Samsung Green DDR3 1600MHz 8GB 30nm Memory Kit Review

We haven’t taken a look at any memory in a while, so we thought that it was about time, but you know us, we don’t like to do things by halves, and if we’re going to start doing something again, then we’d like to do it with a bit of style and take a look at something unique.

With that in mind, we’d like to introduce to you the Samsung Green DDR3 1600MHz 8GB 30nm low-profile memory kit said to give outstanding results with reduced energy usage. Though we all know what marketing hype can say and what a product can actually do, well that’s another story.

Due to the release of Intel’s new Z77 Express Chipset, we’re keen to pair this kit up with the Asus Maximus V Gene and our i7 3770k to see how far things can be pushed, but lets take a look at the modules themselves first, as they are quite interesting to look at. Keep reading, and you’ll see exactly why.

The modules come in a typical style set of packaging fully sealed. From a first glance, you can see the sticks themselves are extremely low profile; in fact, around half the height of normal modules, and this is all down to the 30nm technology.

Taking the modules out of the pack, you’ll notice that these new modules don’t come with an included heatspreader. With 30nm, low wattage IC’s, the modules shouldn’t get hot enough to warrant a heatspreader and instead, are laid bare for the world to see. On the one side, you get a clear view of the memory chips and the low-profile design.

The other side is very much the same, apart from the sticker that is stuck in the middle. This sticker details the capacity of each module, the speed and some of the timings. Also included is the model number and barcode. These particular modules come in various speeds, but today we are looking at the 1600MHz kit with timings of 11-11-11-28 @ 1.35V.

As we haven’t tested any memory in a while, we thought we’d change things up a bit, and try things out on the Maxmius V Gene Z77 motherboard with our i7 3770k Ivy Bridge processor. So lets get straight in to see how they run at stock, and then see how far we can push them.

Test system:

• Asus Maximus V
• Intel Core i7 3770k
• AMD Radeon HD 7970
• Antec Kuhler 920
• Corsahir HX1050W
• Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD
• Lian Li T60
• 3 x AOC E2795VH

Sadly, it doesn’t seem as though XMP is supported by these modules, and booting into the BIOS of our Maximus V Gene motherboard revealed no XMP settings, so we had to manually configure the settings to the manufacturer’s specifications of 1600MHz with timings of 11-11-11-28.

After we had configured the memory to run at their stock speeds and timings, we proceeded to boot into Windows to check that the settings had stuck by taking a look at CPU-Z.

After we had confirmed our speeds, we continued to open AIDA64 so that we could take a look at the stock performance of this kit. This is a great way to start when benchmarking and attempting to overclock memory as it gives you something to work from.

The stock performance of these modules came out at 17611MB/s read, 18032MB/s write, 20496MB/s copy and a latency of 46.7ns. From a stock point of view, these numbers aren’t anything to shout how about, but we have heard good things about the overclockability of these modules, so lets jump straight into that.

Overclocking these modules was quite tricky, but not in a bad way but more in a sensible kinda way. Make sense? Nah, I thought not. The joys of overclocking memory, is what you try to focus on, whether it be the timings and making sure they are super tight, or whether it’s all about sheer speed.

What we ended up doing, was going for sheer speed as I’m a man, and that’s all we care about, right? I started by bumping the memory up to 2133MHz with timings of 11-11-11-35 and the modules took it in its stride. Next step was 2400MHz and once again, the memory didn’t even break a sweat.

Knowing that above 2400MHz would require some extra juice, we then started to increase the DRAM voltage to 1.7V and to start overclocking our CPU as well, to give more bandwidth to the memory. This allowed us to get to 2666MHz, a complete astonishment to say the least, but we still wanted to aim higher.

2800MHz was the next step, but sadly, no matter what we did, it was just impossible to get to that magical number, so we tried 2700MHz instead and ended up getting the very most from the modules at a whopping 2760MHz with timings of 11-13-13-35-2T @ 1.65V.

Sadly at these kinds of speeds, the memory bandwidth started to drop significantly and the read, write and copy speeds including latency were hindered as you can see.

At these speeds, we ended up with a read speed of 21832MB/s, write speed of 24080MB/s, copy speed of 22535MB/s and latency of an extremely low 30.6ns. What you will see with this overclock is that the write speed excels forward as it should, but the rear and copy don’t get boosted as much as normal.

With that in mind, we started to bring the speed back down slightly, to find a good medium where speed meets timings, and the bandwidth shoots up to an impressive level again. This ended up being 2400MHz with timings of 11-10-11-28 at 1.6V, meaning not only did we overclock the memory, but we also managed to tweak the timings better than what they are at stock speeds.

Going back into AIDA64, we ran the test again and frankly couldn’t believe the numbers at 24927MB/s read, 23999MB/s write and 28414MB/s copy, with a latency of 31.6ns.

These are some of the most impressive figures we’ve ever seen in our labs, with some really high figures being hit across the board with the most impressive result being the copy speed which managed to increase by almost 8000MB/s.

These modules were so easy to squeeze performance out of, though it takes a bit of time to get the right balance between speed and latencies.

When this kit arrived with us, we wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. It’s the first DDR3 kit we’ve looked at from Samsung and looked to be quite unique with its low-profile design and 30nm marketing hype, but it was so much more than marketing hype.

Samsung have put a fantastic little kit together here, and the good news is that a 16GB kit is also available for those wanting a larger capacity or those wanting some quad-channel action on the X79 platform. You will also find 2133MHz is easily achievable at around 1.45V

Stock performance didn’t seem all that fantastic, but this was more than made up for when we started to push the modules further than we thought possible, and even with 1.7V pushed through them, they seemed to stay relatively cool.

It doesn’t end there though, as this memory module kit has one more thing up its sleeve. Overclockers UK have managed to secure exclusivity on it and priced it at a stupidly low £53.99 making it one of the cheapest kits around, considering the performance it offers.

If you don’t already own this memory, go and buy it, and if you do, go and buy some more. Match it up with a good clocking motherboard, preferably of the newer sockets, and watch it fly, as for £53.99, you won’t find better. Trust me!