G.Skill Pi DDR3-2200 and Eco DDR3-1600

G.Skill DDR3 - Introduction

When Intel launched their Core i7 range of CPUs back in November 2008 they changed the playing field for memory in two significant ways. Firstly they brought the memory controller onto the CPU but more importantly they set a limit of 1.65v on modules, far below the industry standard of 1.8-2.0v which existed at the time. This forced the memory manufacturers to release modules which were tailored specifically to the new Intel platform and to begin with there were few i7 modules which could reach the same MHz ratings as the "old style" DDR3. In recent times manufacturers have been creating high specification modules which far exceed what we saw on the previous architecture; one such company is G.Skill and today we have their DDR3-2200 on our test bench.

G.Skill don't just do extreme speed though, they also offer some very interesting products further down the specification list. So we have also taken a set of their new ECO modules through the test suite to see if, as G.Skill claim, DDR3-1600 with decent timings really is possible on 1.35v.