G.Skill packs their high end RAM kits in a nice cardboard box iso the usual blister package for the more mainstream targeted versions. Each DIMM is neatly protected in a little anti static bag.

 

Per definition, a DIMM fan is included with these 2666C11 TridentX DIMMs. Too bad G.Skill keeps on using a regular 4 pin molex for your PSU so opting to work with a 3 pin mobo connector.

 

 

 

The heatspreaders are very heavy, not that lightweight package we are comonly seeing on most DIMMs. Reminds me of the G.Skill Flare which sported a similar heavy heatspreader. For the overclockers, the removable top fin makes it more easier to put these sticks under extreme cold. Secondly by removing the top fin, you enhance the CPU cooler compatibility. Very slick design by the G.Skill engineering team.

 

 

G.Skill has engraved the IC's to reduce recognition. Till now all 2666C11 kits are double sided and should be based on Samsung ICs. For the 2400 and 2600 kits there are single/double sided versions reported in the wild. Only thing G.Skill needs to warrant is out of the box rated speeds. Overclocking speeds/timings can't be guaranteed ofcourse.

 

The current lineup consists of the following versions: 

 

 

The previously announced 3000Mhz is nowhere to be seen and even the 2800C11 kit is extremely rare. Mainly due to the high price ( +500 euros), being a result of the extreme binning process.

Our test platform was swapped from our trusty Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H to the ASUS ROG Gene V board. And all this due for one reason: the BIOS from the ASUS boards is lightyears ahead of the competition. Especially regarding user flexibility and furthermore in Ivy Bridge's case: RAM compatibility. A bad BIOS can literally break a well designed board. Usually there are workarounds for the lacking coding, but not many users are interested to debug a retail board's BIOS. I think we all agree on the fact that if you buy a product it has to work adequately out of the box. So the hardware setup of the day looks like this:

 

• Intel I7-3770K@4500Mhz (1.25Vcore)
• ASUS ROG GENE V board (0087 bios)
• ASUS GTX 480 296.10 WHQL drivers
• Western Digital 1TB Green CAVIAR series
• Corsair AX1200 PSU

 

 

Now what have we tested: first it has to become clear if a high speed RAM kit is worth the extra cash over a more budget friendly mainstream kit. Hence why we opted to simulate a 1600C9-9-9-27 kit with our TridentX kit. Secondly G.Skill has some other TridentX versions besides this 2666C11 kit. The 2400C10 kit is pretty affordable, retailing around 100 euro's for 8Gb. Alike the 1600 speeds we try to replicate the performance of the TridentX 2400C10-12-12-31 kit. Last but not least a stable 24/7 overclock on the rams at 2800C11-14-14-35. Too bad we couldn't achieve the exact timings of the high end TridentX 2800c11-13-13 kit.

A quick sum up of the tested speeds:

• 1600Mhz C9-9-9-27 1T
• 2400Mhz C10-12-12-31 2T
• 2666Mhz C11-13-13-35 2T
• 2800Mhz C11-14-14-35 2T

Where is the 2600C10 kit ? We couldn't manage 2600C10-12-12 with our 2666C11 kit, no matter the voltages set or subtiming tweaks that we tried.

Besides the great looks it's time to find out if these sticks perform likewise. Take note that the 2666Mhz speeds are set via the XMP profile. The 2400C10 and 2800C11 timing and subtimings are based on the values set by that XMP profile. What better test to start off with then SuperPi 32M. ? A bandwith hungry test that adores tight timings, mucho bandwith and low latency. A 1600C9 kit, is what is currently considered as mainstream value ram. The TridentX kits gain over 15 seconds, quite a feast for a bencher. As usual, the RAM timings ofcourse play a part. But if you can reach higher clock speeds with slightly looser timings you won't loose much performance. This is exactly what we are seeing with the comparison between the 2400C10 and 2666Mhz speeds.

