Patriot Viper 4 DDR4-3000 MHz Memory Kit Review

At the beginning of January this year, Patriot launched their Viper 4 line of DDR4 memory. The kits are designed for Intel’s X99 chipset and come in varying quad-channel capacities and speeds. Today’s review sample is the 16 GB DDR4-3000 MHz kit (PV416G300C6QK), which consists of 4X4 GB modules. The Viper 4 series falls in the middle of Patriot’s DDR4 offerings – below the Viper Extreme Edition and above the Signature Line. Patriot has been in the memory game for many years and has released impressive enthusiast-level memory kits during this time. Let’s have our first look at Patriot’s Viper 4 memory and see how it stacks up against the competition.

Specifications/Features/Product Information

The information below is provided by the Patriot Memory product page. As we mentioned above, this kit is comprised of 4X4 GB modules rated at 3000 MHz. The kit runs at 1.35 V with timings of 16-16-16-36. The Viper 4 color scheme consists of two black stripes at the top and bottom of the main body and a red heatsink at the very top.

Once the kit is installed, here is what CPU-Z and the motherboard’s UEFI BIOS have to say.

The Patriot Memory marketing folks have this to say about the Viper 4 series memory kits.

Packaging/Product Tour

The mostly black and white retail box contains the two plastic clam shells used to keep the memory protected. The front of the box outlines a few of the Viper’s features and capabilities, while the back has a marketing blurb and Patriot Memory contact information. Both the front and back have a plastic window allowing for a sneak peek of the product. Tucked away inside the box is a small case badge type sticker.

The next series of pictures shows the Patriot Viper 4 kit laid out in different configurations. Patriot says the heatspreaders are a custom design that offers superior heat dissipation, and they certainly look impressive. Aesthetically speaking, the only negative I see is the green PCB. I think a black PCB would go a long way towards improving the overall looks of the Viper 4 modules.

Testing for Stability at Rated Speed/Timings

Once the memory is installed in our test bed, we always begin with a stability check at advertised speed/timings/voltage. We use our new Ultra-X R.S.T. Premium USB memory tester to check for stability. Thanks to the guys at Ultra-X for providing us with the tester, and we’re proud to be one of only a few review sites that have one. The Ultra-X R.S.T. Premium is a bootable USB device that really pounds on memory for several hours and will definitely find if any instability is present. Depending on the total capacity of the memory kit being tested, it can take a very long time to complete the five passes we prefer to run. A glance at the picture below shows it took well over six hours to complete all five passes. The kit came up clean with no errors reported, so we’re confident we have a perfectly stable kit here.

For a quick in-OS stability check, we run the 32M HyperPi benchmark. Here again, everything looks good.

Benchmarks

Here are the components used in our X99 test bed with all the comparison kits listed just below. The five kits we have in our comparison group include today’s Viper 4 review sample and four previously reviewed kits. Links are to their respective reviews.

The G.Skill DDR4-3000 MHz, ADATA, and Corsair kits were all tested using the ASUS X99 Deluxe motherboard, while the G.Skill DDR4-2666 MHz was tested on the Rampage V Extreme motherboard. Both motherboards used the memory’s XMP Profile with the CPU at its stock settings for all tests. Both of the motherboards also feature the ASUS OC Socket, so results should be consistent between the two motherboards used for testing.

The graphs below show percentage values with the Patriot Viper 4 kit (today’s review sample) being the basis and therefore, always 100%. In the scored benchmarks, a higher percentage is better, while in timed benchmarks, a lower percentage is better. Below each chart is a table with the raw data used to compile the chart.

Synthetic Testing

Beginning with AIDA64’s memory tests, we see the Viper 4 falling a tad behind the G.Skill 3000 MHz kit in the latency test (lower is better), but coming out on top of the other three kits. The copy test show the Viper 4 and G.Skill 3000 MHz kits in a virtual dead heat and well ahead of the other test samples. The write test shows very little difference between the test samples, as expected. The read test again shows the Viper 4 and G.SKill 3000 MHz kits within a whisker of each other and ahead of the rest of the field.

We don’t normally see much difference in performance when running SuperPi and wPrime, and that held true here as well. There was roughly a 2% difference across the board, but less than that in most cases.

Rendering, Compression, and Video Conversion Testing

Our Cinebench test results show the Viper 4 coming out on top in the R10 benchmark. The R11.5 and R15 benchmarks show very little difference between all the test samples.

The 7zip compression benchmark has the Viper 4 in a dead heat with the Corsair and G.Skill 3000 MHz kits and slightly ahead of the rest of the test samples. The x264 and PoV Ray 3.73 results show all of the test samples again within a couple percentage points of each other.

As far as performance goes, the Patriot Viper 4 exhibited test results just as we’d expect. The most impressive part of our testing was that the Viper 4 kit was for the most part able to keep up with the G.Skill 3000 MHz kit, which has lower timings than the Viper 4 kit does.

Overclocking

I wasn’t expecting much overclocking headroom as my previous experience with 3000 MHz kits didn’t offer much past their out-of-box speeds. However, I was able to get the Viper 4 up to 3120 MHz using 1.45 v, but the timings had to be lowered to 17-17-17-40 in order to call the overclock stable. Lowering the timings had a negative effect on performance, and it actually took a few seconds longer to complete HyperPi 32M than when the kit was set to its XMP profile. For comparison sake, when I overclocked the G.Skill 3000 MHz kit during that review, I had to manipulate the 3rd tier timings to get any overclocking at all done, which really killed its performance. The Viper 4 kit didn’t need 3rd tier timing adjustments, so in one sense, that’s an improvement.

Lowering the timings didn’t offer too much headroom either, which only allowed a setting of 15-16-16-36. Interestingly enough, the time to complete HyperPi 32M again took longer to complete than when the kit was left at its XMP profile setting.

Conclusion

As DDR4 memory continues to evolve, we’re beginning to see prices reduce and higher speeds becoming the norm. When DDR4 first hit the market, you couldn’t touch a 16 GB 3000 MHz kit for under $400. Today, they are available for around $300, which is a pretty substantial drop in such a short period of time. In the case of Viper 4 DDR4-3000 MHz kit, it’s currently available at Newegg for $319. That lands it right in the middle of similar kits from other manufacturers… higher than some, less than others. Keep in mind, the Viper 4 is new to the market, and that usually means the price will fluctuate after a few weeks.

As far as performance goes, there really isn’t anything to complain about as the Viper 4 kit performed as we’d expect. Overclocking proved to be a bit of a challenge; but as we’ve found out with other high MHz kits, that seems to be expected.

Aesthetically, the Viper 4’s red and black theme is a popular color choice and would look great with any of the multitude of motherboards on the market using the same color scheme. The only gripe here would be the green PCB, but it’s not like you see an overabundance of green once the memory is installed.

Patriot Memory has a viable option in the 16 GB Viper 4 DDR4-3000 MHz kit if you’re planning an X99 system build, and it’s worthy of consideration.

Click the stamp for an explanation of what this means.

–Dino DeCesari (Lvcoyote)