G.SKILL Trident Z 16GB DDR4-3400 CL16 Memory Review

A couple of weeks ago on Overclockers we posted a review of a great performing G.SKILL Trident Z 16GB DDR4-3200 memory. Today we wish to present a higher frequency memory kit from the same G.SKILL series – Trident Z 16GB DDR4-3400 CL16. After such good reviews of DDR4-3200 kit, we have high expectations regarding this faster version of Trident Z. Let’s not make this introduction any longer as I’m sure all wish to see what the Trident Z 16GB DDR4-3400 memory kit has to offer.

Specifications and Features

Trident Z memory is 44 mm / 1.73 inch high, so it’s taller than the standard DDR4 memory. Even though most coolers are already designed to work with taller memory modules it’s better to check how much space is available under the cooler. That’s of course if we are thinking about large tower coolers.

The Trident Z DDR4-3400 memory kit has only one XMP profile. You probably won’t need more and all lower frequencies can be set manually. Below you can see screenshots from ASUS Mem TweakIt and AIDA64 which are showing the memory profiles and a more detailed timing list.

This memory kit has F4-3400C16D-16GTZ product number. Using the product number will let you easily find info about the memory kit, such as resellers.

G.SKILL Trident Z is the one of the best memory series in our market and is offering the best performance for Intel Skylake platform, especially based on Z170 motherboards. Below we can read what G.SKILL has to say about their highest-end memory series. As we could see in previous reviews, it’s not only marketing talk.

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The memory modules look great; aluminum heatsinks are gunmetal gray/silver on one side and black on the other. Depending on the lighting, it looks slightly different so take a look at the photos below to see the difference.

The black side of the heatsinks has a label with product and serial numbers, as well as date of manufacture. Our review sample was manufactured in November 2015 so it’s pretty fresh.

On the silver side of the heatsink there’s only the Trident Z logo. The heatsinks are made of aluminum and have that brushed effect, and between them is red plastic stripe which can be removed. In last Trident Z review, I mentioned that would be good to see different colors like blue, yellow or orange that fit enthusiast and overclocker grade motherboards. So far it’s only available in red, but can’t complain, it looks great.

Stability at Rated Speed

Stability at rated speed was been tested using AIDA64 stability test. Memory was loaded at about 99% with the memory controller and cache also fully loaded so we can be sure that the memory is stable.

The stability test took nearly seven hours to complete. The XMP profile worked without issues on the ASUS Maximus VIII Hero and MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC motherboards. In both cases, there was overclocking headroom, but more about that later.

Performance

For performance testing I used an Intel i7-6700K, which is based on the Skylake architecture, overclocked to 4.26GHz on the core and 4.2GHz on the cache. This slight overclock allows for better comparison of the memory than stock speeds by removing a slight bottleneck.

Comparison is based on four other memory kits from various manufacturers. List of used hardware is in the table below.

Synthetic Memory Bandwidth and Calculation Tests

AIDA64 is one of the most popular and simply one of the best memory bandwidth benchmarks on the market. The latest versions are using multi-threaded tests only, but that’s exactly what we need to test modern computers.

As we see above, the Trident Z DDR4-3400 memory is much faster than all other memory kits in this comparison. I had no higher frequency memory to add, but in theory, the Geil Dragon DDR4-3333 16-16-16 memory kit shouldn’t be much slower than the DDR4-3400 16-18-18 Trident Z. We can see that even a small difference in frequency makes the difference in final memory bandwidth.

Overclockers are often using single threaded benchmarks that aren’t as important for most general users. MaxxMem is good single threaded memory benchmark in which we can see how well the memory performs if the application can’t take advantage of many CPU cores.

Trident Z is again the best, as expected, but the difference between it and the second in line DDR4-3333 memory isn’t so big. Increased timings probably affected these results as higher density memory based on 8 GB modules always have more relaxed timings. Soon we should see new memory ICs which may change that.

Since I mentioned overclockers, we have one more benchmark which is really popular for synthetic memory performance comparison and quick stability tests, HyperPi.

I was surprised to see quite big difference in this benchmark. Trident Z DDR4-3400 was about 40 seconds faster than the second memory kit! All who are overclocking know how big a difference that is. I’m not sure what affected performance as all memory kits were tested on the same setup, but it simply proves that G.SKILL knows what they’re doing when it comes to memory.

