ADATA XPG Z1 16GB DDR4-2400 Memory Kit Review

DDR4 or the Double Data Rate generation 4 in RAM modules is the new buzz word and ADATA gave me an opportunity to explore this new and promising realm with their new XPG Z1 DDR4 RAM in the form of a 4x4GB (Total 16GB) kit of 2400MHz with timings of 16-16-16.
ADATA is no stranger to the DRAM market, they’ve been making high quality memory kits for both the consumer and enterprise markets for years, as well as consumer flash storage such as flash drives, SSDs and memory cards. So I'm even more excited to see how this new offering from them fairs out.
Before we move on to the review lets take a quick peek into the specifications of the XPG Z1 DDR4 2400Mhz Memory Kit

The kit we have for review today is a 16GB quad-channel PC4-19200, DDR4-2400 memory kit with a CAS Latency of 16-16-16-39, making it slightly higher than the common 15-15-15-35 found on most of today’s DDR4 memory kits. It also has a standard voltage of 1.200v and can be found under the model number AX4U2400W4G16-BRZ.
As per ADATA’s press release, the modules will be available through authorized distributors and channel partners across India at a price of Rs 7,400 and Rs 14,900 for a 4GB and 8GB kit respectively with a lifetime warranty. A 16GB kit has a MOP of Rs 19,980 as ADATA was kind enough to update us.
If you want to know what a DDR4 memory actually is and what its prime advantages are then read my previous article on the same here

Packing

Taking a look at the packaging we’ll see that all four of the DRAM modules can be clearly seen from either the front or back with the  labels facing out, for easy access to the kits specifications.

Usually I'd be put-off by the use of blistered plastic packaging, as it can be a pain to open and almost always requires bringing out the knifes from the kitchen drawer. However, in this case ADATA has thoughtfully placed a pull tab at the back of the casing, which makes it much easier to pull the casing apart without the need for tools.

The Appearance

The XPG Z1 features what ADATA calls “a jet wing inspired design” for its heatsink. It is very angular, and quite tall with the total module height coming in at 44mm at their tallest point in the center. While this is around 13mm taller than the bare PCB height, it is still short enough to minimize CPU cooler interference.

The carbon fiber themed logo works well with that red color, and gives off a sort of high performance look, reminiscent of a sports car. We also have a very nice all-black PCB, which ADATA says is actually a 10-layer PCB, with 2oz of copper versus the traditional 1oz found in other sticks courtesy to which the XPG Z1 has reduced electric resistance and consume less power, which greatly enhances the quality of signal transfer.

All in all its a great looking RAM which matches with most of the gaming setups of today as red and black is the color to go most of the time.

Overclocking & Load Tests

The ADATA XPG Z1 2400Mhz was configured with the below mentioned configuration. Going into the BIOS and selecting the Intel XMP 2.0 profile set the memory on the rated frequency and latency.
I then tried my luck and mediocre overclocking RAM skills and was surprised to see that overclocking the ADATA XPG Z1 was like a breeze. I had no problem hitting 2666MHz on stock timings, before I was forced to step up to the 125MHz BCLK setting. By setting the BCLK to 125 and raising the voltage to 1.35 V, the kit was perfectly stable at 3000 MHz.
I then took a different approach through latencies and succeeded in getting a nice overclock on our memory speed to 2666MHz with timings at 15-15-15-38, at the same 1.250v

Considering my mediocre overclocking skills I'm sure the kit can go over 3Ghz easily if you are a veteran in this field or have more time than me to play around with these! One thing worth mentioning here is that these are the same settings ADATA’s DDR4-3000 MHz kits are rated at. That certainly adds a ton of value to the kit.
For test bench setup, I used the following configuration:
CPU: Intel Core i7 5930K (OC at 4.5 GHz)
Motherboard: GIGABYTE X99 UD5 WiFi
RAMs: ADATA XPG 2400 Mhz DDR4 (16 GB 4x4)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H110 CPU Liquid Cooler
Graphics card: Gigabyte R9 290X windforce 3X OC 4GB DDR5
Hard disc: ADATA SP920SS 256 GB SSD
Power Supply: Corsair AX860i 860W 80+ Platinum Modular
The benchmarks will be performed between comparative performance of 2666Mhz at 15-15-15 and 3000Mhz at 16-16-16 as they are the best I could get in different methods and also beacause this memory is advertised as a OC worthy RAM kit by ADATA itself.

AIDA64 Memory Bandwidth

The first test is obviously AIDA64 Memory Bandwidth

As we can see our memory bandwidth performance has increased quite a bit with respect to overclocked frequencies.

AIDA64 Memory Latency

Memory latency is vital to any RAM kit and hence we used the ADATA XPG Z1 with AIDA64 Cache and Memory Benchmark.

The same story can be seen here aswell but in a larger fashion that the latency is proportional to the frequency.

Cinebench R15

Maxon’s Cinebench is a benchmarking tool based on their Cinema 4D software. It measures CPU performance by rendering a photo realistic 3D scene. Its simple to use and can give you a rough idea of a memories real life performance.

A minor difference is observed between the two frequencies so you can choose either one as its not a substantial difference in terms of rendering purposes.

SuperPi and wPrime

The SuperPi and wPrime tests are mainly targeted at single threaded performance and stress the CPU and memory equally.

Both tests show little difference of mere 2% between both the tested frequencies.

7zip, x264 and PoV Ray

7-Zip is an open-source, completely free file archiving application which utilizes LZMA2 compression. We use their built-in bench-marking utility to measure our systems performance when compressing files. The PoV Ray and x264 benchmarks are used to test video compression and conversion.

Here it is peculiarly observed that in all these tests frequency of the RAM is not as important as the latency as the XPG Z1 on lower frequency and lower latency performed better than that on a higher frequency-higher latency.

Crysis 3, Tomb Raider, Bio Shock Infinite and NFS Rivals

These are few of the most demanding games in terms of a range of components and hence stress the full system. All these games ran at Ultra settings on 1920x1080 resolutions.

Here we see that there is no to unnoticeable difference when using the ADATA XPG Z1 on two different frequencies simply because games are more CPU and GPU dependent these days. NFS Rivals does show some difference of 5 FPS and that is because it needs the RAM to process faster so as to render distant scenes on high speed racing scenes.

My Verdict

So there you have it, ADATA has once again provided a fairly respectable offering to consumers, this time in the latest DDR4 flavor. The XPG Z1 16GB DDR4 2400 Mhz kit surely performs way over my expectations and is priced below many other 2400Mhz DDR4 RAM kits out there giving it another advantage over its competitors.
Performs great at stock speed but is more than willing to accept pretty hefty overclocks to both speed and timings. Aesthetically speaking, the bright red heatsinks are easy to match with any number of gaming motherboards, and ADATA ensures that they aren’t so ridiculously oversized that they cause continuous CPU cooler interference. A black PCB is another design choice that will be welcomed by system builders concerned with appearance.
Priced at just around $180 or 19000 INR the XPG Z1 has hit the mark right with a terrific over clocking potential, cool design and a life time warranty sticker that has put ADATA back in the memory game. The ADATA XPG Z1 16GB DDR4-2400 Memory Kit is highly recommended to anyone and everyone out there looking for an enthusiast grade DDR4 memory.
I give it a 9/10