INTRODUCTION

   Whenever one technology is replaced with another there are several things that can go wrong and the two examples that immediately come to mind (at least for me) are the introduction of the very first USB 3.0 motherboards roughly 15 years ago and of course the recent introduction of DDR5 motherboards. In regards to the former there were many performance and compatibility issues with the very first USB 3.0 controllers and as for the latter, well between compatibility issues which have forced some manufacturers to even recall some of their newest models and chip shortages things haven't turned out quite the way we were all hoping for. So basically, if you're not into taking chances and are building a new PC (or just upgrading your old one) DDR4 is still pretty much your safest option (no wonder some manufacturers have released motherboards with native DDR5 support but with DDR4 support) and so today on my test bench i have yet another such model, the Spectrix D45 16GB 4133MHz CL19 Dual-Channel Kit by XPG.

   XPG (XTREME PERFORMANCE GEAR) was established by ADATA to provide high-performance products to gamers, Esports pros, and tech enthusiasts. We are committed to developing products that deliver extreme performance and therefore work closely with the gaming and esports community to gain insight into the real needs of users. We provide a full range of products from systems, components, peripherals to devices, and create them with the highest standards of stability, reliability, and performance in mind. We also develop products with sheer cool designs that have earned us several prestigious international awards, such as iF Design and Good Design. Beyond products, we play an active role in sponsoring and supporting esports events and teams globally to realize extreme gaming experiences at the highest levels.

   The Spectrix D45 line of DDR4 RAM modules by XPG is available in two colors (black and blizzard white) and includes single (8/16/32GB) and dual (2x8GB/2x16GB) channel kits at 3200/3600/4133/4400MHz frequencies, timings as low as CL16 (3200MHz CL16, 3600MHz CL18 and 4133/4400MHz CL19) and voltages set at 1.35V (3200/3600MHz), 1.4V (4133MHz) and 1.5V (4400MHz). The 16GB 4133MHz dual-channel kit i have here with me features single rank RAM based on single D-die modules by SK Hynix and is XMP certified with timings set at 19-23-23-45-68 (very good, even at 1.4V). Once again just like with their entire Spectrix line XPG covers the D45 DDR4 RAM modules/kits with a generous lifetime warranty.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

THE SPECTRIX D45 16GB DDR4 4133MHZ

Just like with their Spectrix D50 kit the D45 kit is also packed inside a red box that has a large product picture at the front right under the main product features and next to its capacity and frequency.

A few words about the product along with contact information for ADATA, two openings that reveal the rear module stickers and a large 2D barcode are located at the rear of the box.

The black heatspreaders may not look quite as good as the ones of the D50 line but they seem thicker.

Typically, a small sticker at the rear includes information about the modules like frequency, timings and voltage.

To have a better understanding about the height of the Spectrix D45 modules (45mm) i placed them right next to the Acer Predator Apollo (51.4mm tall) and the HP V10 RGB (47.3mm tall).

Beneath the plastic bar at the top of the modules XPG has placed a total of 6 RGB LEDs.

The top RGB LED bar does look nice so it should fit nicely in most systems.

Thaiphoon Burner once again reveals in-depth details about the kit at hand.

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 / RAM modules that use 1.4V/1.45V/1.5V will be tested up to 1.45V/1.5V/1.55V respectively) and frequencies (200MHZ increments) until i find the maximum achievable stable frequency. I 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 I'll be testing each DDR4 Quad/Dual-Kit to arrive in the 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 I’ve 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 the charts.

* In addition to Quad-Channel tests since March 2020 I’ll also be using the brand new I9-9900K+Z390 DARK 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.
*** In September 2021 i replaced the Intel I9-9900K+Z390 DARK test rig for a brand new Intel I9-11900K+Z590 DARK one (you can access all the Z390 DARK based tests here).

TEST RESULTS - XMP PROFILE / DUAL CHANNEL

CONCLUSION

   DDR4 kits with speeds surpassing 4GHz are not the norm in the market (not even today) so whenever one such kit arrives in the lab I'm obviously very curious to see how it performs and even more curious to see how well it overclocks. Unfortunately, i was unable to overclock the Spectrix D45 kit i tested today (even by changing timings and going up to 1.45V my system would hang half way through all tests) so that’s clearly the reason as to why that section is missing from this review. I also forgot to use the XPG RGB Sync software (I was far more interested in overclocking) so if you want to check it out you can see it in my D50 review here. Overall, not much to say about performance, the Spectrix D45 16GB 4133MHz dual-channel kit did pretty well as you can all see from the charts (still I was surprised to see that it did not do quite as well as some other, slower kits).

   With a retail price tag set at USD151.85 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 138.32Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de) the Spectrix D45 16GB DDR4 4133MHz CL19 Dual-Channel Kit by XPG is certainly priced just a tad higher than expected. Still, if you’re not into overclocking and your motherboard can easily support speeds of up to 4133MHz (I do suggest your motherboard DDR4 compatibility list, just in case) the Spectrix D45 kit is certainly worth checking out.

PROS

- Good Performance (Up To 4133MHz CL19)
- Build Quality - Looks (ARGB LED Bar)
- Lifetime Limited Warranty

CONS

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