Introduction

As anyone might expect, consumer DDR4 is very much similar to the DDR3 products that preceded it; there are a bunch of different speeds, voltages, timings, colors, shapes, capacities, etc., the list goes on and on. Simply compare numbers found in specifications and you will only see similar speeds, lower voltage, and higher timings. How could DDR4 possibly be better?

The truth of the matter is that even worrying about such things is rather unnecessary; if you want to buy into the latest and greatest motherboards and CPUs, DDR4 is what you are going to be looking at because your old DDR3 simply isn't going work. Knowing such was going to be the case, but also knowing that such purchases were going to be in the minority, I've slowly assembled a huge set of DDR4 kits with which to take a look at the differences the technology has to offer, ignoring past DDR3 products and that whole side of things.

The kit we're looking at today is a 3000 MHz, 1.35V, 15-16-16-35 kit made up of four 4 GB sticks. Wrapped in a fancy blue to match most blue motherboards, G.Skill has chosen to release a kit almost identical to the red kit I reviewed so long ago. Is there more to this kit than just a color change? Do those two timings even matter? Let's find out.

Specifications

Packaging

Like so many kits before, G.Skill's F4-3000C15Q-16GRBB kit comes in a basic plastic clamshell with two stickers on either side.


Pulling the plastic open reveals the sticks, a few paper-based things, and G.SKill's traditional case badge.