G.Skill Ripjaws-X DDR3-2133 8GB Dual Channel Memory Kit Review

Installation & Testing Procedures
This is a dual channel memory kit so we will be installing the modules in to our P67 system which is comprised of the following components.

Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K
Motherboard: MSI P67A-GD55
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 6850
Power: Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W

Installing memory is pretty simple, you just press the modules down in to their designated slots.  On this board the memory slots are very close to the CPU so I installed the memory in slots #2 and #4.  If the slots were any closer to the CPU I would haven’t been able to install the memory because of the heatspreaders.

G.Skill Ripjaws-X DDR3-2133 8GB Dual Channel Memory Kit G.Skill Ripjaws-X DDR3-2133 8GB Dual Channel Memory Kit

Because of how close the memory slots were to the CPU cooler I was not able to install the Silence II memory cooler.  I did hook it up so you could see the fans in action.  They were also very quiet, you could barely hear them.  I would have liked to see red LED’s on the fans instead of the blue so they would match the heatspreaders on the modules.

G.Skill Ripjaws-X DDR3-2133 8GB Dual Channel Memory Kit G.Skill Ripjaws-X DDR3-2133 8GB Dual Channel Memory Kit

Once you have the memory installed you can go ahead and turn on your system and go into the BIOS and enable the X.M.P. profile.  This will set the appropriate values to get the memory running at the advertised 2133 MHz.  Once I saved my settings and the system rebooted it was stuck, it seemed that my motherboard did not like the memory running at that speed.  The MSI P67A-GD55 does support 2133 MHz memory so I decided to bump the voltage up from 1.65V to 1.68V.  That little adjustment allowed the system to boot and I ran through a stability test and everything was working fine.

G.Skill Ripjaws-X DDR3-2133 8GB Dual Channel Memory Kit

Once I was in to Windows I opened up CPU-Z so we could see all the information on the memory.  Now this is where I got a little confused.  On the modules themselves they say the timings are 9-11-9-28, in CPU-Z under the timings table it says 9-12-9-29 and when the X.M.P. profile is enable the memory runs at 9-11-9-27.  Pretty interesting, I will be running the tests at the 9-11-9-27 timings.

G.Skill Ripjaws-X DDR3-2133 8GB Dual Channel Memory Kit G.Skill Ripjaws-X DDR3-2133 8GB Dual Channel Memory Kit G.Skill Ripjaws-X DDR3-2133 8GB Dual Channel Memory Kit

For memory testing we have a battery of benchmarks and tests we use.  I have listed them below.

AIDA64 (download)
– Cache & Memory Benchmark
Sisoftware Sandra 2011 (download)
– Memory Bandwidth Benchmark
– Memory Latency Benchmark
– Cache & Memory Benchmark

Now on to testing!

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