Sabrent Rocket DDR5 32GB 4800MHz Memory Review

We've all heard of Sabrent over the last couple of years. Essentially, they were a new brand who took the market by storm with blistering fast NVME drives for pretty exceptional prices and on top of that, have been the brand of choice when wanting not only the fastest storage but in high capacities too. Now, not being content on capturing a huge market in a very big way, and having other products in their portfolio to cater for other types of storage needs, but now, they want to try their hand at being a memory manufacturer too. I mean, it makes logical sense, when you think about how similar SSD storage and memory actually is. With the inception of Intel's Alder Lake platform and the introduction of DDR5, as well as AMD's new upcoming AM5 platform readying up for a summer 2022 launch and also supporting DDR5, then it could be seen as prime time for Sabrent to release a DDR5 product to market, just to test the water, and to see what kind of reception their able to get. Sabrent Rocket DDR5 Now in typical Sabrent style, they don't believe in cutting corners per say, but also want to give the consumers the very best value for money, and that's where the Rocket range of DDR5 products come in and if their NVME storage products are anything to go by, then I have high hopes for the Rocket DDR5 and a little insider knowledge tells me that this is just the start. If this is received well by the enthusiast DIY market, then we could be seeing more and more Sabrent memory products being released in the very near future, so lets see what they can do, because I'm all for having another brand in the market, as long as the product works as it's meant to, and the price is good. Features Make the most of your memory and reach the next level in gaming with these new technologies.DDR5 requires less voltage, which results in lower power consumption than DDR4.DDR5 allows for up to double the bandwidth of DDR4.DDR5 can have up to four times the capacity in the same space, making sure you never run out of memory again.DDR5 also has improvements to error correction, making sure your experience is consistent and reliable.Our memory meets all JEDEC memory standards, so it’s easier than ever to upgrade. Video If you want to know more, then I invite you to check out our video on YouTube showing the memory off in glorious 4K. Packaging & Unboxing As a bit of a cost-saving measure that can be passed onto the consumer, Sabrent's memory modules come in singular packs. The cool thing with the box is that they essentially look like bigger versions of the Rocket NVME products from Sabrent giving the consumer a consistent style. We also get our first view of how the memory is going to look. The back of the box is very similar to the front, other than including a barcode with model number as well as the website address for more detailed product information. Inside the box, again, we see very distinct similarities to their storage products, as the inner portion opens up like a book. Inside, we get to see the memory module itself for the first time, and a small installation guide is included. Something you rarely see with memory kits, but could be a nice addon if you're a novice at building computers. A Closer Look Once the memory is out of its packaging, we can take our first look at the modules and straight away, notice a few interesting things. Again, keeping with consistency, the modules really do just look like the bigger brother of the Rocket NVME storage drives, and I like that, especially if your PC has the opportunity to show both types of products off. The other big thing I noticed is that while from a distance, it looks like the modules have included heatspreaders, it's actually a stickered label. The back of the module looks very similar to the front, with some simplistic branding, but also includes the speed and model number of the modules Along the top, it's very simple with a small Sabrent Rocket logo along with the speed and capacity of the module. With the fact that these memory modules don't feature heatspreaders in the typical sense of the word, we were reluctant in attempting to remove the paper in fear of potentially damaging the memory ICs beneath. Instead, we reached out to Sabrent who kindly provided us with some pictures including this one showing a single sided design that uses eight 2GB memory chips, giving us a total of 16GB capacity per single stick. As you may be aware, one of the big features of DDR5 is the inclusion of the voltage regulator being on the DIMMs themselves now, and not on the motherboard which allows for lower voltages, better efficiency and simpler designs overall. The kit uses SK Hynix memory chips with part number H5CG48MEBD X014 151A. As DDR5 is still relatively new in the grand scheme of things, not much is known about these particular parts, but we have seen it used on other high-speed memory kits from other brands. Flipping the module around and we find the other side to be completely blank. No circuitry, no RGB controller, nothing. It's likely as higher capacity kits come to market, the other side will be utilised. 