Introduction

I don't need to say much about G.Skill as they are one of the most well established brands when it comes to enthusiast hardware. I've personally bought many sets of theirs over the years and each one has always met or exceeded my expectations. If you take a look at any motherboard QVL list, you'll more than likely find G.Skill on that list every time. I know I have. That small thing of having their memory kits with the board makers while building a product ensures that their modules work with nearly any motherboard on the market.

Here's what G.SKILL has to say about themselves:

Established in 1989 by computer hardware enthusiasts, G.SKILL is a leading memory and Solid State Drive manufacturer based in Taipei, Taiwan. The company's top priority is quality. All of the products undergo a series of the most rigorous tests and strict quality control processes. In addition to a committed, qualified IC testing house to examine the products, all G.SKILL products are 100% tested to ensure the highest yield, reliability and quality.

With having had so many G.Skill kits myself, I can personally attest to G.Skill's commitment to quality. For every platform I use in reviews, G.Skill has a product that I use, so when they told me they would be sending me their high performance TridentX kit, I was quite excited. Many of their kits have been on these pages in the past. This time, a heavy box arrived at my door - too heavy for its diminutive size. I covered one of G.Skill's other TridentX kits many months ago and was left rather impressed, although that kit didn't overclock by much. With a base speed of 2666 MHz, higher than the previous kit I tested, this is one blazing fast 16 GB kit.

Specifications

Packaging

The box of the G.Skill F3-2666C11Q-16GTXD kit is very basic, and the plain brown cardboard container really fails to amaze. I think G.Skill knows you'll just toss the box aside, so there is not much point in it being fancy, and the simple packaging has to help them keep costs on these high-end kits pretty low. One side of the box has G.Skill's contact info and a few stickers: one for each individual module and one for the kit itself.


Upon opening the box, I found a fan on top! Placing a fan on top of any memory running at over 2400 MHz is highly recommended, and nearly every such kit comes with one. I removed the fan and a piece of paper from the box and found the sticks to be hiding underneath of a cardboard divider.


I found four memory sticks wrapped in individual foam sleeves, the fan, a case badge, and a manual for the fan. The case badge is a nice freebie.

A Closer Look

Removed from the protective sleeves, the G.Skill F3-2666C11Q-16GTXD kit makes quite the impression. Each DIMM stick has a lot of heft due to the cooling. One side has the DIMM sticker on its right end; it matches the sticker placed on the outside of the box. These labels go a long way in helping you put the kit back together if you, like me, happen to have a few kits strewn about. On the label are the part number, the primary timings of the stick, and some serial numbers stuff. There is also a holographic G.skill logo to prevent counterfeiting.


The side of the DIMM with the label is obscured by said label, but you get a very different look after flipping the stick over, since the other side has both stylized G.skill and TridentX logos.


If you look carefully, you can see that each stick is made with a high-end 8-layer PCB. They are proven to help memory clock higher than a 6-layer PCB. Opposite to that are the gold "GC" letters I've seen so often.


The end of the connector on the DIMM has the heatsink recess just far enough for it to fit into any 240-pin DDR3 slot properly. The top has a bunch of stretched-out spikes, and they are sharp, I might add. I literally poked myself hard enough to draw blood while trying to insert the DIMMs into my test board, but that makes sense, since the F3-2666C11Q-16GTXD kit is a TridentX kit, and such a name should carry some weight! If you look at the profile of the DIMM, you can see that it is shaped like a trident and tridents are pokey underwater weapons, are they not? Interesting. Tridents are weapons for water, and many overclocked systems are watercooled! Now the name REALLY makes sense. Although I don't see any signs of Poseidon...


The included fan is small and feels a bit cheap. It's made out of a simple single piece of metal that has been cut and folded into shape. The fans attach to the frame using four screws each, with a single 4-pin Molex-type plug coming out to provide the fan with power. Each fan is rated to pull 0.8W for a total of 1.6W combined, or so I assume. When power is supplied, the fans light up blue, which seems out of place with a red and black kit.

Initial Setup