GSKill RipjawsX PC3 17000 CL9 Memory Review

When building a system the component choices can often be a limiting factor, both in price and performance.  Luckily memory manufactures have gotten better about creating specialized memory kits specific for your particular system.  In this review we looked dual channel DDR3 memory kit from GSKill called the RipjawsX.  You can use these modules in any DDR3 computer system but comes with speeds and latency settings specific for the Sandy Bridge platform.  

The RipjawsX are very unique modules considering that they are 2133Mhz modules and only require 1.5v to run.  Despite the CAS9 rating we did have good success overclocking these modules and saw stable speeds at 2300Mhz at the expense of our best 2600K processor.  (true story) Sadly the modules didn't respond well to timing adjustments at their rated speed but as we have seen timings matter less as speeds increase.
 
As a general rule of thumb you will see a significant performance increase whenever you can run your memory clock above the default 13.33x multiplier setting and that is what you will get from these modules.  While the F3-17000CL9D RipjawsX modules might not have the best timings their overall performance is perfect for gaming and general purpose computing.  Of course if you need more speed check out some of the faster CL7 modules in the RipjawsX lineup.

High Speed Memory Modules
Lightweight Heatspreader
Included Cooling Fan
Sandy Bridge Specific Memory
Low Voltage

CAS 9 Timings
Not able to adjust timings at speed