Asgard Aesir DDR5 32GB 4800MHz Kit Review

The launch of a new platform is always fun, even if it has been marred by supply chain constraints and the ‘scalper apocalypse’ over the last couple of years. It’s even more exciting when it comes with new technology, and after 8 years on the DDR4 train, we finally have DDR5. One of the very first memory kits to hit the streets is Asgard’s Aesir DDR5. Based on the god of music and poetry in Nordic mythology, Aesir looks to bring beauty and vitality to your latest gaming rig. I f you aren’t familiar with DDR5 at this point, it brings a lot of features to the table. You’ve probably noticed the speed already with DDR5 starting at 4800MHz at a low 1.1V. On-die ECC means great stability which is good when you can end up with up to 128GB PER STICK in the future. We won't even get into all the changes to how it operates but we will say that you almost end up with dual-channel performance per stick. Asgard polishes this off with a simple and clean gun-metal gray heat spreader with subtle gold accents and full RGB lighting that can be controlled with your favorite motherboard RGB program. Let’s dive in and check it out! PC Test Bench would like to thank Asgard for providing us with an Aesir DDR5 kit to check out! About Asgard: Asgard is the consumer gaming-oriented brand of Powev Electronics Technology Co. Powev was established in 2012 in Shenzhen China. They are primarily engaged in the R&D and manufacturing of Dram modules but also develop and sell Solid State disks, USB drives, and other digital storage products. Powev is an original equipment manufacturer for many well-known memory module companies and has facilities around the globe. Powev endeavors to provide its global clientele top quality memory modules in every industry imaginable. What Asgard has to say about the Aesir DDR5: The designer chose Aesir as the name of this product in the Nordic mythology, which means being brave and good at fighting. Aesir series products also have a relatively high overclocking space , which reserves high playability for gamers. The design style is also tough, hoping to build a product image that can resist and fight. FEATURES: SPECIFICATIONS: Brand: Asgard Model: Asa Warrior Series – Cool Black Armor with RGB Light Bar Capacity: 32GB kit (2 x 16GB) JEDEC Frequency: (4800MHz) JEDEC Timings: 40-40-40-77 Voltage: 1.1V Format: NON-ECC Unbuffered DIMM Pin Out: 288-Pin DDR5 Warranty: Lifetime Packaging & A Closer Look We don’t typically dive too deep on unboxing products, but Asgard really creates an experience here that we want to share. The outer sleeve is nice but fairly typical in the OC world showing features and specs in several languages, and the details on the front. Inside is a simple black box with a metallic Asgard logo in red. The box has a security seal but is magnetically closed as well. Inside, a sheet of what feels like bamboo paper shows some conceptual sketches of the Aesir memory. Both modules are seated firmly in a block of foam and are well protected. If you pull the foam tray up by the cloth strap, you find a set of white gloves below. Yes, Asgard gives you the white glove experience. When was the last time you have seen that with a kit of memory? Yea, us either. The modules themselves are quite simple. The golden pinstripes match the golden badge in the center. The info label and a QR code hide on one side. The contacts of both modules are protected with a plastic cover and the decorative badge is ready for your peel pleasure. The top of the module is a gentle wave with the peak being capped with a golden Aesir badge. The white area is a translucent diffuser for the lighting with it extending to the end of the module under the badge. Lighting is always hard to capture but Aesir’s light bar is nice and smooth. It wasn’t obvious until we booted it up the first time but the Asgard logo on each side has RGB shine through as well which is a nice touch. Performance Testing Testing Hardware: MSI Z690 Carbon WiFi Intel Core i9-12900K Kingston KC2000 1TB 32GB (2x16GB) Asgard Aesir DDR5 4800MHz Testing Software: Microsoft Windows 10 Professional 20H2 Thaiphoon Burner CPU-Z AIDA64 Extreme Edition Passmark Performance Test 10 SiSoft Sandra 7-Zip CPU-Z is a freeware that gathers information on some of the main devices of your system: Processor name and number, codename, process, package, cache levels. Mainboard and chipset. Memory type, size, timings, and module specifications (SPD). Real-time measurement of each core's internal frequency, memory frequency. CPUz shows us we have No XMP profiles and the top JEDEC profile tops out at 4800MHz effective at 42-40-40-77 at 1.1V. However, Our MSI motherboard tweaks this slightly down to 40-40-40-76 by default as is reported by CPUz and other programs such as AIDA 64. The most interesting part is that CPUz (and most other programs) show typical mainstream desktop DDR5 to be quad-channel due to the way banks are configured even though Intel’s 12th gen CPUs only have two memory controllers. Thaiphoon Burner Thaiphoon Burner is the number one