| G.Skill ECO 4GB DDR3 Memory Kit F310666CL7D |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Memory | |
| Written by Servando Silva | |
| Monday, 10 May 2010 | |
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Closer Look: G.Skill ECO F3 10666CL7DLeaving aside the simple blisters included in (almost) all memory kits, the G.Skill ECO F3 10666CL7D DIMMs offer great aesthetics. While the PCB is kept in green color, they added a silver heatsink with the brand´s logo and some flamed-shaped figures on it.
The heatsinks are everything but big. G.Skill kept a very sleek and slim design which ensures you won´t have problems with bigger heatsinks for other motherboard components. They barely increase the size of the DIMM and will also help you protect the memory from ESDs. Based in our tests, this kit is one of the coldest Benchmark Reviews has ever tried.
The sticker shows the memory model and the voltage used. Don´t ever remove those stickers if you want to keep your lifetime warranty safe.
G.Skill heatsinks are glued to the Integrated Circuits of the memory. This (sadly) means that we aren´t able to remove them easily to check the brand behind those low voltage chips. If we wanted to take them away, we would have to heat them enough and then, separate that little clip at the top of the heatsink.
Many high-performance memory kits for Core i5 platforms are Elpida based. While it seems G.Skill is shipping different ICs for this model we are not sure how will it OC. They could be Elpida BBSE (low-voltage binned, of course), 1.35v Samsung rated ICs, or who knows, maybe even a Micron based chip. Benchmark Reviews will ignore the fact of the unknown IC and test how well can it scale at stock voltages and up to 1.65v not to pass Intel´s limits.
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Comments
Since you have some Elpida BBSE you should go and try rising up the tRCD as I did. I really loved the 1600MHz 6-7-6 configuration. Just to let you know, I´ve got a i5 750 paired with the P55 ASUS Maximus III Formula, and I´ll update my results as soon as I´ve a time (probably on the forum thread, but I´ll link it here). Right now, they´re working at 1.3v with stock settings without problems, but I wasn´t able to boot at 1.25v.
I´ve seen the Kingston Lo-Vo Edition and I think this kit is better. G.Skill memory will probably overclock better and they cost less as you´ve said. Kingston in the other hand, has a kit that can work with 1.25v but at expense of higher latencies.
At 1.28V with the settings 7-8-7-21 1t at 1333MHz the memory passes several hours of stress testing. (I didn't test any longer, it didn't fail)
I didn't manage to get it stable at a lower voltage, however the system did boot on 1.26V.
Tested on an ASUS P7H55D-M EVO - motherboard, with a core i3 530 running at default clock.
As you said, anything lower than that won´t be stable or barely boot windows. BTW, I used 7-7-7 timings.
I turned up the frequency to 1600, and the voltage to 1.56V to find the tightest settings. I could only get it to work at 7-8-7-21 1T Which at first disappointed me a little.
I then slowly decreased the voltage to find the minimum at this setting. Now this part really surprised me: the memory remained stable (even after several hours of stress testing) at only 1.34V
What is really amazing about that is that it is still below the voltage setting of the XMP for 1333MHz.
So in recap,
min (core i3 @2.9MHz): 1333 MHz @ 7-8-7-21 1t -->1.28V
max (core i3 @4.4Mhz): 1600 MHZ @ 7-8-7-21 1t --> 1.34V
And what´s the best you can do (MHz) at 6-7-6-21 1T? I can´t think your memory does the same at 1.35v than at 1.55v. There should be some kind of limitation. It could be your MB (not probable), your memory (it might be), or a bad CPU for Mem scaling.
I still haven´t tried max freq scaling with this motherboard since work is drowning me but I bet it will do better than the Mini-ITX I used for the review (it better do it).
Take care.
I also discovered 1600MHz 6-7-6-21 1T needs only 1.4v (multimeter) and not 1.5v. But the Mini-ITX used didn´t let me test that. This is still a great kit.
Take Care.