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Review: ADATA XPG Xtreme Series 2x8GB DDR3-2133MHz CL10

Category : DDR3

Published by Christian Ney on 14.11.12

It's been quite some time since out last memory review. Today we are having a look at one 16 GB dual channel kit from ADATA. This kit belongs to their XPG Xtreme Series and offers large capacity without cutting performance. Running at DDR3-2133 MHz, it isn't the fastest high capacity kit around. But ADATA is known for their quality better than oustanding high speed that you can't reach, so let's see what they came up with!

Below you will find the specifiations of the kit we tested.

Manufacturer	ADATA
Series	XPG Xtreme Series
Part Number	AX3U2133XW8G10-2X
Type	DDR3
Capacity	16 GB (2 x 8GB)
Frequency	2'133 MHz
Timings	10-11-11-30
VDIMM	1.65 Volt
Registred/Unbuffered	Unbuffered
ECC	No
Cooling	Passive Heatspreader
Waranty	Lifetime warranty
Package Type	Plastic Blister

This kit is the second fastest 16 GB kit ADATA currently have in their lineup. They also have a DDR3-2400 MHz in their XPG Gaming V2.0 series. These speeds should be fine enough for the majority of Ivy Bridge CPUs out there. For the record the integrated memory controller starts to struggle at DDR3-2400 for the vast majority. So offering higher rated memory will only target very few of us, even our processor which has one of the best integrated controller in the world can't do more than DDR3-2666 400 % stable.
Timings aren't that shy if you consider the rated speed and the capacity of one module.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 4 - Results
Page 2 - Closer Look	Page 5 - Conclusion
Page 3 - Photo Gallery

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Closer Look

The package consists of a plastic blister that seems to be designed for exposure of the memory kit. Before opening it we liked it, after we didn't. We at ocaholic like to unbox and box memory over and over again and this one, once opened, can't be closed anymore since you have to cut the package to pull out the modules.

The design and heatspreaders makes me think about those old school memory kits back in the DDR1 days. Too bad it's not a sabertooth-zombie-unicorn-like heatspreader, I like sabertooth-zombie-unicorn-like heatspreaders... Lets be serious again! The heatspreaders are clean, the quality is good and they're low profile. Not everybody will like the design but those modules will be put into a case and forgotten in there so that shouldn't be the biggest issue. On the other hand I like that the design is dual sidded, some manufacturers only print one side of the module and the other side stays empty.

Removing the heatspreaders wasn't easy, ADATA used some very good quality thermal glue pads to keep the heatspreaders on the ICs. Though we did know which memory chips have been used for this memory kit due to the specs we like to have a look at them. Below you find a shot of one Hynix MFR-PBC memory chip that powers those ADATA modules.

The SPD reading tells us more about the memory itself like the capacity, the name of the manufacturer, the JEDEC profiles stored which are in 5 accompanied with one XMP profile and the week of production. No Part number, pity.
The SPD has been well recognized by the BIOS of our motherboard as well as by CPU-Z.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 4 - Results
Page 2 - Closer Look	Page 5 - Conclusion
Page 3 - Photo Gallery

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Page 1 - Introduction	Page 4 - Results
Page 2 - Closer Look	Page 5 - Conclusion
Page 3 - Photo Gallery

Discuss this article in the forums [pagebreak]

Testing Method & Test Setup

Knowing about Hynix MFR's capabilities from recent Kingston HyperX 16GB review, we armed ourselves with an Ivy Bridge testing platform that should allow our memory to show every last bit of its overclocking potential.
To make sure that our figures represent the sort of stability safe to use ever day, we are going to run each setting until we get a 150% pass of eight 750MB instances of HCI Memtest that is considered one of the toughest memory stress-tests around.

Motherboard	ASUS Maximus V Gene (BIOS 1204)
CPU	Intel Core i7-3770K @ 4.0 GHz
Graphic card	ASUS GTX 580
Memory	ADATA XPG Xtreme Series AX3U2133XW8G10-2X
HDD	Intel SSD 330 120 GB
PSU	Seasonic Platinum 1000 Watts
OS	Windows 7, 64 bit SP1

Results

Results are in and we can see that this kit can compete with it's higher clocked brother from the XPG Gaming V2.0 Series.
We were able to run it fully stable at 1'210 MHz 11-13-13-32, 10 MHz higher than the highest clocked 16GB kit from ADATA.
Past 1.7v one can see that they stop scaling with voltage when the tRCD = tRP +1. With a CAS +2 = tRCD = tRP fomula the memory kit is scaling almost perfectly linear.
Chosing even looser timings like 12-14-14-34 doesn't help to achieve higher frequencies. You will see the limit of the kit - if you have one - using 11-13-13-32.
When we loaded the XMP profile our kit was 100 % stable up to 1'100 MHz (DDR3-2200) which is 34 MHz more than the rated frequency.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 4 - Results
Page 2 - Closer Look	Page 5 - Conclusion
Page 3 - Photo Gallery

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Conclusion

Using geizhals as our price research tool, we find that offers for 2x8GB sets of 2133C10 XPG Xtreme Series starts at 150 Euros excluding shipping across the EU. Taking a look at similarly clocked kits from other manufacturers shows us that the GeIL EVO Leggera are the cheapest for 126 Euros. After that there is the ADATA kit we've just tested and then there are the Corsair Vengenace for 5 € more. So this kit from ADATA isn't as cheap as GeIL's offer, but you get good overclocking headroom with these modules and we could not guarantee for the quality of the chips that are being used for the GeIL modules. Also GeIL is very aggressive regarding the price and you see it in the build quality. With the ADATA kit you benefit from a better overall package.
The only downsides of this memory kit is the box which can't be reused once opened and the price which is a tiny bit too high.
Overall, we have to say that we have been convinced by this XPG Xtreme 16GB memory kit from ADATA who has achievable specs for almost all the platforms out there, high manufacturing quality and a good overclocking headroom. If the price would have been a tiny bit lower then it's a bargain.

Rating

The ADATA XPG Xtreme Series AX3U2133XW8G10-2X kit receives the excellent rating of 4 out of five stars.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 4 - Results
Page 2 - Closer Look	Page 5 - Conclusion
Page 3 - Photo Gallery

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Author: Christian Ney c.ney@ocaholic.ch