As we go up the memory speeds, moving from 1333 to 1600 to 1866 means that the next stop is DDR3-2133.  DDR3-2133 will be the next checkpoint for processors to accept by default in the future, and as a result there is a price premium for all memory kits equal and above this mark.  In our case, the G.Skill F3-17000CL9Q-16GBZH comes in at $130, some $35 more than the DDR3-1866 kit.  That is quite a hefty chunk, adding 37% on the price of memory for only a 14.3% increase in absolute MHz value terms.  As we will see in the memory benchmarks later, the 2133 MHz point does offer improvements over the 1866 kit, but not by as much as 37%.

Visual Inspection

In the land of G.Skill and kit naming, RipjawsZ is the last step in the Ripjaws line before we hit Trident.  The Ripjaws naming scheme was devised in anticipation of the Sandy Bridge and Sandy Bridge-E processor lineup where the majority of processors can achieve the speeds of all of the Ripjaws kits.  The look of the RipjawsZ kits are less edge-driven than the RipjawsX, with a rounded module end, but more bulk in terms of heatsink with the top edge still being ~1cm taller than the module.  This causes issues when paired with large heatsinks, despite large heatsinks being the aim of the processors paired with this kit.

Again, the test with this module in a large heatsink environment gives us the following:

JEDEC + XMP Settings

G.Skill
Kit Speed 1333 1600 1866 2133 2400
Subtimings 9-9-9-24 2T 9-9-9-24 2T 9-10-9-28 2T 9-11-10-28 2T 10-12-12-31 2T
Price $75 $80 $95 $130 $145
XMP No Yes Yes Yes Yes
Size 4 x 4 GB 4 x 4 GB 4 x 4 GB 4 x 4 GB 4 x 4 GB

MHz 1333 1600 1867 2134 2401
Voltage 1.500 1.500 1.500 1.650 1.650
tCL 9 9 9 9 10
tRCD 9 9 10 11 12
tRP 9 9 9 10 12
tRAS 24 24 28 28 31
tRC 33 33 37 38 43
tWR 10 12 14 16 16
tRRD 4 5 5 6 7/6
tRFC 107 128 150 171 313
tWTR 5 6 8/7 9/8 10/9
tRTP 5 6 8/7 9/8 10/9
tFAW 20 24 24 25 26
tCWL - 7 7 7 7
CR - 2 2 2 2

 

F3-14900CL9Q-16GBSR: 4 x 4 GB G.Skill Sniper Kit F3-2400CL10Q-16GTX: 4 x 4 GB G.Skill TridentX Kit
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  • svdb - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link

    This article is pointless and debating is futile. Everybody knows that ORANGE memory modules are always faster than BLACK one, but not as fast as RED ones! Duh...
    The same with cars...
  • jonjonjonj - Friday, October 26, 2012 - link

    you keep saying that a big part of the heat sinks are too "prevent the competition from knowing what ICs are under the hood". do you really think if a competitor or anyone for that matter who wanted to know what ICs were being used are going to say damn we cant find out what the ICs are because the $45 memory has a heat sink? im pretty sure they are going to buy a kit and rip them apart.
  • editorsorgtfo - Tuesday, October 14, 2014 - link

    Sean, what a willie-brained banger-spanker you are! You probably still piss in your shorts when you discover that someone you've irked has smeared buggers on the screen of your monitor. "No one gives a shit about APU you moron......these are desktop tests!" I, for one, give a shit about APUs, you lummox, since I am building a top-quality box around an A10 7850K and a G1.Sniper A88X. Gamers who yank a joystick with one hand and wank off with the other aren't the only people that want a kickin' computer. My entire life isn't geared toward FPS, RTS or T, or MMORPG pursuits, nor do I do anything else that is graphics-processing intensive, like video editing, rendering, Bitcoin mining, etc., etc., so I don't need high-powered graphics, beyond what AMD's Dual Graphics with a Radeon R7 250 will achieve. My intent is to use my new APU machine for audio recording, and I'd like to be able to get a really good overall picture of how a Kaveri system will behave using 16 or 32GB of various brands of DDR3 1866 or 2133 CL8 or 9 @ 1.5V or under SDRAM, possibly using AMD's RAMDisk software, with a very good (250GB or larger Samsung 840 EVO or better SSD), and preferably using audio-oriented real and synthetic benchmarks, because Intel has the computer-video-game-playing world by the goolies, and to most gamers, winning is everything, so they go with Intel, never once thinking about how less than 2 decades ago, there was a third big player in the processor world: VIA! They got squeezed out of the desktop competition by Intel and AMD, and we are the worse for it. Anyway, this is not to disparage Ian's testing and write-up for this review (good on yer, mate!), because he used what he had on hand. But you, Sean -- why don't you just keep your witless gob shut if you don't have something interesting, enlighting, thought-provoking, useful, helpful, amusing... i.e., POSITIVE! to contribute? "AMD is a decade behind Intel, in processor technology and instructions, it really doesn't matter what AMD attempts to do...." For f*ck's sake -- get an effing life, kid! Then, maybe you'd finally get laid, and someday, even have a girlfriend and a car, instead of Five-Finger Mary and a skateboard!
  • exodius - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    You got one of the calculations wrong:
    DDR3-1866 11-11-11 has a Cycle Time of 1.07 ns and a Bit Time of 0.536 ns
    The time to read one word should be 1.08 * 11 = 11.88 ns (not 11.79)
    The time to read eight words should be 11.88 + 7 * 0.536 = 15.632 ns (not 15.54)
    Unless i'm missing something

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