Conclusions
When a manufacturer is determining the advertised speed of a memory product, one thing that they are trying to find is what I’ve called here before “the sweet spot”, that memory clock that gives the best all-around numbers. Looking at the charts, overclocking this memory greatly increases the bandwidth, but raises latency and gives slightly lowered numbers on the Everest tests. Which is all pretty irrelevant because the numbers are all so close anyway.
I was very impressed at the difference between DDR3-2400 memory and DDR3-1600 memory. Look at the charts, the G.Skill dual channel kit actually blew away the DDR3-1600 triple channel kit! I would never have believed that without seeing it personally.
The G.Skill PIS Series DDR3-2400 did exactly what it was supposed to…take our memory speed to the next plane. DDR3-2000 was a significant jump in memory speed, which took place about two years ago, long before the release of the Core i7, actually a while before the last generation of the Core 2 Series was released. But no one has really taken memory much past DDR3-2000 until now.
The memory looks sharp with its matte black finned heatspreaders. The design of the fins are a little different from anything I’ve seen and I liked them.
Currently, this memory isn’t for the squeamish. You will be clocking your i7 860/870 near its max to attain DDR3-2400. I had to crank up the VCORE far beyond what I had ever done before. But you will be rewarded with some really awesome memory bandwidth. Just to note, other motherboards may possibly have a different set of memory multipliers/dividers and may attain DDR3-2400 without such a high overclock. But few P55 motherboards out there are rated at DDR3-2400 or higher.
Which takes me to the only possible downer I found with the memory kit. The G.Skill PIS Series memory kits come with a really nice active memory cooler, the G.Skill Turbulence Fan. It is well made, fits well, and isn’t loud at all. But it is a little large and will not work well with larger tower coolers, which is what most of us depend on to cool that hot CPU. It did work with the cooler I used on the test rig, but it is fairly thin and I was able to put the fan on the opposite side.
But I consider the fan an extra, and the memory works fine without it.
The G.Skill PIS Series DDR3-2400 4GB kit sells for $230 at my favorite online retailer. Though it is the highest speed memory there, it was far from the most expensive. If you have a need for the extreme and have the equipment to support it, this is the memory kit for you! ThinkComputers.org gives the G.Skill PIS Series DDR3-2400 4GB Dual Channel Kit a 10 out of 10 score.
Pros:
– Fastest memory on the market
– Coupled with a motherboard capable of advertised speed, gives incredible bandwidth
– Excellent price
– Comes with a great active cooling system
Cons:
– Cooling fan conflicts with tower coolers