A-Data DDR3-2200+ DRAM XPG Plus 2.0 review - Introduction

A-Data's XPG Plus Series DDR3-2200+ DRAM  -- run your memory like a rocket ...

Aaah welcome at another 'Top Gear' kind of product review. Yep, today we are going extreme again. It's the segment that often makes no sense. See, in the uber high-end segment nothing is weird or strange, including 300 USD memory. Recently P55 motherboards were launched, and though aimed at the mid-range market, all motherboard manufacturers still created really high-end motherboards.

Typically you'd pair such a motherboard with a Core i5 750 processor and 1333 MHz perhaps even 1600 MHz DDR3 memory. Some Memory vendors however felt the need to go really extreme, and A-DATA did exactly that. They are now offering the Plus series version 2.0 dual-channel memory kits, and tucked nicely away in that product line there's even a kit that will be clocked at 2200 MHZ at CAS 8:8:8:24 1T at low voltage (1.65v). Now if you don't know what these number mean, then surely this memory and review is not catered for you.

Pricy yes very much, but it is ubercool memory to work and play around with, so today we'll test this kit, and that is quite a challenge as we'll need to make a really good effort to get the processor at a high base clock and a motherboard that allows it. As such we tool eVGA's P55 Classified 200 motherboard and an engineering sample Core i7 750 and then test again with a Core i7 870 which offers a memory ratio we really enjoy!

Our target will be to achieve at least 2000 MHz on the memory and at least 4000 MHz on the Core i7 750 (2.67 GHz) processor platform. Hard to do, but if the memory allows it .. then it should be possible.

Then we pop the Core i7 870 processor in the very same system which ads a much needed memory ratio, and see if the memory indeed runs stable at 2200 MHz with advertised timings and voltage.

So next to this article being a memory review, it's really more showing you an overclocking experience, with some impressive numbers to round everything up.

Check out the memory, and head on over to the next page.