ADATA XPG V2 RAM DDR3-2400 8GB Memory Kit Review

By Hank Tolman

Manufacturer: ADATA Technology
Product Name: XPG V2 DDR3 RAM
Model Number: AX3U2400W4G11-DMV
UPC: 4713435797785

Price As Tested: $94.99 (Amazon | Newegg)

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by ADATA.

Some of the most difficult to answer questions in the enthusiast and high-end gaming PC world have to do with RAM, and more specifically with RAM clock speeds, latency, and timings. What differences do all of these make when it comes to better performance and higher frame rates in games? Typically, the answer is that they do very little when it comes to games. AMD has sought to change that answer with the release of their Richland series APUs, which are designed to take even more advantage of RAM speeds and support up to 2133MHz clock speeds. Intel’s Haswell now supports speeds of up to 1600MHz. Now that more is being done to increase the performance gain from higher RAM speeds, let’s take a look at the results. Here at Benchmark Reviews, we have a couple of new high-speed RAM kits to review. In this article, we will be taking a look at the ADATA XPG V2 4GBx2 DDR3-2400 PC19200 AX3U2400W4G11 DRAM Kit.

The AX3U2400W4G11 DRAM Kit comes clocked at 2400MHz. ADATA states that the XPG V2 kits are designed specifically for the 3rd Generation Intel Core Processors and the Z87 Chipset, but they will work great with AMD’s Richland APUs as well. This is especially true considering the fact that the AMD A10-6800K APU supports 2133MHz memory natively while. Regardless of the stated support, it will run with ADATA’s 2400MHz XPG V2 kit. What I want to know is how much performance scaling based on the RAM speed I’ll get from the AX3U2400W4G11. Is it worth spending a little more money to get faster memory clock speeds? We must also consider that, in many cases, those increased clock speeds come with higher timings.

First things first, let’s check out the specs on the ADATA XPG V2 Series and the AX3U2400W4G11.

I am interested in seeing just what the increased DRAM speed support on the A10-6800K can do. I have to admit upfront that DRAM scaling has always disappointed me in the past and I am not expecting miracles now. When I buy RAM, I usually go for the middle of the road and I buy whatever is on sale.

For testing the AX3U2400W4G11, I want to give the RAM kits the best opportunity to provide a performance boost, so I’ll be using the A10-6800K with its integrated GPU. I’ll also be using a couple of other dual-channel RAM kits to compare with the AX3U2400W4G11.

• Motherboard: ASUS F2A85-M Pro
• Processor: 4.1GHz A10-6800K
• Video: APU Graphics 8760D
• Disk Drive: Seagate Solid State Hybrid ST1000LM014 1TB
• PSU: Thermaltake Black Widow W0319RU 850W 80 PLUS Bronze
• Operating System: Windows 7 Professional

• FinalWire AIDA64 v3.00.2500 Memory Tests
• Passmark Performance Test 8
• Sisoft Sandra Lite 2013.05.19.44
• Handbrake 0.9.9
• Bioshock Infinite
• Tomb Raider

Benchmark Reviews has used AIDA64 and its predecessor Lavalys Everest for years, mainly for its processor benchmarks and CPU stress-testing features. But it also includes a “Cache and Memory Benchmark” that performs read, write, and copy bandwidth tests on a system’s installed memory.

The results here are pretty scattered all over the place. The 1866MHz pulls ahead in the read results while the slowest kit, at 1600MHz, wins out in the write benchmark. Even in the copy benchmark the 2133MHz kit beats the ADATA XPG V2

Passmark Performance Test 8 is a comprehensive benchmarking suite that tests many areas of your PC, including RAM. Passmark offers a comprehensive online database to check your results against a lot of others.

The performance in the Passmark read tests scales normally with the increase in RAM speed with the largest difference coming between the 1600MHz RAM and the 1866MHz RAM. As for the write tests, the ADATA XPG V2 2400MHz RAM is actually beaten out by the Kingston HyperX Beast at 2133MHz.

