ASGARD VALKYRIE DDR4 3600MHz 16GB (8GBx2) Review

DDR4 has been available for a respectable amount of time, and the industry is preparing itself to move across to the new DDR5 standard that was recently launched alongside the newest CPUs from Intel. But even with DDR5 on the market now, it will be a long time till the whole tech space moves onto it, so for now, there is still no harm is buying or using DDR4 if you can get good deals and all the performance you need. For gamers, there isn't a compelling argument for spending the extra on DDR5 and compatible hardware when the performance gain in games is negligible. So for the time being there is still plenty of value in going for a kit of DDR4 memory. ASGARD VALKYRIE DDR4 3600MHz This isn't the first time we've seen memory from Asgard here, and I'm sure it won't be the last, but I have to question, with the first kit from them that we reviewed being DDR5, why have we moved down to a DDR4 kit? As I mentioned, there is still a lot of value in DDR4, at this point in time it is looking like it may be easy to spec out and buy all the parts you need for a budget gaming rig that still has great performing memory for a cheap price. Let's see if that great performing memory can be found within the Asgard Valkyrie kit of memory. We've been sent this kit from Asgard to have a look at, this kit isn't meant to be the best ever, this is actually the most budget memory we have looked at from Asgard, so this could be a great contender if you want to build something well performing and cheap that still manages to look good. Packaging & Unboxing On the front of the box, we see some very nice hand drawn art of a Valkyrie, who in Norse mythology were a group of female figures who guided the souls of deceased Nordic solders to either Fólkvangr or Valhalla. The back of the box is nothing but a lot of text and a sticker with even more text on it. The inner box feels good quality and has a magnetic lid, but it is missing the glossy red text that Asgard boxes normally have here. I suppose this is the first good indication that this kit is more budget conscious than other Asgard kits. An Asgard staple is the inclusion of these gloves, they are always too small to fit my hands aren't useful for most of their memory, but I'd be sad to see them go. Under the gloves is another Asgard staple, the very nice concept art included on a semi-transparent piece of card. Underneath the art card is the memory itself, sitting a little loosely in some foam for protection. A Closer Look With the memory out of the box, we get to have a proper look at it, the front is mostly plain, it is white with grey stripes across the middle, almost like it's a racing stripe. The backside of the memory is identical in terms of design but features the addition of informational stickers. From the top, we can see that the memory has a very clean looking light bar, with a simple logo in the centre. Both sides of the heat spreader come all the way up to be flush with the light bar, this could ruin the RGB look for me a bit, as I am a sucker for clean and uninterrupted looking RGB. With the heat spreaders removed from the memory, we can see that this is an eight chip design, each chip being 1GB of the total capacity of the DIMM. The chips in question are made by NANYA, a Taiwanese company who have over 20 years experience in creating DRAM chips. There isn't much at the back of the PCB, we can see the eight LEDs that make up the RGB on this stick and not much else. Speaking of RGB, this is what it looks like when you have all four memory slots populated with these sticks. To demonstrate the RGB we used four sticks, but for testing we only used two as this is what is included in the box when you buy this kit, and we want to be as fair as possible in all our testing. How We Test Here at eTeknix, we endeavour to disclose vital information regarding the benchmarking process so that readers can quantify the results and attempt to replicate them using their hardware. When it comes to our benchmarks in our reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory although there are a few exceptions. Remember that your choice of graphics card, CPU, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there's always a margin for error when using any software. Therefore, your experience may vary. Testing Your Own System Links are provided below, as well as the settings we use. We encourage you to not just look at how one product compares to any other, but how it compares to your own. If you're looking to build a new system, you should benchmark your current PC using our benchmarks and settings where possible. You should then look at the percentage improvement from your current hardware to the hardware we tested to give you a ballpark figure of how much an upgrade this will provide you with. Test System ProcessorIntel i9 12900kMotherboardMSI Z690 TOMAHAWK WiFiMemoryChanges Per ReviewGraphicsGigabyte RTX 3080 Gaming OC 10GBStorageSeagate Firecuda 520 1TBPower SupplyCorsair RM850xSoftwareWindows 10 Professional 1909DriversNVDIA GeForce 497.29 DCH Software Used CineBench R23 (download)AIDA 64 Engineer (download)WPrime (download)3DMark (download)HWMonitor (download)CPU-Z (download) Methodology In our RAM reviews, we keep things relatively simple. We put the RAM kit that is being tested into our test system and benchmark it at its first XMP profile using a variety of benchmarks and tests. Once complete, we apply a reasonable overclock where possible and benchmark the same software with the overclocked values. The CPU clock speed is set to default for both runs. AIDA64 In the read test, write test and copy test, the Asgard Valkyrie ended up at the bottom of the results chart. “What about the Corsair Vengeance?” I hear you cry, well that is the only kit we tested that was running at 3200MHz instead of 3600MHz, meaning that the Valkyrie was our worst performing kit at that speed. When it comes to latency, the Valkyrie isn't even able to outperform the Corsair vengeance. In the real world, a difference this small makes no appreciable effect. Calculation