 

 

Wprime is not that RAM dependant, why include it them you might ask ? Just to show you that not all software reaches higher performance with fast RAM. A tiny gain in time over the 1600Mhz speeds. The Y-cruncher showed our first anomaly in our test suite. Why on earth would 2666Mhz be beaten by lower specced RAM ? Maybe AIDA64 can shed a light on what happens.

 

 

 

Observing a slight increase in bandwith from 2400Mhz on. Yet the gains are far from the big leap forward when coming from 1600Mhz. The COPY result for the 2400Mhz speed is not a fluke. Time after time +/-28000MB/s was displayed on the screen. Since we only set the main timings manually for the 2400 and 2800Mhz speeds some setting must drastically influence COPY bandwith. We saw a similar outcome with the Photoworxx test. 2400mhz rules the board here. Does the Gene V set far looser timings to support high RAM overclocking ? We will go a bit deeper on the next page.

 

 

 

RAW CPU performance hardly get's influenced by faster RAMs, Cinebench Release 10 multithreaded output is within the margin of error, however the single threaded test seems to get a small boost. Cinebench Release 11 scales in the OpenGL test, the CPU test is from 2400Mhz RAM speeds almost status quo.

 

 

Most of these synthetic tests show performance scaling with increased RAM clocks. Rendering via our X264HD test get's a big boost in the Pass 1. Nine frames per second gain is quite impressive in my book. Let's head on to 3D. Do games scale with high RAM clocks ?

 

 

Since Ivy Bridge is already a bandwith monsta, the aging 3DMark01 tests hardly sees any influence from stock 1600 speeds to the jawbreaking 2800Mhz setup. Similar outcome with 3DMark06, very light scaling with massive increased RAM clocks.

 

 

 

And last but not least, in fact it has been proven time after time, games hardly get a performance boost with fast RAM:

 

In the stock tests we saw some anomalies or maybe we can refer to them as surprising results. Time to dig a bit deeper into the bios of our Gene V board to see where the culprit is at. As you can see in the below bios screenshots the tweaking options are massive.

 

 

Normally most users just touch the main timings to unleash a bit more performance ( CAS latency, TRAS, TRP and Command Rate ). Some daredevils go deeper and start to fiddle with eg TRFC and other subtimings to max out their system's performance. As being part of the tweaking community we tested a lot and the alteration of the below values gave us the best boost for a daily basis. Secondly some explain the "bugged" readouts we encountered when testing this high end RAM kit on Ivy Bridge.

We will start our tweaking adventure from the stock XMP profile of our TridentX kit : 2666Mhz 11-13-13-35 Command rate 2T.

We work our way down and change each setting accordingly to what we have deemed to be stable for our sample kit:

• Tighten Command Rate from 2T to 1T
• Tighten tRRSSR to 4 (set at 5 by Bios )
• Lower TRFC from 214 to 174 ( can be lowered even further )
• Tighten eg TRTP (set at 10 by Bios )
• Tighten tWWSR from bios auto setting of 7 to 5
  

 

On the left the XMP profile. On the right the tweaked setup

 

Note that further tweaking can be done, but our kit remained HCI memtest stable with the above timings/tweaks and still being run at the stock rated voltage of 1.65Vdimm. Tightening eg TRFC any further would end up in errorring out. It all will depend on your specific RAM kit how far you can go. But the above tweaks will already give you a nice head start.

 

 

In Superpi 32M we see a nice time gain with adjusting the Command Rate to 1. This is usually very dependant on the quality of your ram sticks. Lowering the tRRSSR from 5 to 4 nibbles off another 0.7 seconds.4 is the lowest value for tRRSSR, as setting to 3 will result in performance typical of a 7setting. TRFC 174 iso 214 jields a similar gain in Pi 32M as the tRRSSR tweaking. Furthermore tightening TRTP to 8, shaves off another 0.2 seconds. Finally the tWWSR secondary timing tops it all off. In total the gain was 3.5 secs over the XMP profile. Not bad at all, achieved by adjusting 5 settings. The below AIDA bandwith tests nicely display the tweaking effects. Recalling the AIDA 28000MB/s COPY readout from the previous page. tWWSR is the key value to drastically improve bandwith in that segment.

