TheOverclocker Issue 19 | Page 27

Benchmarks All results were obtained at 4600MHz s on a normal install of Windows 7 64-bit. These are our results, yours may vary so only use these as a guideline for a similarly configured system Memory AIDA 64 Read AIDA 64 Write AIDA 64 Copy AIDA 64 Laten cy Maxxmem SuperPi 8M Frequency Timings G.Skill Trident F32400C10D 24695 24003 28337 31.6 1847.3 1.28.702 2400 10-12-12-31-1N 23948 24212 28062 31.4 1850.4 1.28.951 2600 11-12-12-31-1N 25075 24191 28824 29.9 1964.4 1.28.468 2700 11-13-13-31-1N 25596 24416 29232 29.5 2025.7 1.28.389 2786 11-13-13-31-1N 25437 24008 28303 30.6 1946.8 1.28.546 2400 9-11-9-28-1N Transcend AxeRAM 2400MHZ CL9 because of how high the reference timings are. Sure enough we’ve had to let go of C7 kits and the like, but past the deceptive C10 rating you see 12-12-31 and your initial inclination is to see if you can get that down to at least 1111-11-31 like the RipJawsZ set we reviewed in the last issue. Sadly this will not happen. It may be possible after an inordinate amount of time tweaking the RAM but the sacrifices you have to make in secondary and tertiary timings are not worth it. The only thing left to do is to try and hold on to the reference settings, which again presents its own problems. You’ll not get very far at the 10-12-13-31 settings either. On the Maximus V Gene we used, the latency boundary setting helped immensely in stabilizing the set at 2600MHz with the default timings. Sadly, the setting had to be set very high (11) and this robbed us of performance. Useful for high RAM frequency validations but ultimately useless for performance, so we had to loosen our timings to what you see in the performance table. We will not however rate the set down much as once again you are paying $99 for a set that will go past the 2700MHz mark. Regardless of the settings needed to do so, it’s a damn impressive feat. For the record, our reference aXeRAM kit would not make the speed no matter the amount of tuning, so it is worth keeping in mind that ultimately this kit will take you further. Having said that we’ve heard rumours of very cheap Samsung kits that reach these speeds and beyond and we’d like to compare them against this TRIDENT kit in future. In the meantime we have no qualms about awarding this kit our value award. There are fewer kits we’ve had a chance to test which scale this well and retail for this price. Add to which they actually look good for those who care about that sort of thing. In this crowded market, it’s good to see a kit that caters to both gamers and enthusiasts alike. At $99 it’s hard to beat. The G.SKILL TRIDENT set gets thumbs up from us. [ The Overclocker ] Summary Initially we had very low expectations for this kit. After all, we just had the RipJaws Z with better timings at the same speed. So if you bought that kit why would you possibly bother with the TRIDENT range? Well, we were pleasantly surprised and found a kit that not only scales incredibly well, but retails for a ridiculously low price. This here is a winner. Would you buy it? Yes, no question about it. The Score 8.5/10 Issue 19 | 2012 The OverClocker 27