Introduction
Who doesn’t love some RGB memory? I mean, all that extra speed from RGB goodness, am I right? Jokes aside, there is no denying that adding some RGB RAM to your system can help make it stand out even more. Patriot has been kind enough to send in some of their Viper Steel RGB memory for us to check out! They have sent in two 16GB kits so we will take a look at them as a single kit of two sticks and both kits with all four sticks in our system to see just how well they hold up. The kits they have sent us are 3600MHz with CL20 timing @ 1.35V. These may not have the best timings at stock but in most cases, you can tighten the timings up a bit if you really need to. Lately, with all the advancements in hardware, there isn’t much of a need to Overclock all your components and if you want to do so, most motherboards/systems can do this automatically for you. Long gone are the day where you used to have to damn near have a degree to overclock something, it is easier than ever! With this in mind, we won’t be looking at Overclocking this kit of RAM as most people will just run it at standard XMP speeds!
What Patriot says “Our Viper Steel RGB DDR4 memory is designed for extreme performances and paired with stunningly customizable RGB illumination to fit your overall PC setup flawlessly. The Viper Steel RGB memory is created with a custom-designed high-performance aluminum heat shield for a luminous sleek presence matching any system. Secure solid steel performance even when using the most demanding applications.”
Specifications
Closer Look
Taking a quick look at the packaging and while there isn’t much going on, we can see the Viper Steel RGB kit is well, RGB! Patriot has not only included the word RGB but there are some outlines around the RAM that is in RGB. One thing I love to see where possible is an actual look at the product itself. Not just some crap image, but you can see the exact sticks of memory you will be getting! We can also see the motherboard compatibility with the RGB effects and the basic specs of the kit we have. The little sticker in the top left ensures us this kit will be 16GB (2x8GB) or 3600MHz and once again, you can also see the stickers on each RAM stick that will also confirm this. While online ordering is what most people do these days, should you be looking at these in person it is easy to make sure they are the speeds you’re looking for.
On to the back and there is even less here. While some companies choose to go into more detail about the specification of the product, Patriot has pretty much just given you their Social Media account names so you can make sure to look them up and drop them a follow on your preferred platform.
Inside the box are the two sticks of memory and a single Viper Gaming sticker. While some people put these stickers on their cases or desks, I like to just collect them and have a look every time I get a new one. It’s always a good bit of fun looking at the stickers and trying to remember what products I had from each company!
We have the black kit of the Viper Stell RGB and there is a single Viper Gaming logo bang in the middle of each kit and no writing at all! Even without the RGB lighting, this kit would look amazing in most systems.
While you won’t see all of it once installed, Patriot has done a great job of making their Viper Stell Logo and heatsink match the black PCB and gold teeth on the memory itself. As always, it is these little details that speak loads on the attention to detail that some companies pay to their products.
The RGB bar across the top is done tastefully and shouldn’t distract from the looks of the rest of the memory until the lights come on that is! While subtle, the light emitted from these little bards is quite bright and will add some fun to your build.
I quite enjoy the Viper logo myself and it is nice to see Patriot have not added any other wording or branding to this kit of RAM. A single logo in the middle helps make it stick out a bit more and the lack of any wording bodes well with me. Too many companies are focused on adding their company name on their products so people know who made them but it is nice to see Patriot and Viper Gaming have enough faith in their logo and that people will recognize it. Again, it’s the little things!
So, when it comes to RGB, these things are going to light your whole case up. However, they are more than bright enough to be shown off with ease and as you can see, when compared to the Cougar Aqua 360 ARGB CPU Cooler, they fit right in. The LED effects are very similar which is nice to see as it helps to bring the whole build together.
0
The RGB effects are compatible with MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte, and ASRock motherboards software suites for easy customization.
We can now see where Patriot added another small amount of branding. The word Viper appears on top of the LED bars and you know what, I’m not mad! If they were to try and put the Viper logo, it would likely be so small that you wouldn’t even notice it. So, they added the word Viper so you know who made the memory kit!
