Final Words & Conclusion

Final Words & conclusion

The Patriot Viper Steel product that we got for this review is a RAM kit without RGB lighting, but there’s also a version with that feature (and some of you really love that type of “bling”). The heat spreader comes only in grey, but it looks really good. You should find a fit for basically any PC build. The range of available frequencies is very broad. The slowest module in this series operates at 2400 MHz, and the fastest one reaches 4400 MHz. We received the fastest (3600 MHz) of the 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) kits, but there are also 3000 and 3200 MHz variants out there.

Aesthetics

Patriot has managed to make the Viper Steel a very good-looking kit. I have no doubts that most users will like it. There are no LEDs, so some users might find this a drawback (but is it one, really?)

Tweaking

The memory chips used here come from Hynix. We achieved a nice CL16 with 3600 Mhz at 1.40 V (1.35 V is the baseline value) on AMD, and CL17 with 3600 Mhz at 1.45 V (1.35 V default) on Intel. You can always try to lower the latencies and go even higher with the frequency.   

Gaming performance

That's a 1920x1080 (Full HD) gaming chart based on the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. You can see the differences between the 8 core CPUs from AMD and Intel and what improvement you can achieve after overclocking the memory on each system. Is it worth it? It's your call (but you need to remember the OC is free and only need some time to set/test the stability).

Conclusion

Patriot Steel provides a default frequency (3600 MHz) that will be enough for most users, and the XMP 2.0 profile makes life easier. If you want more, you can try to overclock the memory even further. With the reviewed kit, on our X470 and Z390 platforms, it was possible to CL16 and CL17 respectively while staying at 3600 Mhz in both cases. It’s a reasonably good result, but we didn’t expect spectacular achievements in the overclocking department due to the high density of the RAM. You need to remember, though, that reproducibility is never guaranteed, and your results may vary. The heat spreader is a relatively low-profile one (45 mm), so you shouldn’t encounter clearance problems with most CPU coolers. The two 32 GB modules provided a Chrome-friendly experience (couldn’t resist that one). On a more serious note, video editors and heavy users should be highly satisfied. Even the 32 GB option is a lot for most users nowadays. The price for 2 x 32 GB is ~310 USD, which is a fair offer for a 3600 MHz kit consisting of significant (32 GB) modules. The overclock that we achieved was mild, but that was to be expected. Ryzen fans should be more satisfied, especially ones loving to dig deeper into the timings. We got a better OC on this system than on our Intel. The officially stated timings are worse than what diagnostic software reports (18-22-22-42 vs 18-20-20-40).  This is good for the consumer, and an added (planned?) bonus. We can give Patriot a “Guru3D approved” award for this beautiful and speedy kit as the price is right. That said,  most of our readers are not going to need such capacity, and they might be better off finding a lower-capacity kit with more sophisticated default timings.

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