Patriot Viper 16GB 4000 MHz DDR4 Memory Review

A Closer Look

Without a doubt, this is some seriously cool looking RAM. Plus, it’s only now that it’s out of the box that I realise it looks like a gun. Do you see it? The snakehead at the back would be the upper part of the handle. The word Viper is on the end of the barrel, and there’s clearly a ridge on the top forming the sights. Further to the left, there’s a black ridge in the top, forming the ejection port.

However, the “gun” design could be a coincidence and is not mentioned anywhere in the official blurb. It does look cool though.

The black and red design is awesome. It takes me back to my early days at eTeknix, when gaming hardware was all black and red, sometimes green if the brand was being fancy (and also called Gigabyte).

A black PCB looks great, matching up well with the matte black finish on the heat spreaders.

The red is dark and not too shiny, more of a blood colour than anything metallic. There’s a long trend in making hardware for PCs bright, glitzy, shiny, etc. This is much more matte, muted and subtle aggressive with its colours, and I like that.

The spine of the ram is open, so you can clearly see the PCB in there. It’ll let heat flow through easily enough and even some airflow in general.

There’s a good amount of meat on the heatspreaders too, they’re not bulky, but they’re not just for show either and will help maintain the high-speeds that Patriot promises.

The warranty sticker is obnoxiously large though, taking up the middle of the RAM. It’s also wonky, with the top corner just running over the red. This could be smaller and more stylishly designed to match the aesthetic. You can remove it, and I would personally, but that says warranty void if you do… so keep it in the box and put it back with some sticky glue should they ever go faulty, haha.

And now for the RGB demo… oh wait, there is none! I’m not sure if that’s old-school or the new modern, but I’m happy either way, the RAM looks great as it is.