Avexir Standard Series DDR3 1600MHz 4GB Memory Kit Review

We keep seeing new memory manufacturers come into the market though from time to time, some pop up who have been developed for quite some time, but just need that extra push to get their name out there in the big, bad world.

This is where Avexir enter our labs with their “Standard Series” memory which may not sound glamorous but has been launched to provide rock-solid stability and the fantastic comptibility across both AMD and Intel platforms and with the includes of Intel XMP, Avexir even challenge us to overclock this memory and expect us to be surprised in the process.

With more 8GB kits on the market than ever before, and with the price dropping quite dramatically, we are hoping that this 4GB kit has something hidden up its sleeve, because as we know, the memory segment is a tough market to crack with some of the big boys like Corsair and G.Skill really playing hard ball, especially in terms of price.

This particular 4GB kit runs at 1600MHz and sports a silver/grey combination low-profile heatspreader, which will be favoured by a lot of users with bulky CPU coolers like the Phanteks or Noctua range. The heatspreaders cover up a green PCB and are simple and direct with the Avexir logo on one side.

The other side of the modules include a typical barcode sticker with relevant information on. We find out that each module is 2GB in size and runs at 1600MHz with a voltage of 1.65. In terms of timings, we had to look on the Avexir website to find that they use low timings of 9-9-9-24 which doesn’t exactly scream performance for the speed of the memory, especially with a high voltage of 1.65V.

Typically we are used to lower voltage kits with the market being geared towards Sandybridge. Due to this, we hope that overclocking isn’t hindered too much, especially after the bold claims that Avexir make about this kit.

Test system:

• Asus Maximus IV Extreme-Z
• Intel Core i7 2700k
• Gigabyte GeForce GTX 580 SOC
• Corsair H80
• Corsahir HX1050W
• Kingston V+100 128GB SSD
• Lian Li T60

Taking a look at how this memory performs at stock, we saw that AIDA64 gave us a read speed of 18065 MB/s, a write speed of 17887 MB/s, a copy speed of 19043 MB/s and a memory latency of 49.6ns.

The figures shown were fairly standard to what we expect of a 1600MHz kit, especially one with fairly tight timings of 9-9-9-24. We were then keen to see how far things could be pushed when overclocked, and to see if loosening the timings could give us any more headroom.

In terms of overclocking, we decided to go straight in by changing our memory divider to 1866MHz on the stock timings, but the system failed to boot and with the voltage already being set at a stock value of 1.65V, we knew we might not have much more room to move on.

Instead, we tried loosening the timings to 11-11-11-31 2T in the hope of it booting at 1866MHz, but the same result was given with a failed boot. We weren’t too fussed on the timings side of things, as Sandy Bridge is renowned for preferring sheer bandwidth to tighter latencies. With this in mind, we were restricted in overclocking the memory by use of the BCLK and started to bump it up from it’s stock 100MHz value.

After increasing it up to 106.8MHz, we found the brick wall that we expected, due to Sandy Bridge being linked to the BCLK on many various features. After reaching this, we aimed to get the timings back to a tighter value and found that due to the higher stock voltage, we were able to get the timings back to a stock 9-9-9-24 2T rating showing that the memory IC’s are of the higest quality as Avexir claim.

Keen to see how the increased overclock from 1600MHz to 1709MHz improved performance, we fired AIDA64 back up. We obtained figures including a read speed of 18940 MB/s, a write speed of 18141 MB/s, a copy speed of 19770 MB/s and memory latency of 46.9ns.

We went into this review with an open mind, due to the fact of never heard of, let alone testing an Avexir memory module kit. They seemed to make bold claims about their overclockability as most do and we tend to take that with a pinch of salt at times, until proved differently.

This kit certainly did that by offering an ample overclock, which is no extreme result there but by offering it with the stock timings, we find ourselves wondering how far this kit could be pushed on a higher bandwidth based system such as our AMD FX-8150 Bulldozer/Asus Crosshair V Formula rig, as we believe that their is still a bit of extra performance to be squeezed out.

The compatability was also something that Avexir were keen to shout home about and they delivered on that too, even when overclocked and supporting XMP made it a simple task of installing the modules and changing one setting to get it to boot.

No reputable retailers are stocking this in the UK at the moment, and they seem to be focussed in Germany and other close countries for the time being, but hopefully we’ll end up seeing more of them in the near future, and who knows, we may be looking at some of their faster, more extreme 8GB kits.

Simply put, if you want a module kit that does it all and gives you a nice boost in the process, you can’t go wrong with the Standard Series from Avexir. We just wish it was slightly faster to start off with, and of a higher capacity.