Rendering and Tests Based on Daily Usage

Now for a couple of tests which are based on daily usage and popular applications. Let’s start from Cinebench R15 which is popular rendering benchmark.

As you see, differences in this benchmark are not significant, but we still see that faster memory achieves better total score. Trident Z memory has good results in this test, a similar situation we could see while testing Trident Z DDR4-3200 memory kit couple of weeks ago.

Next will be two Futuremark benchmarks, so 3DMark and PCMark in the latest versions.

3DMark was been released in 2013, but there are constant updates which make it still as new as the latest games.

3DMark results are not much different in our comparison mainly because physics test is the only one which is really using memory performance. We can still tell which memory is faster, but even lower frequency memory kits will be good if we had a game based on similar tests as we see in 3DMark.

We can see a similar situation in PCMark 8. Even slower memory delivers high performance, which shows that current popular software is not so demanding for RAM. There are applications that are making use of faster memory, but most of them are not used at home and, in most cases, typical users are more likely to take advantage of higher memory capacity than memory speed.

The Trident Z DDR4-3400 memory kit performed very well in everything we had a chance to test. However, performance is not much better than the previously tested Trident Z DDR4-3200 memory kit. We are already moving to the enthusiast and overclockers area where gamers and other, less demanding, users see no difference. However, we are on Overclockers.com where even small performance improvements matter.

Overclocking

Overclocking is never guaranteed, so the presented results may vary from results on other memory kits. I am not recommending overclocking if you do not know what are you doing. High voltages may damage hardware and it will not be covered by warranty.

I will compare overclocking results to the results on other, lower frequency TridentZ memory kits which I had a chance to review. Even low frequency memory can overclock great, so results achieved by me are not a rule and your kit could overclock better or worse.

Those who read the previous Trident Z DDR4-3200 memory kit review probably remember that I was able to set a maximum frequency of 1800 MHz (DDR4-3600). At this clock memory was stable, but its stability highly depends on the motherboard used. For my tests, I was using two motherboards based on Intel Z170 chipset: the ASUS Maximus VIII Hero and MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC, so exactly the same motherboards that I was using in other reviews.

While testing Trident Z 16GB DDR4-3400 memory kit I’ve noticed similar behavior on MSI motherboard, memory was overclocking better. Maximum stable frequency was the same so once again 1800 MHz (DDR4-3600), but maximum frequency at which I could run most tests was raised to 1866MHz (DDR4-3733) and the required voltage was lower.

Below you can see screenshot after six hours of AIDA64 stability test. Memory was working at DDR4-3600 16-18-18-32 2T. At these settings the memory only needed 1.35 V, which is its standard voltage declared by G.SKILL at DDR4-3400 clock.

What else can you expect? As I mentioned, for benchmarks it was possible to set DDR4-3733 CL16-19-19, but at higher voltage of 1.45 V. Anything above DDR4-3800 couldn’t even boot. If you have good motherboard with good BIOS/UEFI then DDR4-3733 will be possible to stabilize. For some reason ASUS Maximus VIII Hero couldn’t work at DDR4-3733+ and for these tests I had to use MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC motherboard.

Other results possible on the Trident Z DDR4-3400:

• 2666 12-13-13-28 1.35V
• 3000 13-15-15-28 1.35V
• 3200 14-15-15-32 1.35V
• 3333 16-16-16-32 1.35V

As you see Trident Z DDR4-3400 memory has high overclocking potential and should satisfy most, even more demanding enthusiasts and overclockers.

Conclusion

G.SKILL Trident Z 16GB DDR4-3400 CL16 is another great G.SKILL memory kit. Now, I feel like I’m repeating myself way too often since in each G.SKILL review I have similar conclusions. However, it’s hard not to have the same conclusions when each G.SKILL kit is great. High performance, well-designed, perfect stability, and high overclocking potential. What else would you need? Well, I could add lifetime warranty, good support, and reasonable price compared to the competition.

Since I mentioned the price then Trident Z DDR4-3400 16GB kit is available in many online stores for about $160. Quite a good price for a 16GB high performance kit.

G.SKILL remains the best option for overclockers who want to be sure that they buy the best memory kit for their needs. You can find good memory kits in competitive brands, but none of the other manufacturers can offer such high performance and overclocking potential in every available memory kit while also being priced so well.

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~ Bartosz Waluk (Woomack)