solution on the software market to work with SPD firmware of DRAM modules of PC. Thaiphoon Burner provides powerful features for reading, modifying, updating, and reprogramming SPD firmware of SPD EEPROM devices. The program fully supports all popular JEDEC standards for Serial Presence Detects and third-party enhancements, such as NVIDIA EPP and Intel XMP. Compared to other software Thaiphoon Burner creates the most completed reports for any of the following SDRAM types of DIMM modules: PC SDRAM, DDR SDRAM, DDR2 SDRAM, DDR3 SDRAM, DDR2 FB-DIMM, DDR4 SDRAM, LPDDR3, and LPDDR4. This is achieved due to the universal built-in SPD decoding engine. We use Thaiphoon to show us what DRAM modules a kit is using, however, either Thaiphoon doesn’t yet support DDR5 correctly or Asgard doesn’t fully program the onboard SPD chip with full details. CPUz reports Asgard using Micron Dies AIDA64 Engineer Edition “AIDA64 Engineer has a hardware detection engine unrivaled in its class. It provides detailed information about installed software and offers diagnostic functions and support for overclocking. As it is monitoring sensors in real-time, it can gather accurate voltage, temperature, and fan speed readings, while its diagnostic functions help detect and prevent hardware issues. It also offers a couple of benchmarks for measuring the performance of individual hardware components or the whole system. It is compatible with all 32-bit and 64-bit Windows editions, including Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016.” Bandwidth measured by AIDA64 falls in about where we expect it to compared to similar kits, all of which understandably eclipse all but the fastest DDR4 kits. Latency on the other hand fairs a bit worse, but keep in mind this is basically a one-point-oh version of DDR5, things aren’t bad now, but they will undoubtedly improve. Passmark Performance Test - Memory Mark - Threaded “Fast, easy to use, PC speed testing, and benchmarking. PassMark Performance Test 10 allows you to objectively benchmark a PC using a variety of different speed tests and compare the results to other computers.” Passmark gives Asgard’s Aesir memory a slight advantage in Passmark’s Performance Test 10. SiSoft Sandra “SiSoftware Sandra provides a robust package of diagnostic tools for testing your system and teasing out its problems--or potential headaches.” SiSoft shows an aggregate memory bandwidth of 56 GB/s which is just crazy for Dual-channel memory. SuperPi Mod 1.5 XS Coupled with Aesir memory, Intel’s latest flagship Core i9-12900K solves pi to 32 Million digits in 6 minutes and 34.2 seconds, just under a second faster than the same run with Crucials memory kit. 7-Zip Benchmark Asgard's Aesir pulls a few percent ahead of Crucials basic DDR5 modules in 7-zip's benchmark. Overclocking Asgard’s Aesir DDR5 is really quick out of the box, but we always like to see if we can squeeze a little more out of it. This is a baseline run for comparison. We were able to jump right to 5000Mhz without doing anything. Our motherboard auto-adjusts timings to compensate. 5200MHz is also a breeze to achieve. 5400Mhz requires us to up the voltage to 1.2V but we clear the 80GB/s mark and latency is still slowly falling. We were able to top out at 5600Mhz, but this required 1.32V to achieve Our next direction is to reset to stock and see if we can tighten up the timings. Moving to C38 doesn’t require any effort on our part. C36 also comes and goes easily. We were ultimately able to get down to C34 but this requires 1.22V to get stable. It refused to go any lower and would fail to POST. With some tweaking, we were able to get 4800MHz C36-36-36-75 at stock voltage which gets us a modest boost in bandwidth and much lower timings. Interestingly, we noticed this also affects the CPU’s L3 cache latency. Tighter ram timings seem to lower the L3 cache latency as well. Final Thoughts & Conclusion This is our first run-in with Asgard but we can’t say we are anything other than impressed! While DDR5 memory is still in its infancy in the consumer desktop world and only available on Intel’s 12th Generation platform as of this writing, Asgard’s Aesir is ready to make a big splash. I can’t honestly say I’ve ever had an ‘experience’ unboxing a kit of memory but wow does Asgard swing for the fence! Aesthetics are subjective to all, but we think these look great, even in a build with no gold accents. We also really love that no special software is needed to sync up the lighting with the rest of your system. It worked perfectly with MSI’s Mystic Light app. Performance-wise, well, there isn’t much to say. Compared to 8 years of DDR4, it’s fast and this is only the beginning. We have really enjoyed our time with the Aesir and will be featuring it in some upcoming review builds, along with some of their equally beautiful DDR4 kits. If you are in the market for DDR5, we strongly encourage you to check Asgard out! Great job Asgard! Get your own Asgard Aesir DDR5 on AliExpress below or JD.com

Final Thoughts & Conclusion

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