Review: Adata XPG DDR3-2200 4Gb Gaming Memory Kits

Posted by Will Smith

Monday, 09 August 2010 00:43

Article Index
Review: Adata XPG DDR3-2200 4Gb Gaming Memory Kits
Specifications and Features
Photo Gallery and Test Setup
CPU-Z, Everest and PC Mark
Sandra Pro and ScienceMark 2
Verdict and Conclusion

Page 1 of 6

View Comments

Introduction

I still remember the first time I reviewed memory modules, from Adata a few years ago. At that time, Adata was a relatively small company which produced affordable memory modules, but mostly for the Asian market. When they finally hit the US and UK market, I naively thought to myself ... well here's another foreign company producing cheap memory modules for the masses. How will they compete against the big boys like Crucial, Corsair and OCZ in terms of quality and performance? However, to my surprise those particular Adata memory modules I tested, proved to be extremely good. Since then, I've been choosing my words carefully when dealing with new or small companies, and not to jump into conclusions to early.

Several years have past since my first encounter with Adata, and things are looking promising for them. In fact, they've been growing from strength to strength, producing not only memory modules but also USB flash drives and now SSDs. And more recently, Adata have been aggressively attacking the high-performance and enthusiast maket, producing faster memory that's extremely overclockable. For those who are not too familiar with Adata, here's a little blurb taken from their website.

"Founded in May, 2001 by Chairman and CEO Mr. Simon Chen, ADATA Technology Co., Ltd. is committed to providing the ultimate memory solutions that enrich customers’ digital life with strong belief in integrity and professionalism. With DRAM modules as its initial product focus, ADATA soon recognized the market’s trend and diversified its product portfolio to include Flash application and data storage solutions. Backed by its technical expertise, state-of-the art manufacturing facilities, and premium customer services, ADATA offers complete memory solutions including DRAM Module, USB Flash Drive, Memory Card, Solid State Drive and Portable Hard Drive; and has quickly risen to become the world’s leading provider of memory modules and Flash application products with a 2nd largest share in DRAM modules and 3rd in Flash Application products (iSupply, May 2010).

Although ADATA started with twenty employees only in 2001, the founder, Mr. Simon Chen and the senior management team have extensive memory-related industry experience in manufacturing and global sales, as well as the passion and energy to instill extraordinary corporate values as the foundation of the company. These values consist of integrity, fairness, honesty, perseverance, ingenuity, harmony, love and innovation. All these factors help contribute to remarkable and consistent year-on-year revenue and profit growth, allowing ADATA to achieve 1 billion sales turnover within the first ten year. "

DSCF0128

With computer systems getting more and more powerful these days, you'll also need decent memory modules to match. To take advantage of this market, Adata have released several product lines including their XPG series (Xtreme Performance Gear) designed for performance users, enthusiasts and gamers. Here's a quick list of their XGP line up:

Plus Series - Designed to offer PC enthusiasts, professional, and overclockers to experience the advanced performance.
Gaming Series - Offers gaming-class stability to deliver outstanding reliability performance essential for daily gaming and computing.
Xtreme Series - Provide the capability to unleash the hidden power in the computer with highest stability and extreme performance.

In this review, we'll be taking a look at the Adata XPG DDR3-2200 (v2.0) Dual Channel 4Gb gaming memory kits. They're rated at DDR3-2200, that's PC3-17600 spec with memory timings of 9-9-9-24, and supports XMP (for motherboards that have this option in the BIOS). Adata's Gaming series (V2.0) are aimed and targeted at the higher-end user and extreme enthusiasts, and uses high quality 2oz copper 8 layers PCB. They also come with some mean-looking aluminum heatspreaders, which are great heat dissipation.

We'll be installing these into our test rig, which consist of the following ... Intel Core i5 - 650 (LGA 1156), Gigabyte P55 USB3 motherboard (with XMP support), Geforce GTX 460, Noctua NH-D14 CPU cooler, and a Silverpower 650W PSU.

DSCF0130

So what can we expect in terms of performance from these Adata memory modules? Well, I hoping they can produced some good scores during benchmarks. They should easily match, if not better the recently reviewed Crucial Ballistix Tracer modules. The support for XMP (when enabled in the motherboard BIOS), should also give us a boost in memory performance.

OK, let's take a closer look at the specifications of these XPG DDR3-2200 (v2.0) Dual Channel 4Gb gaming memory kits from Adata (boy, that was a mouthful ... lol!)