 

 

 

 

How this tweaking will affect your daily run programs or games is debatable. But a bit more performance or speed never hurts does it ? And it's absolutely free, in fact it just takes some time to fine tune and thoroughly test it for stability.

Our kit wasn't stellar in the timing department. TRCD could hardly be tightened, 2800C11-13-13 was plus minus SuperPi 32m stable, though would fail HCI memtest in under a few seconds. 2800C11-14-14-35 2T at 1.67Vdimm was stable however. Command rate 1T failed HCI memtest again, even at 1.75Vdimm.

 

 

For fun we tested how high this high end ram kit could run on our i7-3770K. 2900Mhz C11-14-14-35 Command Rate 2T was SuperPi 32m stable at 1.72Vdimm. The setup hard locked at 2920Mhz ram speeds, the CPU's Integrated Memory Controller (IMC) capped out.

 

Besides a stunning looking stick, G.Skill has pulled it off again to satisfy the hunger of the enthousiast community. The looks are killer, in fact one of the prettiest dimms I've seen in ages. Black and red is a winning combo and this is hardly debatable.

The TridentX series are again available in a wide variety of speeds and quantities, but less compared to previous series. G.Skill is reknown for, a sometimes confusing, launch of a gazzilion different RAM kits within the same range. Four different speeds varying from 2400Mhz to a whopping 2800mhz for the TridentX lineup. You want quantity ? The TridentX smallest size is 8GB going up to 32GB, depending on the speed selected.

If we analyse the performance of the TridentX 2666C11 kit versus the simulated speeds, we spot that these high warranted for lifetime speeds, are not a must have requirement for daily setups or gaming setups. These sticks are crafted to please the community that likes to push the boundaries. Secondly we have to warn our readers that some memory controllers (IMC) of our precious Ivy Bridge CPU's are not up to the task to handle high quantities of RAM at these insane box rated speeds. Bios support of the motherboard used is also a big factor to warrant if you can run these georgeous looking dimms. Luckily on the different motherboards we tested this TridentX kit on, the XMP profile worked flawless.

 

 

 

To get the max out of these sticks, sometimes manual intervention aka tweaking is required. Some subtle changes in the bios can make a world of difference in your favourite benches. Looking at the performance numbers the sweetspot with Ivy Bridge seems to be around 2400MHz with tight timings. To clarify the sweetspot we are referring to the bang for the buck ratio. The 2400C10 8GB kit can be yours for around 95 euros, the 2666C11 kit is retailing at double the price. Performance is almost identical. But with the 2666C11 kit you get the warranted, binned IC speeds, backed up by a lifetime warranty from the G.Skill crew.

Overclocking headroom will differ from kit to kit, as it's never warranted. Our sample kit was not happy with tightening the main timings, no matter the voltage we pumped through them. But 2900Mhz C11-14-14 at 1.72Vdimm is impressive, pushing our i7-3770K's IMC on air to it's limits. If time permits our kit will see some cold (LN2) action soon, to see if we can tighten the timings. Too bad as similar specced kits on the net, had no issue to run at 2666Mhz C10-12-12 or even 2800C11-13-13 at pretty close to stock rated voltages. But that's overclocking in it's purest form, a bit of luck is always involved.

With the TridentX series the G.Skill company has delivered again. Besides an amasing looking heatspreader design, it's a fantastic performing kit for enthousiasts, benchers and tweakers. If the high, but justified for the high rated speeds, price isn't an issue, then this TridentX 2666C11 kit might be tailored for you !

 

 

 

PROS

• Warranted high speeds
• Lifetime warranty
• Stunning looks

CONS

• No tight timings on our sample

 

A big thanks goes out to Mia from G.Skill for putting up with the nutty crew at Madshrimps and HWBot for all this time. Let's see if Kaysta can handle us :)

 

 

Also thanks to Tones.be for allowing us to pick a good i7 3770K CPU with a very nice IMC. Kuddos guys !