Introduction

Its not often that we see major changes in the computing industry regarding your computers memory. Every few years a new standard of memory appears that offers the next boost beyond that of the old. DDR3 is no different to this trend, offering greater speeds at voltages that are gradually getting lower.  Today sees the beginning of a new era where one company has aimed to take this trend to a whole new level, that only a few months ago would have seemed an impossibility! Just as before with our previous review on the G.Skill ECO CL8, G.Skill has set yet another new boundary, this time promising even lower latencies.

Company Background

Founded in 1989 by a select group of enthusiasts in Taiwan; G.Skill was set from this day forth to develop and produce high quality memory for the desktop computer as we know it today. Only really hitting the mainstream as a reputable manufacturer of RAM in mid 2003; G.Skill set about developing high speed, high quality products for both the mainstream and enthusiast alike. The latest achievement has been that of the RipJaw range of high performance low voltage DDR3 designed with Intel’s i3, i5 and i7 in mind. With time comes the development and manufacture of newer and possibly greater products. Today faces no exception to this rule with the release of another variant of the G.Skill ECO series of memory for the i3, i5 and i7 range of Intel CPUs. Rated to run at speeds of 1600mhz (pc12800) with latencies of 7-8-7-24 and a mind blowing low of 1.35v out of the box; the ECO series ram looks to improve on the already awe inspiring ECO series of ram for both the mainstream and enthusiast world. G.Skill produces some of the industry’s best memory modules, however with competitive pricing towards the lower end of the pricing scale.  G.Skill have products aimed at both the enthusiasts within the market, and with these low prices have also managed to keep the mainstream user in the loop too. To see if this new line of ultra low voltage memory can keep up with the already proven 1.65v range and previously reviewed 1.35v range of already released memory, we set forward with the task of seeing exactly what the new G.Skill ECO cl7 kit is all about.

Packaging and Initial Impressions

G.Skill Packaging Front

G.Skill Packaging Reverse

As you can see from the above two images, there definitely has been a lot of thought and consideration put in when you look at packaging concerning cost. The lack of packaging and keeping things simple will keep costs down. On that same note, having flimsy packaging such as this could cause issues concerning damage when the modules are shipped. There are many manufacturers adopting this type of packaging now, so with this in mind we can make the assumption that it must do its job adequately. The packaging is well presented and displays the contents in an appealing manner, so really the packaging cannot be faulted.

G.Skill Packaging Reverse Close

Taking a close look at the packaging reveals a small paragraph describing the product factually and in a rather unbiased fashion. In the lower right hand side of the rear is the product coding. This can be seen in the images prior to the above. Not only is the product coding on the packaging but also the modules specifications.

G.Skill ECO cl7 Full

G.Skill ECO cl7 Close

G.Skill ECO cl7 Specs

As you can see in the above images, the heat spreaders are rather plain but at the same time are very aesthetically pleasing. Many feel that having these understated yet elegant spreaders is a massive bonus as the days of having colourful in your face modules are becoming numbered. More and more we are seeing modules with spreaders like this. This could be for a number of reasons, firstly the modules generate little in the way of heat so it could be argued that they do not in fact need the spreaders. It could also be argued that the use of excessive spreaders for reasons similar to that just mentioned is a waste of money and would unnecessarily boost the price of the modules making them less appealing. With nearly all modules these days, the specifications are printed on stickers placed on the end of each module. Latencies, speeds and operational voltage are printed on each sticker..

Test Kit

Hardware
- Asus Sabertooth 55i motherboard
- Intel i3 530 retail processor clocked at 3.6ghz (18×200)
- Nvidia 8800gtx
- Western Digital 500GB SATA-II hard drive
- Generic DVDRW SATA unit
- OCZ Stealth Stream 400W PSU

- G.Skill RipJaw 2000mhz 1.6v (2×2gb) cl9
- G.Skill ECO 1600mhz 1.35v (2×2gb) cl8
- G.Skill ECO 1600mhz 1.35v (2×2gb) cl7

Software
- Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit
- Intel system drivers
- Forceware 195.62 for vista/win7 64bit

Testing Software
- Sisoftware Sandra 2009
- Everest
- WinRar Compression Utility
- cpu-z

Testing

As you may be aware, memory pricing varies across the board from manufacturer to manufacturer. Kits with low timings and higher frequencies are generally considerably more costly than kits that ship with more modest frequencies and less tight timings. This particular set of G.Skill ECO series memory kits falls straight in the middle of the ddr3 range sporting a faster than average latency set of 7-8-7-24 and speeds of 1600MHZ; Again we beg the questions of why the big fuss and why is this kit so special? The answer to that falls down once again to one very simple requirement, the operational voltage. At just 1.35v the ECO range of i3/i5/i7 memory kits fall in most cases a full 0.3v shy of the competition. With this reduction in voltage comes a reduction in power consumption and heat, but the main reason they are so special and have generated so much interest falls to the potential that these modules may have with a little TLC and overclocking know how.

