INTRODUCTION

   The market is currently filled with RGB enabled PC hardware components and peripherals and that pretty much affects both consumer segments, those who want an RGB lit setup and those who don't. For example, even if you don't care about RGB lighting you may want the specifications/features found in a specific mainboard which comes with that feature so if you do get that model then you may decide that everything else needs to match by also having it. With that in mind it certainly makes sense that most manufacturers have thrown their weight into the design and release of RGB lit hardware components and peripherals and since it's no secret that we've been focusing a lot on DDR4 reviews lately today we have yet another RGB enabled quad-channel kit with us, the latest XPOWER Turbine RGB 32GB 3200MHZ CL16 by Silicon Power.

   Founded in 2003 by a group of enthusiastic data storage industry experts, Silicon Power is committed to delivering outstanding product and service quality. Headquartered and with our own state-of-the-art production site in Taipei, we have become a leading manufacturer of flash memory cards, USB flash drives, portable hard drives, solid state drives, DRAM modules and industrial-grade products. As an international player with four branch offices around the globe, we continuously strive to offer the perfect data storage solution for all requirements of modern digitalized life. With a strong focus on combining innovative technology and award-winning design, we live up to our brand promise to reliably preserve and protect your most valuable data. Because memory is personal.

   Silicon Power currently has single (8GB/16GB - for our quad channel test rig we used four 8GB modules) and dual-channel kits (2x8GB/2x16GB) with frequencies all the way up to 4133MHZ (3200/3600/4133MHZ), timings as low as CL16 (3200MHz CL16 - 3600/4133MHZ CL19) and voltages ranging from 1.35V for the 3200/3600MHZ modules and 1.4V for the 4133MHZ modules. Under the gunmetal gray anodized aluminum heatspreaders Silicon Power has placed single-rank 8GB memory modules by Samsung (after removing the heatsink of these it turns out they are using B-Die chips) and a RGB LED lighting bar (even though Silicon Power doesn't offer their very own RGB control software these modules are fully compatible with all the leading mainboard RGB sync technologies including ASUS Aura Sync, GIGABYTE RGB Fusion, MSI Mystic Light Sync and ASROCK Polychrome Sync). Also just like with the regular Turbine DDR4 series Silicon Power covers the entire XPOWER Turbine RGB line with a limited lifetime warranty.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

Our samples arrived in single 8GB module packages (meaning we got a total of 4 but we're only showing 2 - 4 packages would "push" our picture even further) that feature a product picture at the front right next to the mainboard RGB sync logos and a clear plastic window from where you can see part of the module inside.

A few words about the product are printed at the rear of the box in 14 languages.

The modules are not accompanied by anything else (what matters is that the gunmetal gray theme looks very nice).

THE XPOWER TURBINE RGB DDR4 3200MHZ CL16

Once again at the front of the modules we find the company logo and a sticker with the product series on it.

Turning the module around we also find a smaller sticker with the product serial number, barcode and the RAM size, CAS latency and frequency.

The top RGB LED lighting bar also has the series name printed on it.

Measuring just 40.4mm top to bottom (35mm for the heatspreaders) the XPOWER Turbine RGB DDR4 RAM modules are only just slightly taller compared to their non-RGB brothers.

Even though these modules don't "sync" with each other (each pair does but not 100% smoothly) they do look very nice and certainly a lot better than the non-RGB version.

As mentioned already the XPOWER Turbine RGB DDR4 modules are compatible with all the leading mainboard RGB sync technologies including the Fusion by GIGABYTE (the one supported by our mainboard).

Thanks to the popular Thaiphoon Burner program you can see detailed information about the kit we’re testing today (even though the Samsung chips used are not recognized as B-Die they are indeed B-Die).

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY

   Thanks to XMP profiles the only thing one needs to do in order to run this RAM kit at its advertised frequency, timings and voltages is to choose/enable it from within the Bios and reboot. That being said if you're into overclocking you may not wish to use the main XMP profile but instead to choose your very own frequency, timings and voltages to achieve even higher performance numbers and that's exactly what we'll also be doing during our DDR4 tests. To be more specific aside testing each kit with its XMP profile we will also be upping the voltages (up to 1.4V max) and frequencies (200MHZ increments) until we find the maximum achievable stable frequency. We also thought about upping voltages and reducing timings instead of increasing the frequency of the modules as high as it can go (always stable and without going over 1.4V) but the end results are pretty much identical.

   As for the how we'll be testing each DDR4 Quad-Kit to arrive in our lab well there aren't that many benchmark programs that only test RAM (or at least RAM and CPU without anything else coming into play) but we got most of them and so you will be seeing results from following benchmarking programs, AIDA64 Engineer Edition, Cinebench Release 20, MaxMemm2 (because we are getting low performance numbers this doesn't seem to play well with our test rig - probably because of the X299 architecture - but we decided to include it regardless), Passmark Performance Test 9, Sisoftware Sandra Titanium and WPrime v1.55. All tests are performed on a fresh Windows 10 Pro installation (complete with all updates until the day of this review) and are repeated a total of 6 times after which the average numbers get recorded into our charts.

TEST RESULTS - XMP PROFILE

TEST RESULTS - OVERCLOCK

For today's review we managed to raise the frequency of the XPOWER Turbine RGB DDR4 3200MHZ CL16 modules by Silicon Power all the way up to a stable 3800MHz CL20 (3400MHZ 1.37V / 3600MHZ 1.39V / 3800MHZ 1.4V).

CONCLUSION

   At first glance even though the latest XPOWER Turbine RGB DDR4 modules look nearly identical to the XPOWER Turbine DDR4 modules they are far from that not only because they use different B-Die Samsung chips but also due to their different power requirements (1.2V for the non-RGB 3200MHz modules and 1.35V for the 3200MHZ RGB modules). The heatspreaders are indeed similar (the RGB model uses slightly larger ones with a different color theme) but thanks to the top RGB LED light bar this time over they feel right at home on an RGB compatible mainboard. Overall performance and overclocking headroom are both at very good levels (although nothing we haven’t seen before) so no complaints here either.

   At the time of this review the XPOWER Turbine RGB DDR4 16GB 3200MHZ Dual Channel kit by Silicon Power can be found for USD84.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) which means that two of these (quad-channel) will set you back USD169.98 a price tag which is actually less than what you’d have to spend for similar kids. Unfortunately, availability inside the EU (at “normal” prices at least) is non existent so for now and until Silicon Power resolves this, potential buyers may have to look elsewhere. Looks, performance and price the XPOWER Turbine RGB 3200MHZ CL16 Quad Channel Kit has it all and for that it gets our Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality (10 Layer PCB’s / Samsung B Die Chips)
- Design (Gunmetal Grey Heat Spreaders)
- RGB LED Bar (Compatible with ASUS AURA Sync, GIGABYTE RGB Fusion, MSI Mystic Light Sync & ASRock Polychrome Sync)
- Overall Performance (Up To 3800MHz CL20)
- Short Heat Spreaders (Zero Clearance Issues)
- Lifetime Warranty
- Price (USA)

CONS

- No Quad Channel Kits Available
- Price / Availability (EU)