sandy Bridge, memory overclocking was given a secondary role by being capped with the DDR3-2133 multiplier. As its successor, Intel’s recent Ivy Bridge has brought a wide extension to the available frequency range providing a bigger playground for both manufacturers and end users. Now that the dust had settled down, it became apparent that so-called high-performance memory can be divided in two main groups. First one consists of EOL (End-Of-Life) stuff based on Elpida BBSE and X-series Powerchip (PSC) ICs. In case you don’t want to go on the second hand market and search for well clocking memory, there are lots of brand new high-rated Hynix- and Samsung-based 4GB modules for you to choose from.
Today we are going to take a look at one of the new-school representatives, courtesy of G.Skill’s TridentX lineup.
|
Manufacturer |
G.Skill |
|
Series |
TridentX |
| Part
Number |
F3-2600C10D-8GTXD |
|
Type |
DDR3 |
|
Capacity |
8 GB (2 x
4GB) |
|
Frequency |
2'600 MHz |
| Timings |
10-12-12-31 |
| VDIMM |
1.65 Volt |
| Registred/Unbuffered |
Unbuffered |
| ECC |
No |
|
Cooling |
Passive Heatspreader + Turbulence II (FTB-3500C5-D) |
| Waranty |
Lifetime warranty |
| Package
Type |
Boxed |
The kit we selected for the review is the DDR3-2600 CL10 version that only exists
as an 8GB two-module set. Despite that nominally it’s not the top model, we think that it offers a better combination of rated frequency and timings compared to its equally priced DDR3-2666 CL11 brother.
Please note, that by selling memory as DDR3-2600, G.Skill do not actually guarantee that it will achieve rated speeds on every single platform mentioned in the support list. Reason for this is very simple – not every CPU, more specifically, not every memory controller can support stable operation at such memory speeds.
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