For comparison purposes the previous 1.35v 1600mhz cl8-8-8-24 ECO kit has been selected as it sports the average timings and frequencies found in many other kits available on the market. A set of G.Skill RipJaw 2000mhz cl9 modules has also been selected.

Everest

As you can see from the graph above the G.Skill ECO cl7 Kit performs on a level that is only a few percent faster than the 1600mhz ECO CL8 kit. You will see this very same trend across the review as a drop in latency bears no real noticeable increase in performance compared to having the frequency increased. The 2000mhz RipJaw kit as expected with its higher frequencies has proven to be a superior kit only really falling back where latencies are concerned. This shows that a latency increase to cl9 and a 400mhz increase in frequency provides better performance in terms of bandwidth than what dropping the latency with no frequency increase provides.

Sisoft Sandra Lite 2010c

Once again we can see that the difference between the ECO cl7 kit and the ECO cl8 kit is not all that substantial. The 2000mhz RipJaw’s once again show a clear and substantial lead. Like all synthetic benchmarks there is a difference is the results in this case showing a slight increase in bandwidth from all kits when compared to Everest. Where as bandwidth has increased for the better the latency has taken a slight turn for the worse and has increased. Again this is nothing that could be noticed by the consumer.

WinRar File Compression and Encryption

You may be wondering why this test has been included within the review? The reason for this is to see what benefit if any you would see from having a faster kit in your computer. As you can see in the graph above frequency does indeed have its uses. The ECO cl7 kit once again has only shown a small increase in performance over the ECO cl8 kit. There really is little difference between the two ECO kits where a difference of  just 1 second could be down to fluctuations within windows rather than a proven increase in performance. The extra speed the 2000MHZ kit has on tap is once again evident shaving a few seconds off of each scenario. This in itself is conclusive evidence that buying faster memory has its benefits in real world usage. Whether or not the price increase justifies the extra speed  is another question, but when low latency kits cost close to that of the higher frequency kits sporting loose timing, the value of such kits soon becomes more appealing.

Overclocking

Overclocking memory is never really an easy task. Rarely can you get any real benefit out of a kit by overclocking it, the speed increases are usually minimal with only a few extra percent within reach. Rated to run at an energy saving  low of 1.35v the ECO cl7 kit should have some extra headroom just like the cl8 kit recently reviewed. With this is mind we set about increasing the operational frequency in one Mhz steps until the system failed to post. When this happened a little extra voltage was provided to the modules and the process repeated. The maximum frequency reached was a colossus 1009MHZ(2018mhz ddr). To reach this frequency timings had to be slackened to a more modest 9-10-9-27 and the operational voltage increased to 1.65volts. No matter how loose the timings and how much extra voltage was added the modules refused to run stable at anything higher. Considering the ECO kit is rated to run at 1600mhz this extra 418MHZ (once again approximately a 25% overclock) was a very welcome addition to an already brilliant kit.

Above are the results the memory obtained after the OC. As you can see the modules have the ability to run at a healthy 2000mhz+ making these an absolute dream for the overclocker.

Conclusion

With an approximate cost of £120 inclusive of VAT, the G.Skill ECO 1600MHZ cl7 low voltage kit is something of a mixed bag when compared to the cheaper cl8 revision. Costing a little more than other 1600mhz kits on the market with similar latencies, the ECO cl7 kit doesn’t really bring anything else to the table other than the lower initial operating voltage. As the ECO kit overclocks very well, but to a level comparable to the cheaper cl8 kit, it would be hard to recommend these modules over the cheaper variant. As previously noted, the low voltage requirement of these modules is a bonus and many other manufacturers will probably jump on this too. When a kit offering performance only a shade behind; at a price that really makes a difference then this kit cannot get the full recommendation.

Pros

• Out of the box performance
• Overclocking ability
• Aesthetics

Cons

• Inadequate Packaging
• Cost when compared to its cheaper equally exciting brother

OverclockersTech are pleased to announce that the G.Skill ECO low voltage dual channel memory kit has been awarded a SILVER award.

OverclockersTech would also like to thank G.Skill for the review sample.