SiSoft’s Sandra Lite is a free version of SiSoftware’s “Sandra” benchmarking utility. Its comprehensive memory benchmark tests report a number of items, but we’re interested memory throughput tests. Unlike some other benchmarks that merely perform straight sequential reads and writes, Sandra reads and writes different areas of memory, using integer as well as floating point data, all in SMP mode.

The Sandra results put the 2133MHz RAM ahead of the AX3U2400W4G11 in both the float bandwidth and write performance.

HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder program designed to convert MPEG video (including DVD-Video) into an MPEG-4 video file in MPEG-4 Part 14 (.mp4) or Matroska (.mkv) containers. The program is used to convert DVDs into other forms so they can be viewed on portable media devices and with most media players. While Handbrake was originally developed for BeOS, it is now available for Linux, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X.

Handbrake is a readily available program that easily handles and utilizes multiple CPU cores and threads. This makes it an ideal program for us to use to test CPU performance. The amount of time it takes for Handbrake to convert a media file scales very nicely based on the clock speed and available cores of the CPU. For this test, I used a 4.34GB video file in MPEG format to be converted to MP4 format using the “iPhone & iPod Touch” presets. I recorded the total time in (min:sec) that it took to transcode the video file.

The ADATA XPG V2 AX3U2400W4G11 manages to pull ahead in the Handbrake test, clocking in at 11 seconds faster than the 2133MHz kit.

Bioshock Infinite, by Irrational Games, was one of the most highly anticipated games of its time. According the vast majority of reviews on the game, it didn’t disappoint. Having played it, I can tell you that the story line grabs you and doesn’t let go. The moral and ethical quandries and twisting plot will keep you in front of your screen for hours on end. The graphics are nothing to shake a stick at either. That being said, Bioshock Infinite was built on the aging (although still widely used) Unreal Engine 3. That same engine has been in use since DX9 and was designed to take full advantage of shader hardware. In Bioshock Infinite, of course, the engine uses DX11 features to make the graphics that much more realistic.The ADATA XPG V2 2400MHz kit is the winner in the Bioshock Infinite benchmark, but not by a lot. To be fair, however, there is a total increase of less than two FPS from the slowest to the fastest RAM. That does translate to almost 16% in this case, however.

The AX3U2400W4G11 wins in the Tomb Raider benchmark as well, and this time it’s to the tune of almost 20%. That’s a little better, although the increase in RAM speed is 50%.

RAM is a tricky component. It is one of the fundamental components of a computer and the price of RAM is better than ever. With 64-bit operating systems really becoming the standard, most desktop and laptop systems now come with more than 4GBs of RAM. Newer chipsets are also supporting much faster RAM than ever before, which is why we’ve seen an influx of high-speed RAM kits hitting the markets. The price gaps between the speeds are becoming smaller and smaller, making it easier to justify getting those faster DIMMs.

In fact, with DDR4 being shown off at CES this year and potentially making a debut in mobile platforms by the end of the year, we should see speeds increasing even more while prices continue to drop. DDR4 memory will effectively double the speed of DDR3 memory from the get go and individual modules will also increase in size. In addition, DDR4 will significantly decrease power consumption. Don’t expect to see DDR4 modules in desktop systems until 2014, which significant market adoption a few years later. Intel’s roadmap has DDR4 being introduced with Haswell-E.

But that doesn’t happen until next year, at the soonest. The real question is, for now, does it make sense to spend a little extra on faster RAM? As we have seen in our tests, increased RAM speed, when paired with AMD’s latest APUs, does translate into slightly faster performance both in synthetic benchmarks and in games. The difference isn’t huge, but it could be worth it. I say that because the price differences between the slower and faster RAM modules is now lower than ever.

With the ADATA XPG V2 RAM kits, Around $10 will get you an increase to the next speed level up to 2400MHz. Above that, the price jumps a little more dramatically. Because the prices are so close at the lower speeds, I would certainly recommend going with the 2400MHz ADATA XPG V2 RAM and getting the increased performance, although not terribly dramatic, that comes along with it. Above that it might be hard to justify, but I’ll have to get my hands on some of the faster RAM to know for sure.