Performance The Asgard Valkyrie kit makes a startling comeback in Super Pi, going from the bottom to near the top, with only 2 seconds difference between itself and the next kit up in the ranks. That was short-lived, back down they go. The kit didn't perform the worst here, but it's results still leave something to be desired. Rendering Performance Cinebench sees the Valkyrie making another step up in performance as the Corsair vengeance take a big fall from grace. Once again, the improvement was short-lived. In fairness to the kit, they are tied for worst performance with the Trident Z NEO kit from G.Skill. Interestingly, the top spot in this test is taken up by another Asgard kit, the Bragi. FutureMark Performance The Bragi that was our previous champion has now fallen all the way to the bottom of the chart, giving the Valkyrie an opportunity to gain a few places above it. OK, This keeps happening: just as I think we will see even more performance out of this kit, we end up being at the bottom of the score board. This time, however, the two Asgard kits swapped places in the chart, so we could look at this as each of them having a work load that suits them better. Shadow of the Tomb Raider Experience Lara Croft’s defining moment as she becomes the Tomb Raider. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Lara must master a deadly jungle, overcome terrifying tombs, and persevere through her darkest hour. As she races to save the world from a Maya apocalypse, Lara will ultimately be forged into the Tomb Raider she is destined to be. Available now on Steam. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the kit is near the bottom of our performers, only beating the Corsair Dominator kit, which is a very premium kit. Metro Exodus Metro Exodus is a first-person shooter video game developed by 4A Games and published by Deep Silver. It is the third instalment in the Metro video game trilogy based on Dmitry Glukhovsky’s novels, following the events of Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light. It was released in 2019 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Stadia and in 2020 for Amazon Luna. A Linux and macOS conversion was released in 2021. An enhanced version of the game was released for Microsoft Windows on May 6, 2021, and was later released for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on June 18, 2021. Available now on the Epic Game Store and Steam In Metro, our worst results are from this kit, it's been on a bad streak throughout testing, and I am not hopeful for our final test. Dirt 5 DIRT 5 is a fun, amplified, off-road racing experience created by Codemasters. Blaze a trail on routes across the world, covering gravel, ice, snow and sand, with a roster of cars ranging from rally icons to trucks, to GT heroes. With a star-studded Career, four-player split-screen, innovative online modes, livery editor and more new features, DIRT 5 is the next generation of extreme racing. Available now on Steam. I'm sad to say that this kit is once again at the bottom of our results, but once again is meet almost exactly in performance with the Trident Z kit. Overclocking When overclocking memory, it can be done in a variety of ways including increasing the frequency, slackening timings and changing the relevant voltages. Of course, a combination of these measures can also be done to get the very best performance. When we overclock memory in our reviews we go for all out frequency. This is primarily done by tweaking the DRAM frequency within the BIOS. To do this, we take the default clock speed, which we set based on the JEDEC profile, or via XMP if the memory modules allow it, and then increase the DRAM frequency step by step while keeping timings and voltages the same as per the JEDEC or XMP profile. Once we increase the frequency, we boot into Windows and test stability using AIDA64's built-in memory benchmark test. If the overclock is stable, we boot back into the BIOS and further increase the frequency of the modules and re-test for stability. Unfortunately, we saw no overclocking results on this kit, as soon as we tried going anywhere above the rated XMP spec we ended up crashing instantly, never even getting to a blue screen. How Much Does It Cost? Coming in at around £90 or $110 on AliExpress, this kit isn't the most expensive kit in the world. Compared to other DDR4 kits with the same capacity and speed, this falls below the prices of those other kits for the most part; there were other kits like the corsair vengeance RGB that were going for less in some listings. Overview This kit is well built, has a good quality feel to it and has a good looking design with very nice RGB. But overall, the results from testing this kit were disappointing, we didn't see very good performance in any test we did. If you were able to get some overclocking out of your kit you might be able to make up some performance and end up with a much better value for your money. Being as fair as possible, I need to point out how close the results were in all of our tests, we saw very little change between kits, so yes this performed the worst of our kits, but you are still getting performance that is close to what we see on the other kits. The final nail in the coffin of value is the price to perfrmance. This kit isn't the most expensive one on the market, but does that make it a good value? No, unfortunatly for the Valkyrie, at time of writing, there are better performing kits than this falling in price to similar or lower costs. Should I Buy One? Unless you really can't live without this kit because the design is exactly what you are looking for, I would suggest looking into something else. As I said at the start of this review, this isn't meant to be the best kit you've ever seen, it's meant to be more budget-friendly, but with advancements in the industry, the cost of DDR4 is going down, and other kits that perform better have fallen to similar or better prices. This kit isn't for anyone looking to get the most out of their money, but for looks? It might just be what you are looking for.