Viper Steel RGB DDR4 32GB (2 x 16GB) 3600MHz Review

We’ve been a fan of Patriots Viper Steel memory since we first got our hands on them. The sleek gunmetal exterior and subtly aggressive fins on top made for some great looking modules in any system, and it had the performance to match. We were quite excited when our PR rep reached out and told us our favorite kit was getting a colorful upgrade! Meet Viper Gaming’s new Viper Steel RGB. You get the same outline and design cues, including the Viper head logo on the center of the module, but you now get a milky white top bar just waiting to burst to life. We’re were a little surprised to see the namesake Steel color heat spreader has gone dark, but the new matte black finish is actually quite nice. It sure looks good, but let’s see how it performs! PC Test Bench would like to thank Patriot for providing us a sample Viper Steel RGB kit to check out! What Patriot has to say about the Viper Steel RGB memory family: Our Viper Steel RGB DDR4 memory is designed for extreme performances and paired with stunningly customizable RGB illumination to fit your overall PC setup flawlessly. The Viper Steel RGB is created with a custom-designed high-performance aluminum heat shield for a luminous sleek presence matching any system. Secure solid steel performance even when using the most demanding applications. The Viper Steel RGB's aluminum heatshield provides supreme heat dissipation to maintain amazing performance. Built for the latest Intel® and AMD™ platforms, the Viper Steel RGB series provides the perfect performance combined with fierce radiating LED lights. Comes equipped with XMP 2.0 support for automatic overclocking settings for optimal performance and stability. Compatible with lead motherboard partners’ RGB sync applications make this memory easy to customize to your personalized profiles for any occasion. Tested for quality assurance, the Viper Steel series is backed by a limited lifetime warranty. FEATURES: Series: Viper Steel RGB Edition: Black headshield sides with golden Viper logo / Lightbar top Aluminum heat spreader with golden Viper logo design element RGB Sync up with ASUS/ASRock/MSI/Gigabyte motherboard app 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: 32GB (2 x 16GB) Base Frequency: PC4-21300 (2666MHz) Base Timings: 19-19-19-43 Tested Frequency Profile 1: PC4-28800 (3600MHz) Tested Timings: 20-26-26-46 Tested Voltage for Profile 1: 1.35V Format: NON-ECC Unbuffered DIMM Pin Out: 288-Pin Packaging & A Closer Look Viper Gaming’s Viper Steel RGB DDR4 UDIMM’s come in a black box with RGB edged windows showing the modules inside. The sticker in the top right corner lists the speed and capacity. Inside there is a clamshell pack with both modules and a Viper Gaming sticker. Each module is completely covered by a heat spreader with a textured matte black surface rather than the namesake dark grey brushed metal finish. The Viper head logo is painted right in the middle of each side. The top edge of each module is a milky white plastic and has a raised fin pattern on one end, while the other side is smooth and features the Viper Name. The black PCB underneath ends in the typical DDR4 edge connector with gold plated contacts. Once installed, very little of the PCB is visible though. I really love the new paint job, but personally, I kind of wish they kept the metal Viper head of the original Steel kits instead of just painting it on the new black heat spreaders on the RGB version. Here are a few more shots of the memory lighting up. Viper has tested compatibility with ASRock, MSI, Asus, and Gigabyte's Motherboard RGB Sync programs, so you don't need extra software to customize your lighting. System Configuration & Performance Testing Testing Hardware: MSI MEG X570 Godlike Gaming AMD Ryzen 9 3900X Kingston KC2000 1TB 32GB (2x 16GB) Viper Steel RGB 3600MHz Testing Software: Microsoft Windows 10 Professional 2004 Thaiphoon Burner CPU-Z AIDA64 Extreme Edition Passmark Performance Test 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 a single XMP profile available, running 3600MHz effective at 20-26-26-46 at 2T command rate. 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 16x DRAM modules from Hynix. 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.” The higher CAS latency of the Viper Steel RGB kit shows up as a noticeably higher overall latency than other 3600MHz kits, including the extremely dense Viper Steel 64GB kit using 32GB modules. 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.” Here again, we see the higher overall latency noticeably impacting the score. 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 a completely different picture while testing bandwidth. Latency has a minimal impact here and the Viper Steel RGB does decently. Blender Benchmark 2.82 – BMW27 A new platform to collect and display the results of hardware and software performance tests. Aimed at an optimal comparison between system hardware and installations using open source software and testing content in the public domain. For professional workloads, the raw capacity is generally more important than latency, but the CAS-20 timings drive a few extra seconds in this test render. Over the course of two minutes, it’s not a big deal, but it can add up on a multi-hour render. 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. In this gaming test, the higher latency doesn’t seem to have any notable impact. 32GB gives you some breathing room to play the latest games with other things going on in the background, plus well all know RGB helps your gaming scores right? Overclocking Most memory kits will overclock a little, but we want to see what the Viper Steel RGB is capable of. We’ll start out jumping to 3800Mhz. We see a great jump in bandwidth, but AMD’s internal magic causes a jump in latency as well. We get up to 4000 MHz effective pretty easily by jumping voltage to 1.38V, but just can’t get any more out of it. We can post at 4100MHz, but windows BSOD’s every time, even ramping voltage up to 1.45V. Anything more is just a failure to even POST. We again see another jump in bandwidth, but since we haven’t touched timings, Latency starts falling again. We’ll chase latency next. At 1.4V, we are able to ratchet down to C16, but can’t get it to even boot at C15. This brings our latency down to 73ns vs 77ns at stock. We are able to bring the rest of the primary timings down a decent bit, ending at C16-19-19-43 at 1T command rate. Here we see the bandwidth climb a bit, but latency falls yet again to 70.5ns. pretty solid! Testing on AMD gives us some platform limitations with raw speed. Best performance is achieved with the Infinity Fabric and Memory speed running at a 1:1 ratio but the fabric can only overclock so far. Once you hit a certain point, usually around the 1800Mhz range, the system “changes gears” and you are no longer in the optimal 1:1 setup. For us, the best bet is to get aggressive with timings rather than chase raw clock speed so we settled on 3600MHz running at 1.40V with 16-19-19-43 1T Timings. Final Thoughts & Conclusion Patriot’s Viper Steel memory kits have been a personal favorite of mine since their release. Most motherboard makers have defaulted to an RGB friendly neutral color scheme of blacks and greys for the last few generations, and the Steel color heat spreaders have been able to blend in with almost any build. If you prefer to embrace the ‘unicorn puke’ and use RGB everything, Patriot is ready to play ball with the new Viper Steel RGB kits. While it’s Viper ‘Steel’, I personally really like the textured matte black finish on the heat spreaders. From a performance standpoint, this particular kit packs a rather paltry CAS-20 rating out of the box. This would be appropriate for a kit with speeds north of the 4000MHz mark, but at 3600MHz, not so much. We were easily able to pull the timings down, so there is plenty left on the table if you choose to go after it. If ram overclocking isn’t your cup of tea, don’t sweat it, it probably won't make a noticeable impact on most things you do anyway. At the end of the day, you still have a beautiful kit with plenty of space, and a little OC headroom if you get to feeling adventurous. Great job Patriot!

Final Thoughts & Conclusion

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