ocaholic - Memory > DDR3 > G.Skill RipjawsX 2x4GB DDR3-2400 CL11 1.65V Review

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Closer Look

The new model gets the same packaging treatment as its predecessors, being shipped in some transparent plastic casing.

Likewise, the appearance of the modules also remains unchanged. With modules lying on the table, the color scheme looks very attractive but with there being very few Haswell motherboards finished in blue-and-black, getting a perfect color match might be a bit of a struggle for the case modding crowd.

Ripjaws have never been G.Skill’s flagship lineup, which shows in the simple heatspreaders these have always had. Styled to resemble jaws of a predator, the top adds very little to the surface area and with each of the heatspreaders being just a sheet of pressed aluminium, the cooling efficiency is something Ripjaws can’t brag about.

With heatspreaders out of the way, we found the 2400C11 model to be based on a modification of Hynix 2Gbit memory chips commonly referred to as CFR. Based on our previous experience where we have seen a lot of variance between various modules equipped with CFR, the overclocking experience with these Ripjaws-X can go either way; good or bad.

SPD module on the Ripjaws-X provides some basic information on the maker and the module of the memory. It also features six JEDEC profiles stretching up to DDR3-1600 and an XMP-2400, all of which are designed to make things work without any additional timing or subtiming input required from the user.

Page 2 - Closer Look

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Photo Gallery

Page 3 - Photo Gallery

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Testing Method & Test Setup

To test the overclocking capabilities of the memory we are going to use Intel’s recently released Haswell platform. As memory overclocks are known to vary between different motherboards, we are going to perform the tests using two different platforms to be sure that our numbers are reliable.

Motherboard	ASUS Maximus VI Gene (BIOS 0607) Gigabyte Z87X-OC (BIOS F5q)
CPU	Intel Core i7-4770K ES @ 4.0 GHz
Graphic card	ASUS GTX 580
Memory	GSkill Ares Blue F3-2400C11D-8GXM
SSD	Samsung PM840 Pro
PSU	Seasonic Platinum 660 Watts
OS	Windows 7, 64 bit SP1

Even though Haswell is very flexible on the memory frequency one can set, very few people actually do base clock (BCLK) overclocking on their daily setups. Therefore, instead of our previous procedure of fixing the voltage and raising the frequency in 10MHz steps we are now going to fix the frequency and minimize the voltage in 0.01V steps.
As usual, our stability method of choice is HCI Memtest. Since we are dealing with a 8 GB kit, we use eight 750 MB instances and call things stable if we see all of them to go past 100% without showing a single error.
Not to get things too complicated, we only set the primary timings, command rate (1T) and the memory voltage by hand while the rest of the settings is left for the motherboard and SPD to agree on.

Results

Traditionally, our aim is to see how memory reacts to voltage changes and in case with Hynix CFR this reaction translates in ability to run higher frequencies without having to raise the CAS latency. What comes to second and third entries in the primary timings list, tRCD and tRP, the main factor for lowest stable values of those is frequency with voltage playing a role only in borderline areas. Lastly, the tRAS value we use in each part of the testing is a sensible value induced by an educated guess.
From the numbers we managed to achieve, it is immediate that our sample is not a good clocker. For a start, neither of the modules could POST at DDR3-2600 regardless of settings and voltages tried. With Hynix CFR memory chips being able to scale in an almost linear fashion using CL11 up to 1.8V, booting at 1300MHz should have been a walk in the park but for some unknown reason it did not happen in our case. More disappointment comes from the situation in sub-1200MHz modes, which wouldn’t allow G.Skill to sell this particular kit as 2133C9 or 2400C10 with a voltage rating of 1.65V.

Page 4 - Results

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Conclusion

Looking up the price for F3-2400C11D-8GXM via geizhals.de we see offers starting at 65 Euros plus shipping across the EU. Putting this against prices coming from the opposing camps, the only cheaper alternative in the DDR3-2400-or-better category currently is the HyperX Beast. With all their recent issues, Kingston are no match against G.Skill when it comes to consistency, therefore we find investing a couple more Euros in the latter manufacturer a more reasonable thing to do.
Clearly, G.Skill are no charity organisation hence their survival largely depends on ability to come up with new and exciting ways of separating people from their money. And this is the task recently emerged bunch of DDR3-2400 CL11 rated products might excel at. Disguised as an affordable entry to the high-frequency club by a well-known manufacturer, this stuff is actually built using the sort of modules, which would have otherwise have been assigned a lower specification and sold at a lower price. We can’t really blame manufacturers for maximising their profits, but we can’t also leave this fact without notice. Still, there are very few 2x4 GB kits in the sub-70 Euro price range specification of which would indicate use of Hynix CFR and on this basis, 2400C11 can be undoubtfully defined as good value for money.

Award

Overall, we are happy that G.Skill have managed to maintain the momentum after having the Ripjaws series running for almost four years in one way of another. On this basis, we award the 2x4 GB version rated DDR3-2400 CL11 a rating of 3.5 stars out of five.