Page 2 - A Closer Look, Test System
The GeIL EVO X GEX416GB3200C16DC 2x8GB, being a part of the newest performance DDR4 line from the company, utilizes a set of high profile heatspreaders. It is designed to draw attention with its black, white, and red color scheme. The overall design is quite sci-fi esque, but at no point does it look overdone. The EVO X's aluminum pieces are distinctively shaped and molded to give it an aggressive stance, with transparent pieces to accommodate its RGB LED lighting system. Aluminum is lightweight, and serves as a decent heat conductor, but the top extension is not actually made for heat dissipation. The EVO X is about 2.5cm taller than modules with no heatspreaders at all, as the extra height is required to house a secondary PCB with the LEDs. The LEDs are powered externally, which you can connect either to a regular fan header or your motherboard's lighting control system. Both cables are included out of the box. When connected to an external fan header, simply slide the red GeIL plastic tab to select one of the four lighting effects you want. You can choose between a steady color (Red, green, or blue) that blinks once every five seconds, or a RGB cycle that blinks a new color every two seconds. Unfortunately, there is no steady glow option. You can also connect it to a compatible motherboard that supports Aura Lighting Control from ASUS, Ambient LED from Gigabyte, or Mystic Light from MSI directly and control it by software. I am not particularly big on having it powered by the motherboard's fan header, since you are really just wasting something that could otherwise be used with... well, a fan -- a Molex adapter would have been more appropriate in my opinion.
The heatspreader design of the GeIL EVO X modules is asymmetrical when looked at straight on, and almost symmetrical between sides. The difference between the two sides is only one of them has the illuminated "EVO X" branding. Besides functional purposes, it also improves the look. The company's logo is etched directly onto the red sliding hot switch at the top. Although the heatspreader height is quite high, it is still possible for the EVO X to fit under a well-designed cooler with sufficient clearance room, but be sure to measure it out beforehand. Whether you like to call it marketing gimmick or whatnot, it is almost impossible nowadays to find performance memory without any form of a heatspreader attached, haha. The EVO X, in this particularly context, is designed primarily for showing off in a windowed chassis. Meanwhile, a specification label is placed on one side of each module. It lists the kit name (GEX416GB3200C16DC), latencies, bandwidth, voltage, and the module's memory capacity. There is no serial number that I can locate anywhere. The kit itself is manufactured in Taiwan.
As you can see more clearly in our photo above, the GeIL EVO X GEX416GB3200C16DC 2x8GB has a very nice black PCB. Meanwhile, its heatspreader on top is composed of two separate pieces, which are aligned by a set of tabs around the outside perimeter. The heatspreader is held to the module itself by a strip of thermally conductive adhesive, while the translucent plastic piece is locked inside with the red sliding hot switch clipped on at the top. The adhesive force between the two heatspreaders and memory ICs is extremely strong, so if you ever do take them off, keep your hair dryer kicking around -- I would not do it any other way.
From our above photo, it should also be clearer on how the heatspreaders are designed. The top edge is cast by a custom shaped mold on both pieces, and meets its corresponding section from the other half piece at the top for a complete mirror image. A series of teeth in varying sizes are located towards the center to give it a little bit of extra air ventilation room in this area. Since the pieces are made from fairly thin aluminum, it does not hold a lot of heat, therefore dissipating the heat energy relatively quickly into the surrounding environment. As you can see in the photo above, the LEDs are placed on a separate PCB, which GeIL refers to as Hybrid-Independent-Light-Module Technology. The idea is the circuitry of the memory and lighting system is completely separate electrically, so the performance of the RAM will not be affected by things like electrical noise from the LEDs. Either way, you will probably never remove them, since the main selling point of GeIL's EVO X are the RGB LED lights. If it does not clear your processor heatsink, then you might as well not buy this kit, haha.
A closer look at the memory chips on the GeIL EVO X GEX416GB3200C16DC 2x8GB dual channel memory kit. The photo above should be quite clear -- it says "CG4L1GM88BAO93AL" on each IC. I do not know who the OEM of these chips is, but I am guessing they are probably SK Hynix, with eight 1GB chips on one side only for a total of 8GB on each DIMM. As mentioned on the previous page, these RAM modules run at a frequency of DDR4-3200 with 16-16-16-36 latencies. They operate at a stock voltage of 1.35V, which is right at the Core i3/i5/i7 maximum safe limit of 1.35V.
It's lit.
Our test configuration as follows:
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K @ 4.60GHz
CPU Cooling: Noctua NH-D15 (Single fan)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD5
Graphics: Gigabyte G1 Gaming GeForce GTX 970 4GB
Chassis: Phanteks Enthoo EVOLV ATX Tempered Glass Edition
Storage: OCZ RevoDrive 350 480GB; Kingston HyperX Predator PCIe 480GB; SanDisk Extreme PRO 480GB
Power: Seasonic Platinum 1000W
Sound: Auzentech X-Fi HomeTheater HD
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
Compared Hardware:
- GeIL EVO X GEX416GB3200C16DC 2x8GB @ DDR4-3200 16-16-16-36
- G.Skill Ripjaws V F4-2400C15D-32GVR 2x16GB @ DDR4-2400 15-15-15-35
- Kingston HyperX Fury HX426C15FBK4/32 4x8GB @ DDR4-2666 15-17-17-35
- Kingston HyperX Savage Black HX426C15SBK4/64 4x16GB @ DDR4-2666 15-15-15-35
- Patriot Viper Elite PC4-24000 2x8GB @ DDR4-3000 16-16-16-36
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look, Test System
3. Benchmark: AIDA64 CPU
4. Benchmark: AIDA64 FPU
5. Benchmark: AIDA64 Memory
6. Benchmark: PCMark 8
7. Benchmark: 3DMark
8. Benchmark: PassMark PerformanceTest 8.0
9. Benchmark: SuperPI 1M, Cinebench R15
10. Overclocking and Conclusion
