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Thermaltake TOUGHRAM RGB DDR-4600 MHz CL19 2x8 GB

Black Haru

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Thermaltake is back with a refresh to their TOUGHRAM RGB memory. This new revision uses SK Hynix D-die memory ICs to drive frequencies up to 4600 MHz. With the top spec kit ready for testing, it's time to see what the TOUGHRAM does with this newfound performance!

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Update your DRAM Calculator to 1.7.3 if that's the only thing you're relying on to tell you timings. The 16-19-20-32 recommendation for Hynix DJR is outdated and performs poorly in actual memory performance tests.
 
I'm glad I got my 4400MHz White Toughram (no RGB) for the looks, performance is shit on my Intel system and won't go over 2666MHz.
PSA they also come in Black with no RGB, although not a true black, they still have the white strip along the top edge and shiny bits on those angular sections.
 
Xmp2.0 to the rescue!
 
The charts are utterly dominated by low-latency DDR4-3600.

What's the point of this really expensive RAM if it's outright slower than cheaper DDR4-3600?
 
Bling, bling I guess and higher numbers, sadly also cl is higher.
 
What a waste of time. If somebody started selling DDR4-5000 30-30-30-35 timing for $1000, somebody would buy it.

I want to say that this review is fantastic. Always the gold standard. Just wished these DRAM companies would make some decent memory worthy of such work.
 
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The charts are utterly dominated by low-latency DDR4-3600.

What's the point of this really expensive RAM if it's outright slower than cheaper DDR4-3600?
It's most likely fine on Intel, but over 3800MHz there's really no benefit so far on Ryzen systems.
 
boo 4600, my gskill ripjaw 3200 14-14-14-14-34 @ 3800 14-16-14-14-28 64.8 ns how
zen.PNG
about that.
 
ToughRam is a tough sell to me. While the numbers seems fast, but the results clearly show its not. Not to mention you are paying a steep premium for DDR4 RAMs running at this sorts of speed, which unfortunately is going to be replaced by DDR5 in another couple of years.
 
Low quality post by Anymal
It's most likely fine on Intel, but over 3800MHz there's really no benefit so far on Ryzen systems.
Even on Intel, is there any point in raising bandwidth at the expense of latency?

As a general rule, real-world latency in nanoseconds is all that matters on Intel, and you can pretty much match the latency of this kit with some bargain-basement DDR4-3000 at 14-16-16. You need some absolute garbage-tier OEM stuff to struggle to reach those timings, because even the cheapest DDR4-3000 you can find on the market now is typically 15-17-17 or 16-16-16 out of the box.

I know there are some weird edge cases where DDR4-3000 actually causes bandwidth bottlenecks on Intel 9th Gen but those are so contrived that 99% of people should ignore them and focus on lowest latency above all else. If this RAM had no price premium whatsoever, then it'd be worth considering but at a guess this stuff is going to be close to double the price of other RAM that will match or beat it.
 
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Even on Intel, is there any point in raising bandwidth at the expense of latency?

As a general rule, real-world latency in nanoseconds is all that matters on Intel, and you can pretty much match the latency of this kit with some bargain-basement DDR4-3000 at 14-16-16. You need some absolute garbage-tier OEM stuff to struggle to reach those timings, because even the cheapest DDR4-3000 you can find on the market now is typically 15-17-17 or 16-16-16 out of the box.

I know there are some weird edge cases where DDR4-3000 actually causes bandwidth bottlenecks on Intel 9th Gen but those are so contrived that 99% of people should ignore them and focus on lowest latency above all else. If this RAM had no price premium whatsoever, then it'd be worth considering but at a guess this stuff is going to be close to double the price of other RAM that will match or beat it.
More so than on AMD for sure.

At some point, there's diminishing returns of going for higher clocks, as the extra frequency is negated by the higher latency.
This is nothing new, but at least on most CPUs until Ryzen 3000, you never hit a point where going for faster RAM would turn into a performance drop, within reason.

It also depends on how much you care about getting that last 2-3% of performance out of your system.
 
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