Patriot Viper Fin DDR3 PC3 12800 2 x 1 GB Review

After testing five different sets of DDR3 memory, I must say that the highest clockspeeds that I have attained were with the Patriot Viper Fin PC3 12800, 962FSB (1924MHz) 8-7-7-20. 162FSB worth of overclocking headroom means that with a 1:2 memory divider you will be hard pressed to find a CPU that can outscale this memory. Did I mention that this was done at a 1t command rate? With higher speed rated memory, the expectation is that it will go a little faster and further up the clock speed scale. This does hold true in many instances, though not all. With the voltage requirements for performance DDR3 creeping up and away from the 1.5 volts DDR3 spec, cooling the memory modules needs to be addressed. Patriot designed a special Aluminum-Copper composite (ACC) heatspreader that effectively cooled the modules down. Even with 2.0+ volts running through them they never got warm to the touch. One surprise was the ability to run tighter than stock timings at 1333MHz. I was able to run the modules at 6-5-5-16 with only 1.76 volts. Sweet!