It isn’t easy being green, as Patriot's latest memory finds out.
While we've looked at quite a few memory modules before, we've not seen anything that is quite as... green as these Patriot sticks are. Because they include EPP 2.0 support (a method of telling NVIDIA-based 790i chipsets what settings to run memory at), this was enough of an excuse to coat these sticks in a very unfortunate lurid snot-green colour, something that we're not too fond of at all.
Being shaped like a comb doesn't help too much either, conjuring up images of just exactly how a comb would become that colour. The good news about this heatspreader is that it does offer a large surface area to dissipate heat, and can be used as a makeshift rake in emergencies. The Patriot logo is embossed in brushed aluminium on one side, while the other side has a sticker with information on the stick proper.
The PCB is a very cool pockmarked black texture and colour, with the usual 240 pins present. Eight memory chips on each side of the PCB (for a total of sixteen per stick) give a combined total of 2GB each stick.
Performance is good, though you'll need slightly higher voltages to get the sticks stable. The stock speeds of the kit refused to even boot, something we blame on making them too ambitiously high for normal motherboards - our P45 mobo couldn't handle running these at the rated 2000MHz at CL9 timings. While we didn't have a 790i based motherboard in the Labs (X58 has pretty much already replaced it!), we don't expect that performance will be realistically any better on that chipset, either.
These sticks are a strong choice, even though they can be a little finicky to get to where you'd like them. For the price though, we'd probably look elsewhere.
Issue: 111 | April, 2010