INTRODUCTION

   Even though it's clear to everyone that the amount of RAM installed in a system clearly outweighs the frequency and timings of that said memory one thing matters even less when it comes to overall system performance, looks. Yes large heatspreaders with RGB lighting are great to look at and can help make your system stand out a lot more than it would without them but at the end of the day there are always those consumers who will choose to spend the same amount of money to get their hands on a higher frequency kit (with lower timings as well) rather than one with RGB LEDs on it. Overclocking headroom is yet another piece of the puzzle that matters quite a bit to some consumers so getting a kit that uses high-performance chips (the most popular currently are the A/B-Die from Samsung) is a good start. Silicon Power released their XPOWER Turbine DDR4 Gaming RAM line earlier this year and today we'll be testing a Quad-Channel 32GB 3200MHZ CL16 kit.

   Founded in 2003 by a group of enthusiastic data storage industry experts, Silicon Power is committed to delivering outstanding product and service quality. Headquartered and with our own state-of-the-art production site in Taipei, we have become a leading manufacturer of flash memory cards, USB flash drives, portable hard drives, solid state drives, DRAM modules and industrial-grade products. As an international player with four branch offices around the globe, we continuously strive to offer the perfect data storage solution for all requirements of modern digitalized life. With a strong focus on combining innovative technology and award-winning design, we live up to our brand promise to reliably preserve and protect your most valuable data. Because memory is personal.

   Currently the XPOWER Turbine DDR4 modules are available in dual-channel kits (2x8GB/2x16GB - for our quad channel test rig we obviously had to pair two of those kits) with frequencies all the way up to 4133MHZ (2666/3200/3600/4133MHZ), timings as low as CL16 (2666/3200MHz CL16 - 3600/4133MHZ CL19) and voltages ranging from 1.2V all the way up to 1.4V (2666/3200MHZ 1.2V - 3600MHZ 1.35V - 4133MHZ 1.4V). Under the blue anodized aluminum heatspreaders Silicon Power has placed single-rank 8GB memory modules by Samsung (although many seem to report that these modules are using B-Die Samsung chips that doesn't seem to be the case, at least not according to Thaiphoon Burner) on 10-layer PCB's. As expected, Silicon Power covers the entire XPOWER Turbine line of DDR4 memory kits with a limited lifetime warranty.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

I was surprised to see that Silicon Power ships the XPOWER Turbine DDR4 RAM in single module blister packages which means that 4 of them working flawlessly together in a quad channel system may not be the easiest thing.

Each package contains just a single RAM module.

THE XPOWER TURBINE DDR4 3200MHZ CL16

They may lack RGB lighting but the blue anodized aluminum heatspreaders do look nice.

At the front of the modules we find the company logo and a sticker with the product series on it.

Turning the module around we find another sticker with the product series name on it and a smaller sticker with the product serial number, barcode and the RAM size, CAS latency and frequency.

Measuring just 38.2mm top to bottom (33mm for the heatspreaders) the XPOWER Turbine DDR4 RAM modules are the shortest ones to ever reach our lab.

The lack of RGB lighting is somewhat evident in our setup but light from our mainboard does bounce off the anodized aluminum heatspreaders of the XPOWER Turbine DDR4 RAM.

Thanks to the popular Thaiphoon Burner program you can see detailed information about the kit we’re testing today (as you can all see the Samsung chips used are not recognized as B-Die).

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY

   Thanks to XMP profiles the only thing one needs to do in order to run this RAM kit at its advertised frequency, timings and voltages is to choose/enable it from within the Bios and reboot. That being said if you're into overclocking you may not wish to use the main XMP profile but instead to choose your very own frequency, timings and voltages to achieve even higher performance numbers and that's exactly what we'll also be doing during our DDR4 tests. To be more specific aside testing each kit with its XMP profile we will also be upping the voltages (up to 1.4V max) and frequencies (200MHZ increments) until we find the maximum achievable stable frequency. We also thought about upping voltages and reducing timings instead of increasing the frequency of the modules as high as it can go (always stable and without going over 1.4V) but the end results are pretty much identical.

   As for the how we'll be testing each DDR4 Quad-Kit to arrive in our lab well there aren't that many benchmark programs that only test RAM (or at least RAM and CPU without anything else coming into play) but we got most of them and so you will be seeing results from following benchmarking programs, AIDA64 Engineer Edition, Cinebench Release 20, MaxMemm2 (because we are getting low performance numbers this doesn't seem to play well with our test rig - probably because of the X299 architecture - but we decided to include it regardless), Passmark Performance Test 9, Sisoftware Sandra Titanium and WPrime v1.55. All tests are performed on a fresh Windows 10 Pro installation (complete with all updates until the day of this review) and are repeated a total of 6 times after which the average numbers get recorded into our charts.

TEST RESULTS - XMP PROFILE

TEST RESULTS - OVERCLOCK

Just like other similar kits we managed to raise the frequency of the XPOWER Turbine DDR4 3200MHZ CL16 modules by Silicon Power all the way up to a stable 3600MHz CL18 (3400MHZ 1.3V / 3600MHZ 1.36V).

CONCLUSION

   Thanks to the lower voltage requirements of the XPOWER Turbine DDR4 3200MHZ CL16 modules we managed to “squeeze” slightly tighter timings compared to some other kits but unfortunately probably because Silicon Power doesn’t sell these kits in pairs we were unable to surpass 3600MHZ even at 1.4V (could be possible if we went even higher but we’ve placed 1.4V as the max for our tests). That being said even 400MHZ over the advertised frequency is not bad result especially at these timings (also take into account that you should be able to achieve even better timings in a dual-channel system). The lack of RGB lighting although not as important as everything else may indeed drive potential buyers away and towards other solutions but keep in mind that Silicon Power just released their Turbine RGB DDR4 line which we also got so stay tuned for that review.

   At the time of this review the XPOWER Turbine DDR4 3200MHZ CL16 dual-channel (2x8GB) kit by Silicon Power retails for USD72.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 124.99Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de) which means that the quad-kit we tested today will set you back a total of USD145.98/249.98Euros a price tag which is very balanced, at least on the other side of the Atlantic. With that out of the way even though the XPOWER Turbine DDR4 32GB 3200MHZ CL16 Quad-Channel kit is far from being the fastest in the market today and it also lacks RGB lighting thanks to its overall performance, low voltage requirements and blue anodized aluminum heatspreaders (which also happen to be the shortest ones we’ve seen on a high-performance DDR4 kit to date) it certainly deserves your attention.

PROS

- Build Quality (10 Layer PCB)
- Overall Performance (Up To 3600MHz CL18)
- Short Heat Spreaders (Zero Clearance Issues)
- Lifetime Limited Warranty
- 1.2V (3200MHZ)
- Price (USA)

CONS

- Dual Channel Kits Only
- Price (EU)
- No RGB Lighting
- Overclock Headroom