Of course, that recommendation only goes if you are in the market for an entirely new RAM kit. If you are upgrading the RAM you have to increase the amount, I’d stick with the speed you have, as long as it is DDR3-1066MHz or above. Also be sure to get the same timings as your existing RAM, preferably the same model for the best compatibility. If you are going for a completely new kit, go as fast as you can before the price differences start to makes it unjustifiable. For the ADATA XPG V2 kits, I’d call it at 2400MHz.

The ADATA XPG V2 DDR3-2400MHz 8GB Dual-Channel Kit is a cool looking, well-performing RAM kit that delivers what it promises. The 2400MHz clock speed is above the rated speed for any existing chipset, although the X79 chipset does have a 2400MHz memory divider that allows for overclocking without changing the base frequency. The AMD Richland APUs also offer more in the way of specific performance enhancing coding for RAM speeds up to 2133MHz. That’s good news, considering RAM speeds have typically not translated well into real-world performance increases. Throughout my testing, I’ve shown that this is still the case, although the performance increase may be somewhat more significant than with previous chipsets. The really compelling reason now to get 2400MHz RAM modules is that the price seems to be right. Over the next few paragraphs I’ll be giving my justifications for the ratings I’ll be giving at the end of the page. Keep in mind that these are my opinions based on my hands on experience with the ADATA AX3U2400W4G11.

The AX3U2400W4G11 delivered performance on par with its specifications, but only narrowly. In fact, the slower, 2133MHz Kingston HyperX RAM outperformed the ADATA XPG V2 2400MHz kit in several synthetic tests. This didn’t carry over with the real-world scenario tests, however, where the AX3U2400W4G11 won out in each of the games and the video conversion. That doesn’t necessarily mean much, however, considering a 50% increase in RAM speed only translated into about a 15% increase in FPS in Bioshock and 20% in Tomb Raider.

I do like the look of the ADATA XPG V2 series RAM kits. The flashy heat shroud is pretty cool-looking and stands out well in my test bench. In a system with a windowed side panel, the modules should stand out pretty well, as long as you have some interior case lighting. They are available in Gold or Tungsten colors and either one looks good. The kit I got from ADATA was Tungsten colored and I think it matched particularly well with the black PCB.

The construction quality of the AX3U2400W4G11 seems to be on par with the rest of the industry where high-speed RAM is concerned. The heat shroud is durable and well-attached to the PCB. Speaking of the PCB, it’s 2oz double-copper 8-layer construction is made for increased stability. The heat shroud is part of ADATA’s Thermal Conductive Technology (TCT) that provides more thermo-conductivity by covering more surface area.

The AX3U2400W4G11 performed completely stably at its rated speed of 2400MHz, as well as at 1600MHz, 1866MHz and 2133MHz with reduced timings giving you plenty of options based on your existing system. I was also able to run XPG V2 kit at 2600MHz if I increased the timings to 13-13-13-40. There is a potential that you could run this RAM even faster.

As of August 2013 the ADATA XPG V2 AX3U2400W4G11-DMV memory kit sells online for $94.99 (Amazon | Newegg). For an 8GB dual channel kit running at 2400MHz, that is a little pricey. The feature set on the AX3U2400W4G11, including the thermal technology they’ve implemented through the use of their heat shroud and the PCB build quality, makes up a little for the higher price, but I’m not sure it makes up completely. The same Kingston HyperX Beast 2133MHz 8GB dual-channel kit that beat the AX3U2400W4G11 on occasion in our tests costs less in the 2400MHz flavor. I can’t say that the AX3U2400W4G11 isn’t worth the near $100 it costs, but I can’t say it is the best value I’ve seen.

+ Thermal Conductive Technology helps with heat dissipation
+ Overclocked easily to 2600MHz
+ Flashy High-Tech Transformers look
+ Stable performer

– A little pricey compared to other 2400MHz kits
– Outperformed by an 1866MHz kit in some tests

• Performance: 8.00
• Appearance: 9.50
• Construction: 9.00
• Functionality: 9.00
• Value: 7.50

Recommended: Benchmark Reviews Seal of Approval.

COMMENT QUESTION: What do you look for in a performance RAM Kit?