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 AIDA64, the kit performed right on track with other similar 4800MHz kits from the likes of Asgard and SK Hynix. Performance fell slightly behind the faster kits from Corsair, Geil and of course that 6200MHz kit from Viper. When it comes to latency, again, being a test that focuses purely on speed and speed alone, the numbers are very indicative of what we’d expect, but it’s good to see the Sabrent Rocket memory performing inline with other kits with the same speed. Calculation Performance Moving over to SuperPi, and again, we see scores inline with other similar kits. We can clearly see the effect that the faster memory from Patriot Viper has by shaving off around 17 seconds from our calculation time. Again, for consistency, looking at Wprime, we can see the Sabrent kit performing perfectly in line with the other kits we tested against. Rendering Performance As we move over to Cinebench R23, we actually see the Sabrent Rocket kit come out on top, though it’s well documented that Cinebench doesn’t have a huge ram scaling influence, but it’s good to see the memory line up with where we’d expect it to be and can more be looked at as being an accurate score for stock performance. In Corona, we had a mixed bag of results, where it clearly shows larger capacity makes a difference, but speed not so much when looking at how things compare to the 6200MHz Venom kit. FutureMark Performance In 3DMark Firestrike Ultra, the Venom kit leads the pack showing that speed makes a small difference, and our Sabrent kit actually sits above all of the other faster kits. Maybe the 40-40-40-77 timings are having more of an effect in this benchmark than pure speed or capacity. Moving onto Timespy Extreme, and in this test, it had no real cohesion to the results, with the slower kits and the fastest kit all performing relatively about the same. 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. So, lets take a look at gaming, and this is where speed and unadulterated bandwidth really comes into play, as we see all three of the 4800MHz kits performing identically. As the speed of the memory modules increases, we see the FPS do the same. 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 As we move over to Metro Exodus enhanced edition, we see capacity being king with the 64GB SK Hynix kit, followed by a small bump in performance on the faster kit, while the slower kits fall in line slightly behind it. 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. As we move over to Metro Exodus enhanced edition, we see capacity being king with the 64GB SK Hynix kit, followed by a small bump in performance on the faster kit, while the slower kits fall in line slightly behind it. 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. Now, while we are sometimes able to boot at a certain frequency, unless we see it as 100% stable, then it’s not good enough for us, and that’s where we ended up settling at a whopping 6200MHz. We did actually manage to boot at 6400MHz, and test using Aida 64 to see how memory throughput was affected, but other tests showed some instability and the system rebooted. If you really wanted to tweak things further, again, you could boost the voltage, or slacken the timings, but for us, an increase of 1400MHz overall, was more than enough, but how does this compare to its stock performance and that’s where my favourite saying comes in. Was the juice worth the squeeze? Well straight away, it’s clear to see that in our read test, that’s definitely the case with an amazing 29.9% uplift in performance. and copy speeds the same with a 27% performance increase. Write speeds saw a similar performance boost by around 24% when comparing stock performance and the increase to 6200MHz. Copy speeds were also the same with a 27% performance increase uplift. Not bad for free gains, is it? In terms of latency, this was also decreased from 86 nanoseconds to 66, putting it at the same as the 6200MHz Viper Gaming Venom kit that we tested again. How Much Does It Cost? For comparison, the Patriot Viper 6200MHz kit that we compared against, and have a full review on currently comes in at $378.99 on Newegg and $399 on Amazon. If you’re in the UK, the only place to buy it right now is on Newegg for £375.59, so quite expensive but that’s DDR5 for you. In terms of pricing on the Sabrent. We have no concrete pricing yet, but if we judge Sabrent on their storage products and how aggressively priced they were in the market, and seeing similar DDR5 4800MHz rated kits from Kingston, Corsair and Crucial, they are all coming in closer to the $200 mark or £240, so we’re able to see straight away, there's a HUGE saving to be made over a 6200MHz kit, and for a kit that can hit the same speeds, and the same performance figures. Why would you buy anything different? Overview In terms of the general memory throughput, the read, write and copy speeds were ever so slightly under the Viper gaming kit, so performance was again, inline with where we expected it to be but what about gaming? Well, it was clear to see from our stock tests that in Shadow Of The Tomb Raider, frequency was EVERYTHING, and that was evident in our overclock too. Once we were up and running at 6200MHz, the FPS shot up from the stock 219, up to 229 frames per second. Ok, so it’s only a 4 and a half % uplift, but it’s free performance for memory that costs you less in the first place. Should I Buy One? I think it's clear to see that Sabrent are onto a winner here and they seem to have done it so effortlessly too. I honestly think they know what they're doing, and as I mentioned, I believe they are looking to disrupt the market in a big way, like we've already seen on NVME based storage products. It honestly wouldn't surprise me, and as I was testing this kit, and more importantly, pushing the boundaries of it, I had a big grin on my face. Here's a company that are not only looking to get a piece of the pie in terms of the market, but are going about it, all the right way. Fast memory, with huge potential, for potentially a great price. I guess we just have to wait to see what the street price is when they become available, but if past products are anything to go by, I think you'll be happy about it. Let's just wait and see! Sabrent Rocket DDR5 32GB 4800MHz Memory Review