Patriot Viper 16GB 2400MHz Memory Kit Review

Overview

 

Here we have the Patriot Viper 16GB 2400MHz Memory Kit (PV316G240C1K). Many of you will be scratching your heads and asking who? Well to answer your question Patriot are not new to the scene by any means, in fact they have been around since 1985 (that’s older than some of you lot!). Actually to be fair they weren’t the first RAM manufacturer that sprung in my mind either, but having owned the rather excellent Patriot PDC PC2-10100 2GB DDR2 kit way back in 2007, I jumped at the chance to take a look at their latest high end memory kit! 😉

 

 

 

The Patriot Viper kit arrived inside a plastic wallet, which was concealed inside a slim black cardboard box. On the front in some rather nice silver lettering is the Patriot logo, Viper model name, the kit capacity and speed. You’ll also have noticed a large window to show off a single Viper stick too.

Over on the back there is a small brief on the product in various languages.

• Ultra-fast DDR3 memory delivers excellent performance for demanding applications and extreme Gaming.
• Custom designed, high performance heat shield provides superior thermal protection for best in class stability.
• Backed by a limited lifetime warranty, Viper 3 memory offers rock-solid reliability and performance for the most immersive Gaming and power productivity

The packaging does the job well, looks good and above all else is easy to open without tearing it to pieces! 😉

 

 

Once out of the packaging we get to take a closer look at the Patriot Viper kit. This particular review sample is the ‘Black Mamba’ edition (or black 😉 ), but the Viper kits are also available in ‘Venom Red’, ‘Jungle Green’ and ‘Sapphire Blue’. So plenty of choices to match your rig.

 

 

A nice and simple kit with very little in the way of contents (It’s a RAM kit? Were you expecting a kitchen sink too??), we have the two Patriot Viper 8GB DIMMs and a Patriot case sticker

At the time of writing the Patriot Viper 16GB 2400MHz memory kit seems to vary greatly from vendor to vendor. At OverclockersUK the kit is available for £149.99 or from newegg for a slightly nicer £114.85.

 

Specifications/Features

courtesy of Patriot

* Additional details available here

 

First Impressions

 

 

I must admit I’m a little torn by the appearance of the Patriot Viper kit, there seems to be a very ‘Old School’ look about them. We have a simple uncomplicated gloss black heat spreader dominating the DIMMs, which with a mirror finish looks good, but then you have a green PCB which other manufacturers seem to be shying away from as of late? Of course once installed who’s going to see the PCBs anyway? 😉

 

 

As mentioned, the ‘Old School’ feel of the DIMMs also means the heat spreaders are symmetrical and although not being a low profile DIMM the 12mm (40mm total) height from PCB means the heat spreaders are unlikely to cause a conflict with most CPU coolers.

Across the front of the Viper sticks is the model name itself, whilst just above is the Patriot brand logo.

Over on the back is nigh on identical bar the warranty sticker.

 

Hardware Installation

 

 

Installation of the Patriot Viper 16GB 2400MHz Kit into our Test Rig was an extremely simple task. The RAM sticks aren’t tall enough to cause any compatibility issues with our test cooler the Raijintek Themis, which means your unlikely to have issues with other CPU coolers either.

 

• Test Rig Setup

Case	Cooler Master HAF XB	Power Supply	Corsair AX760i
Motherboard	MSI Z87-G45 GAMING	CPU	Intel Core i5-4670K
CPU Cooler	Raijintek Themis	RAM	Patriot Viper 16GB 2400MHz DDR3 Memory kit
Graphics Card	MSI AMD Radeon R9 290 Gaming 4G	SSD (mSATA – on-board port)	Kingston 60GB mSATA (SMS200S3/60G)

 

The Test Rig booted first time and with the MSI Z87 G45 motherboard left on Auto settings the Patriot Viper automatically sets its base frequency (1600MHz 9-9-9-24), although we’ll be revisiting that later, what we really want is the XMP (eXtreme Memory Profile) setting for 2400MHz (11-13-13-31)! 😉

 

Testing Methodology/Setup

 

The Patriot Viper 16GB 2400MHz Memory Kit was tested as part of our normal Test Rig, using Windows 7 64Bit (Service Pack 1) with all relevant Drivers installed. Prime95 (Blend) was used to test stability, whilst Intel XTU for overclocking and the following benchmarks were also used.

