Introduction
Viper’s Latest addition to its expanding memory offerings is the new Viper Elite II. Starting with the flagship Viper Elite, Viper Elite II cranks the speeds and capacities up to the latest and greatest with Kits up to two-stick kits reaching a lofty 64GB (32GB per stick for those doing the math) and speeds up to 4000MHz. The new Viper Red heatshield ensures your speed modules stay nice and cool for optimal performance. We’ve come to expect great things from Viper memory, so let’s dive in and see if the new addition to the family can live up to that Elite name!
PC Test Bench would like to thank Patriot for providing us a Viper Elite II kit to check out!
What Patriot has to say about the Viper Elite II memory family:
The Viper Elite II DDR4 memory modules are designed with innovative upgrades to update our current Viper Elite line. The Viper Elite II lineup utilizes a Viper red aluminum heatshield for extreme overall thermal conductivity to ensure optimal performance. The Viper Elite II incorporates DDR4 technology, which is ideal for: gaming, content creation, and productivity applications.
Experience smoother performance thanks to the higher available capacities and clock speeds of our Viper Elite II modules. Our Viper Elite II DDR4 kits are tested thoroughly and validated for enhanced system compatibility. Built for the latest Intel and AMD platforms, the Viper Elite II provides solid performance, reliable stability for the most demanding computer environments, and high-quality assurance. The Viper Elite II DDR4 memory series is also supported by a limited lifetime warranty.
FEATURES:
- Product line: Viper Elite II
- Edition: Red heatshield with black Viper logo/top
- Aluminum heat spreader with a unique and specific design element
- Feature Overclock: XMP 2.0 support for automatic overclocking
- Compatibility: Tested across the latest Intel and AMD platforms for reliably fast performance
- Limited lifetime warranty
SPECIFICATIONS:
- Capacity: 16GB (2 x 8GB)
- Base Frequency: PC4-21300 (2666MHz)
- Base Timings: 19-19-19-43
- Tested Frequency Profile 1: PC4-32000 (4000MHz)
- Tested Timings: 20-26-26-46
- Tested Voltage for Profile 1: 1.40V
- Format: NON-ECC Unbuffered DIMM
- Pin Out: 288-Pin
Packaging & A Closer Look
Patriot’s Viper memory kits always use similar packaging with a large clear window showing off one stick inside. Kit capacity and speed are listed in the top left corner.
There is a blurb about the Blackout memory family in several languages on the rear of the package.
Inside are two sticks and the typical Viper Gaming Logo sticker.
The front and rear are mirror images with one side holding the small size and capacity label.
System Configuration & Performance Testing
Testing Hardware:
- Asus ROG Strix Z490-I Gaming
- Intel Core i9-10900K
- Kingston KC2000 1TB
- 16GB (2x 8GB) Viper Elite II 4000MHz
Testing Software:
- Microsoft Windows 10 Professional 21H1
- Thaiphoon Burner
- CPU-Z
- AIDA64 Extreme Edition
- Passmark Performance Test 10
- SiSoft Sandra
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 two XMP profiles available, one at 3600MHz effective at 20-26-26-46 and the spec’d 4000MHz effective with the same timings that we are running for our testing.
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. Comparing 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.
Thaiphoon shows us Patriot is utilizing 8x Hynix DRAM modules but it doesn’t read exactly what series. Based on our testing, We believe it to be CJR series dies.
Here is the full readout if you want to look deep into the specs.
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.”
Viper’s Elite II modules run at 4000Mhz effective and provide around 56GB/s writes and 51.4GB/s on reads. Reads seem a bit slow due to the C20 latency but overall land around what we expect.
The C20-26-26-46 timings hurt latency a bit here, but still provide a decent response time.
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 really likes bandwidth which is mostly a function of speed so the Elite II kit does ok here, but the C20 latency seems to hurt a bit.
SiSoft Sandra
“SiSoftware Sandra provides a robust package of diagnostic tools for testing your system and teasing out its problems–or potential headaches.”
SiSoft aggregate memory scores land at 44GB/s exactly which is pretty close to expected here.
Overclocking
Previously we mentioned that we believe the Hynix Modules on the Viper Elite II to be CJR series and that is because no matter what we tried, we could not get the system to POST with the Elite II modules clocked higher than the XMP 4000 MHz. more voltage and heavily relaxed timings still would give a failure to POST. 4000 MHz seems to be a common ceiling for CJR dies. On the flip side, they often can operate with tight timings, so we’ll try cranking those down instead.
Moving down to CAS-19 is super easy.
Zero settings need to change for CAS-18.
CAS-17 requires bumping voltage slightly to 1.425V. C16 refuses to post without voltage higher than we are comfortable with though.
Dialing down the rest of the primary timings a little at a time lands us at a final 17-21-21-28 at 4000MHz effective. We gain quite a bit of read bandwidth, a bit of write bandwidth, and latency plummets from 51.2ns to 47.1ns.
Without any additional speed, just tighter timings, our Super-Pi 32M time falls from an XMP time of 6:58.479 to 6:56.109, shaving almost two and a half seconds off.
Final Thoughts & Conclusion
Patriot’s Viper Elite memory kits were among our favorites when they launched, and the new Elite II is a worthy successor. Performance out of the box is decent, but not particularly class-leading. The second 3600MHz XMP profile might be appreciated by AMD Ryzen systems that prefer to stick to that magic 1:1:1 ratio of system speeds that 3600Mhz plays a part of. Speaking of latency, we were able to easily dial the Elite II kit down to a pretty respectable 17-21-21-28 with a notable performance increase.
The CAS-20 latency out of the box doesn’t do the kit many favors, and the same timings used on the second 3600MHz XMP profile are going to be even worse. However, if you are willing to endure a few CMOS resets and have a few minutes to dial things in manually, Viper’s Elite II memory can go from ‘decent’ to ‘rock star’ pretty quick. IF that wasn’t enough for you, that flashy red heatsink should add a little spice to your life.
Rating 8/10
