Patriot Viper 3 8GB 2133MHz Review

Patriot's latest offering is the Viper 3 line up that brings low cost performance memory to the masses. The Viper series have been the gold standard of Patriot's brand over the years from the early Viper lines that featured an AOC (Aluminum on Copper) heat shield that was effective at removing the thermal load from the modules at the time running upwards of 2.0v. Over the past five years it has gone through several more iterations of the design, using different extruded aluminum designs seen on the Sector 5 and just this year's Division 4 modules using a copper strip across the modules more in line with the earlier AOC design in functionality. The Viper 3 line uses what Patriot calls the Black Mamba design on these modules; this stamped design is lighter yet is tall enough and features enough surface area to shed the thermal loads. The Viper 3 line is hand tested and validated for use on Intel's latest platforms including socket 1155 Core i7 Ivy Bridge processors.

The Viper 3 8GB 2133MHz kit I am looking at today is offered at an unreal $59 and comes with a lifetime warranty. The lineup includes modules that start at speeds of 1600MHz with 2133MHz being the top speed bin. Capacities start at 8GB and rise to 32GB to take advantage of the quad channel capabilities of Intel's socket 2011 X79 chipset. In the past the Viper series modules have always offered up performance, cooling, and excellent overclocking. Let's see if this set lives up to the standard.