14 DAY TRIAL // Even though consumer DDR4 was supposed to only be launched next year, makers of RAM have decided to release a preliminary gaming range now. After all, the Haswell-E Core-series and Haswell-EP Xeon central processing units both support the technology.
And while the chips are, indeed, made mostly for professional workstations, they still need DDR4 RAM, and it's no harm if they happen to possess fancy heatspreaders. They need coolers anyway.
Besides, if you want to make a hardcore gaming PC, or play games on your workstation, no one really has the right to stop you. It's your money you'll be spending on the systems.
Spurred by this fact, G.Skill has created the Ripjaws 4 series of DDR4 memory modules, which preserve the color theme of the DDR3 generation (grey, blue and red apparently), although the heatspreaders do look a bit different.
The G.Skill Ripjaws 4 DDR4 memory line will have a clock of 2,133 MHz per module, to start with, but the range will include stronger ones as well, of up to 3 GHz.
It's all well and good for DDR4 to stick to 2,133 MHz. After all, DDR3 normally only runs at 1,333 MHz, 1,600 MHz or 1,866 MHz.
However, gaming PCs and workstations don't use normal DDR3 at all. Instead, they have seriously overclocked modules of up to 2.8 GHz, sometimes more if people are especially determined and have the cooling skills to pull it off.
Obviously, it would have been odd for a new, overpowered PC based on the X99 chipset to be limited to 2,133 MHz RAM. Even with DDR4 being so much more efficient (1.2V instead of 1.5V or 1.35V for low-power DDR3).
Anyway, the G.Skill Ripjaws 4 DDR4 modules are XMP 2.0 profile-certified by Intel and can work at any of the supported frequencies just by setting the speed in the UEFI BIOS.
Only Overclockers UK has the things up for sale at the moment, but you can get 16 GB quad-channel modules (four 4GB modules) or a 32 GB kit (four 8 GB modules). Prices start at £239.99 / $399 / €300.
It's actually surprising that the company is offering low capacities. Most other DDR4 offerings go from 8 GB upwards. Understandably, seeing as how DDR4 has the potential to go as high as 128 GB through kits of eight 16 GB modules. That capacity that will only be available in 2015 though, so for now it's okay to takes things slowly (insofar as jumping the gun in regards to DDR4 can be considered such anyhow).
