Ripjaws and Pi. It's a very mouthtastic kit of RAM that we're looking at today, but is it worth taking the bait?
G.Skill's Ripjaws memory has stuck around in the Labs for quite some time; it's proven to be quite flexible. This kit, however, slots into G.Skill's Pi series - and is much, much faster. Included with the two sticks is even a cooling fan; without which the sticks can become noticeably warm.
Default XMP profile settings are a very speedy 2300MHz with 8-11-8-28 timings, giving huge bandwidth scores that trounce even triple-channel kits (albeit at lower speeds). To achieve this the processor was overclocked automatically to 3.4GHz from stock, but the large latencies held back PiFast scores somewhat, and wPrime saw a similar story.
Overclocking was impressive but less so than the identically-priced kit below, hitting 2470MHz at looser timings and a tighter 7-9-7-24 at a lower frequency of 2000MHz - though both these settings didn't really do much in the real world. For a very fast memory kit this is nice value, but only serious users need apply.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012