• AIDA64
• 3DMark
• Batman Arkham Origins
• Tomb Raider
• Unigine Heaven
• Metro Last Light

 

Hardware Performance

 

 

AIDA64 Benchmark Results (2400MHz)

Memory	Read	Write	Copy	Latency
Kingston HyperX Beast 8GB 2400MHz @ 11-13-13-30	35815	37514	34726	46.8 ns
Patriot Viper 16GB 2400MHz @ 11-13-13-31	35734	37212	34325	48.7 ns
Avexir Blitz 1.1 Original 8GB 2400MHz @ 10-12-12-31	34247	35303	31127	46.7 ns
HyperX Fury 8GB 1866MHz @ 10-10-10-28	26870	27494	24500	55.8 ns
Avexir Core 8GB 1600MHz @ 9-9-9-24	23134	23751	21781	58.9 ns

 

As you can see from the images above, AIDA64 shows that the total throughput of the Patriot Viper 16GB 2400MHz Memory Kit memory is seconded only by our Test Rig RAM, the Kingston HyperX Beast.

 

AIDA64 Benchmark Results (Overall Results)

Memory	Read	Write	Copy	Latency
Patriot Viper 16GB 2400MHz @ 11-13-13-31	35734	37212	34325	48.7 ns
Patriot Viper 16GB 1600MHz @ 9-9-9-24	24058	24991	23611	60.4 ns
Patriot Viper 8GB 2400MHz @ 11-13-13-31	18116	18700	17835	48.8 ns
Patriot Viper 8GB 1600MHz @ 9-9-9-24	12421	12592	12653	56.7 ns

 

We also threw in the AIDA64 benchmark results in for the Patriot Viper base speed of 1600MHz to show the gain in performance when the XMP is set and the results from a single DIMM.

 

Gaming Related Benchmarks

 

TEST SYSTEM: MSI Z87 G45/ Intel Core i5-4670K/ MSI R9 290 Gaming 4G (1007MHz Core/5000MHz Memory)

Memory	3DMark (FireStrike)	Batman Arkham Origins	Tomb Raider	Unigine Heaven	Metro Last Light
Patriot Viper 16GB 2400MHz @ 11-13-13-31	9082	146	78.70	1348	73.27
Patriot Viper 16GB 1600MHz @ 9-9-9-24	9042	146	78.50	1341	73.00
Patriot Viper 8GB 2400MHz @ 11-13-13-31	9044	143	78.50	1330	73.33
Patriot Viper 8GB 1600MHz @ 9-9-9-24	9025	144	78.97	1224	72.67

 

As you can see faster memory speeds do make a difference within the FireStrike test and Batman Arkham Origins, but for all others? More or less negligible, yet perhaps a little more surprisingly there’s not much of a difference between the benchmarks using a single 8GB DIMM or the entire 16GB set. The reason for this? Well as we all already know, the sweet spot for DDR3 is 1600MHz and has been for a while, will we see a sudden change with the incoming DDR4? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

 

Final Thoughts

 

The Patriot Viper 16GB 2400MHz Memory Kit arrived to pcG in a simple, stylish and easily opened box (sounds daft, but who wants to make life any harder with an impenetrable box?!?).

The Viper sticks themselves offer a nice and simple ‘Old School’ styling with a nice glossy black mirror finish (the review samples are formidably called Black Mamba, but Venom Red, Jungle Green and Sapphire Blue are also available), that will not only suit most of your Gaming rigs, but fit under most CPU air coolers, although it would have been a little better looking with a black PCB.

The Patriot Viper have also proven they are no slouches either, in our AIDA64 Benchmark they were only narrowly beaten by our crowned champions the HyperX Beast.

So there is a lot going for the Patriot Viper kit. With an SRRP of £149.99 they are competitively priced amongst the other 16GB 2400MHz kits available out there, but at newegg they are priced at £114.85 which represents very good value for money!

 

Verdict

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Many thanks to Patriot for providing this sample for review