ADATA XPG V2 Review: 2x8 GB at DDR3-2400 C11-13-13 1.65 V
by Ian Cutress on November 11, 2013 1:00 PM ESTA 2400 C11 memory kit sits nicely on the performance curve. With DDR4 expected to hit within the next couple of years, buying a memory kit today might be the last DDR3 memory kit, at least on the Intel side, that you ever buy. Thus we always have to weigh up the potential benefits of faster memory between now and then against the cost.
At $200, this ADATA 2400 C11 2x8 GB kit is extraordinarily expensive, especially when everything at the same memory timings is cheaper, including the same kit but in a different color which retails for $140.
At $140, it would be at the sharp end of 2400 C11 memory kit pricing that you could buy – only a good sale would beat it. At a relative PI of 218, it sits above the 200 baseline of default kits a user should consider, but it does not set the world alight either. Through some quick and fast overclocking, it hit a PI of 242 (2666 C11), which might not show up much on the benchmarks due to the law of limiting returns.
Very few users need 16 GB right now, but it seems to be the sweet spot when it comes to memory purchasing for those who feel they need more than 8 GB, and plenty of memory manufacturers are offering these kits. Even under my heavy workload I rarely see the top side of 5GB unless I am also running everything in the background along with a game. For this reason amongst others is why no 16 GB non-ECC modules are up for grabs: the margins would be too high to invest in those ICs.
At $140 I could recommend these ADATA modules – this comes down to less than $8.75/GB. But at $200, it really is a no-go: aim for the $140 tungsten grey ones instead.
Addendum 11/19: After publishing this review, ADATA got in contact as they were confused at the high price of the Gold model against the Tungsten Grey model. I am told that the $140 value of the Tungsten Grey version of this memory is actually an internal special offer to Newegg, and that the $200 value of the Gold model is a misprint. Sounds like an expensive misprint: system builders will have a focus and it would be better to spend money on the focal point of a build. ADATA said the actual MSRP would be $180, which I pointed out is still quite high, given the price list I gave on page 2 of this review.
$180 would still put this memory at the rough end of the spectrum. ADATA took a few days, and then responded that the new MSRP for this memory would be $160. At $160, this memory is far more reasonable, and means that it sits between the G.Skill and the expensive kits, but nearer those from G.Skill.
$140 Mushkin Enhanced Blackline DDR3-2400 C11 2x8GB, Frostbyte
$148 G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3-2400 C11 2x8GB
$152 G.Skill Ares DDR3-2400 C11 2x8GB
$155 G.Skill Sniper DDR3-2400 C11 2x8GB
$156 ADATA XPG V2.0 DDR3-2400 C11 2x8GB, Gaming (EOL)
$160 ADATA XPG V2 DDR3-2400 C11 2x8GB, Gold
$170 Silicon Power DDR3-2400 C11 2x8GB
$170 Mushkin Enhanced Blackline DDR3-2400 C11 2x8GB, Ridgeback
This also means that in a sale, they might cost even less. As of this new information about pricing, the gold kit is sold out at Newegg. Does our conclusion about the memory change? Memory has to compete primarily on price and avoiding pitfalls in benchmarks due to a bad setting. On the former, ADATA is moving in the right direction, but it still has competition. On the latter, ADATA is very much ballpark - what you might get from another kit is better (or worse) overclocking. I have two other ADATA kits in for testing, so keep abreast for those reviews soon.
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The Von Matrices - Monday, November 11, 2013 - link
The silly part is that this is marketed as "gaming" memory while its advantages in gaming on a discrete GPU are minimal. It should be marketed as accelerating applications, which would be a much more reasonable statement. I bought 2400MHz memory not because I play games but because I perform encoding and file compression on my PC, and that is a situation where fast memory makes a difference.As far as making a recommendation on value, Ian stated (and I agree) that memory prices are very volatile. It's basically impossible to make a lasting value comparison on memory because of this. What is a great deal today could be eclipsed next week by a dramatic price decrease of a faster, better product. I agree with Ian omitting a value comparison because it would be pointless a month after the article is posted. However, the performance comparisons of different memory speeds and timings are still of value.
I think the general conclusion he stated is still of value - buy something faster than DDR3-1600 but don't spend too much money because the performance increase is minimal beyond that.
DanNeely - Monday, November 11, 2013 - link
Are any of your planned reviews going to look at the impact of timing relaxation needed to run 4 dimms instead of 2? Having bumped off 12GB a few times I'm now running 18 in my aging i7-920 box; and with both my browsers (Opera, FF) having multi-process upgrades forthcoming that will let them expand beyond the 4GB barrier I've decided on 4x8gb for my new system.The Von Matrices - Monday, November 11, 2013 - link
I don't understand why you're creating a new term "performance index" instead of just using the more standard time to first word (in ns). It would behave exactly in reverse to your "performance index" with lower times being better but otherwise the comparison would be the same.ShieTar - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link
I agree. Its not only more standard, it is also physically more meaningful, and can be adapted to describe the performance of software with known algorithms E.g. if your ramdisk is reading 512-Byte-sectors from memory, its performance will scale with the "time to get a full sector".But of course, frequency is also a much more useful parameter to distinguish electromagnetic signal than wavelength, and you still can't get anybody who learned their field on wavelength to give it up. Once people start to think within certain terms, they are very stubborn about changing definitions.
whyso - Monday, November 11, 2013 - link
If you run IGP benchmarks can you please run at something relevant? 11 fps is not relevant.cmdrdredd - Monday, November 11, 2013 - link
Still with these big heatsinks on the memory? I almost have to use the low profile Samsung stuff because of my Noctua cooler not allowing much clearance.meacupla - Monday, November 11, 2013 - link
I think these unnecessarily tall RAM heatsinks are still being made, because the manufacturers think people will use CLC CPU coolers instead of a dual tower heatsink.or maybe they think the only people who will buy this type of RAM are people with real water cooling loops.
or maybe they are for LNG overclocking contests or something.
Either way, if the customer is sensible enough to buy a tower heatsink in the first place, I'm sure they would also be sensible and buy some lower profile, 1600Mhz or 1866Mhz CAS8 or CAS9 RAM, instead of overkill 2400Mhz.
DanNeely - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link
giant ramsinks long predate CLCs. For that matter I'm fairly sure they predate tower style heatsinks as well.Hood6558 - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link
Overkill is best, sensible decisions are for Grandma's email machine...Kamus - Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - link
Some battlefield 4 tests would've been nice... According to corsair, 2400 memory was giving up to 20% better performance than 1333.mbut I've yet to see another test like that one to corroborate.