INTRODUCTION

   Frequency/Speed versus capacity/amount/density is the most common thing i hear from people looking to buy new RAM for their systems. Gamers for example place the former first whereas professionals clearly place the latter and so it's very important to know exactly what your needs are prior to getting a new kit. Of course, there are also those who enjoy playing PC games and whose work has to do with 3D animation and video/photo editing so what could be more than enough for a gamer will almost certainly not be quite enough for them. The dual-channel Viper Steel DDR4 RAM kit by Patriot which I’ll be testing today may not be the best looking one in the market today (because of its lack of RGB lighting) but it should easily cover the majority of people out there not only thanks to 64GB capacity but also because of its 3600MHz frequency and 18-22-22-42 timings.

   Viper Gaming is a brand of Patriot Memory, a global leader in performance memory, Solid State Drives (SSD's), and flash storage solutions. Viper Gaming was established in 2007 with the unveiling of the well-known, top-tier line of computer memory. Since then, the Viper Gaming brand has become synonymous with elite performance and reliability among gamers worldwide. In 2015, Viper Gaming decided to expand its product categories to include gaming keyboards, headsets, and mice. Offering entry, mid-level and high-end solutions with rich feature sets. Viper Gaming's award-winning peripherals provide gamers everywhere the best price-for-performance and reliability that enables every Viper Gamer to dominate in their sport.

   Patriot has placed extra weight on their Viper Steel DDR4 RAM line so it currently includes XMP 2.0 certified modules in 8/16/32GB single and 8/16/32/64GB dual-channel kits featuring frequencies all the way up to 4400MHz (3000/3200/3400/3600/3733/3866/4000/4133/4400MHz), CAS latency timings set as low as 16 (3000/3200/3400MHz CL16 - 3600/3866MHz CL18 - 3733MHz CL17 - 4000/4133/4400MHz CL19) and voltages up to 1.45v (3000/3200/3400/3600/3733/3866/4000/4133MHz 1.35v - 4400MHz 1.45V). Underneath the large gunmetal grey aluminum heatspreaders we find dual rank 16GB single die memory chips by Samsung (for the 3600MHz 64GB kit). As with previous lines Patriot covers the entire Viper Steel line of DDR4 RAM with a limited lifetime warranty.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

The Viper Steel DDR4 RAM kits get shipped inside a small box that has two product pictures at the front, the company logo and a sticker with the RAM capacity and speed.

At the rear Patriot has placed a few words about the Viper Steel series in 9 languages.

Just like with previous RAM kits by Patriot inside the box you will only find the modules and a Viper Gaming logo sticker.

THE VIPER STEEL 64GB 3600MHZ CL18

The Viper Steel modules sport tall gunmetal grey aluminum heatsinks that have the company logo at the center.

As usual at the rear we find a small sticker which contains information about the module such as frequency, amount and timings.

These modules measure roughly 45mm in height and to showcase this i placed them right next to the Crucial Ballistix Gaming module (38.6mm in height).

The Viper name is printed at the top of both modules.

Since these aren't RGB illuminated they don't really stand out much.

Here you can see detailed information about this particular kit thanks to the Thaiphoon software.

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY

   Thanks to XMP (2.0) 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 – even though most kits can function at higher voltages I don’t recommend doing so) 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/Dual-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.

* In addition to Quad-Channel tests since March 2020 I’ll also be using the brand new Z390 test rig (check above) for Dual-Channel RAM tests.
** Since May 2020 three game benchmarks (Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, GEARS 5 and Metro Exodus tested on the X299 system at 1080p resolution and with the ASUS ROG RTX2060 OC set at Gaming Mode) have also been added in the charts.

TEST RESULTS - XMP PROFILE / DUAL CHANNEL

TEST RESULTS - OVERCLOCK / DUAL CHANNEL

By just upping the voltage to 1.37V I was able to hit to 3800MHz with the default timings while at 1.4V I got up to 4000MHz but system stability was compromised (unfortunately even at CL19 things remained the same).

CONCLUSION

   The Viper Steel kit i tested today (PVS464G360C8K) may not feature RGB lighting (unlike the Viper Steel RGB line - review here) but its large gunmetal grey aggressive heatspreaders actually look very nice. On top of that performance is very good and although i was unable to go any higher than 3800MHz without surpassing 1.4V this is not a bad result from a rather affordable 64GB dual-channel DDR4 RAM kit. Surprisingly enough Patriot has also released numerous kits under this product line which should allow people to easily find one to cover their needs. Also, worth mentioning is that just like with the Steel RGB kit you should check available space prior to getting this kit due to the taller than usual heatspreaders (especially if you’re using a CPU air cooler).

   As i type these lines the Viper Steel 64GB DDR4 3600MHz CL18 kit by Patriot retails for USD349.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and 334.99Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de) a price tag which is slightly higher due to all the recent things going on in the market. Luckily, it’s clearly still an acceptable price tag so if you’re looking for a 64GB dual-channel kit and you care not about RGB lighting the Viper Steel could be the one for you and since it did perform as I was hoping it would it deserves the Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Looks (Gunmetal Grey Heatspreaders)
- Good Performance (Up To 3800MHz CL18)
- Limited Lifetime Warranty
- Available Capacities & Frequencies

CONS

- Dual Channel Kits Only
- Overclocking Potential (For Some)