Packaging
Patriot has been one of my favorite companies when it comes to packaging products. There are no blister packs to cut your fingers and everything is done tastefully when it comes to marketing the product. Just your run of the mill features are on the package. Nothing that stands out too much, but it still gets the point across.
Closer Look
Looking at the memory up close the heatspreaders have changed a whole lot compared to previous generations of memory. The memory now weighs much less than before. That is not to say that they are made cheaply. Lets face it, memory does not need giant heatspreaders made of copper that are a foot tall. If memory ran without any heatspreaders at all they would be just fine. But with that being said, these ones are not too tall so they should fit nicely with most heatsinks.
Since the spreaders are attached firmly with glue, finding out what memory chips are under the hood became quite a pain in the butt.
But luckily some folks have figured out how to determine which chips are on the memory without removing the heatspreaders. With most modern memory it is easy to do so, and here is how you can check as well.
Before you start, make sure that you have a relatively bright light close so that you can properly see the small pins. First, take the memory and look upward from the side with the golden pins. You will see the memory IC’s or memory chips. Depending on the amount of pins or small markings on the IC’s will show you which memory you have. Below are the different IC’s that are used on most modern high-end memory.
(Image Couresy Xtremesystems)
(Image Couresy Xtremesystems)
Samsung IC (Image Couresy Xtremesystems)
After doing this test, the conclusion is that these sticks come with Hynix CFR memory chips. This stuff is used on all sorts of sticks these days. Ranging from 1333mhz stuff all the way to 2800mhz sticks from other companies. So there is a good chance they will be able to run past the rated speeds.
If you are new to installing memory, thanks to Bobnova here is a quick and easy guide:
- Remove your old ram, leaving the latches open.
- Line the notch in the stick of ram up with the ridge in the slot.
- Gently insert the ram and double-check that you have it in the proper way.
- Apply firm pressure until the ram clicks in. It should close the latches automatically.
- You’re done! Now you need to go into your bios and do the software part.