The lighting they give off is vibrant and enjoyable if you’re into that kind of thing!
Test System and Methodology
*Prices are at the time of the review and are subject to change*
Motherboard: MSI X570 Unify (£328.24 on Amazon UK)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X (£480 on Amazon UK)
Memory: Patriot Viper Steel RGB 3600MHz 16GB (£74.99 on Amazon UK)
Storage: Patriot P300 2TB NVMe M.2 (£234.99 on Amazon UK) (Review Here)
OS: Windows 10
With all the advancements for overclocking and getting the most out of your hardware, we have decided to forego any overclocking on the Viper Stell RGB memory. This is because most users will run it at stock settings by enabling XMP in their BIOS and will not mess with the overclocking settings as in most cases, there is no need for it. Just remember, anytime you install a new kit of RAM, the first thing you want to do is go into your BIOS and enable the XMP so you are getting the advertised speeds as a lot of memory runs at slower speeds by default until this is enabled.
For our testing, we have run benchmarks VIA AID64, Cinebence R15, Fire Strike, SiSoftware Sandra, and wPrime. We have run all tests in both 16GB and 32GB configurations and as such, have reported our findings for both. You will also notice CPU-Z screenshots to get things started so you can see exactly how the Viper Steel RGB Memory runs with XMP Profile 1 enabled. Everything is run with just XMP enabled, we did not at any point change any other settings.
Benchmarking and Performance
16GB (2x8GB) Configuration
CPU-Z
AID64
Cinebench R15
Fire Strike Physics
SiSoftware Sandra Cache and Memory Bandwidth
SiSoftware Memory Latency
wPrime
32GB (4x8GB) Configuration
CPU-Z
AID64
Cinebench R15
Fire Strike Physics
SiSoftware Sandara Cache and Memory Bandwidth
SiSoftware Sandra Memory Latency
wPrime
Final Words
Value
In terms of pricing, the Viper Steel RGB 3600MHz 16GB kit is currently coming in at £74.99 on Amazon UK. Having a quick look around Amazon and a couple of other sites and this seems to be a fair price, kind of right in the middle of the market, currently. Given the current state of the PC Hardware market as a whole, this price is more than fair but I wouldn’t expect it to stay this low for too much longer. Looks like things may be getting worse before they get better for PC hardware as a whole!
Design and Performance
I must say, this kit of Viper Steel RGB looks amazing to me, even without the added RGB. Patriot has done a good job at not overdoing the branding and it has left them with some amazing-looking memory. The single gold viper logo in the middle of the heatsink stands out and funnily enough, matches the PCB and gold teeth of the DDR4 as well. However, the RGB lighting is nothing to push to the side! These are some of the best RGB lightings I have seen in some time. It is nice and vibrant and full of colour without being overpowering at the same time.
When it comes to the performance, it is right where we would expect it to be. When running with just the 16GB kit, the RAM performs just how we would expect it to. In the future, we will add our results to graphs so you can compare them with other kits as well. While the CL timings are probably a bit higher than most would like, they can be tightened up a smidge to offer better performance.
While Patriot products may not be the most well-known, those who do know them know they generally carry a decent price to performance ratio with them. They normally position themselves right where they want in the market and while you may find a few better performing products, you’re also going to be paying an extra premium for those products. If you are looking for a product you can trust without breaking the bank, give Patriot and their Viper Gaming line of products a look!
What it all going to come down to is do you like the look of the Viper Steel RGB kit? They offer great performance at an affordable price and have made sure to include some RGB for those who are fans of it. The Patriot Viper Steel RGB 3600MHz DDR4 Memory kit is well worthy of your hard-earned money and the fact that they come with a limited lifetime warranty should give you a peace of mind!
Many thanks to Patriot for sending in their Viper Steel RGB 3600MHz DDR4 Memory for this review.
