Patriot Viper Steel RGB 3600 MHz (2x 16GB) review - Introduction

Patriot Viper Steel RGB DDR4 3600 MHz CL20 32 GB (2x 16 GB)

Steel Viper has the RGB now

Today, we are looking at Patriot Viper Steel RGB 3600 MHz CL20 (yes – 20!) memory in a 32 GB set consisting of two 16 GB modules. I can say that we’ve had our fair share of experience with Patriot RAM. We had an opportunity to test a similarly clocked kit (3600 MHz) from the Viper Steel series (so no RGB there), but the capacity was 2 x 32 GB back then, and the latencies were quite surprisingly better, at 18-22-22-42. Before that, we also reviewed one of the fastest 2 x 8 GB kits in the range, clocked at 4000 MHz with CL19 latency. Ok, but let’s get back to the task at hand, meaning the kit that this article is about. The Viper Steel RGB series has been introduced on the 18^th of December 2020. It’s not the first kit from Patriot with RGB lighting, either. The regular Viper series got this feature over two years ago, and it looked good (we even had the opportunity to check it out). The Viper Steel RGB series has a lightbar with 5 RGB multi-zones embedded into the top section of the heatsink, and it’s clearly all about the looks.

You can use Asus Aura Sync, Gigabyte RGB Fusion, MSI Mystic Light, or ASRock Polychrome Sync to control the RGB lighting. What else can we say about this product line? The range of speeds is very limited. You get to choose between 3200 MHz (CL18) and 3600 MHz (CL20), with XMP 2.0 support. The latter should suit most systems fine.

The capacity is between 8 GB (single stick) and 64 GB (2 sticks). The manufacturer claims that all modules are hand-tested to provide the best compatibility with AMD Ryzen and Intel systems. Another thing that looks good is the use of a ten-layer PCB, which should improve stability. The provided review sample consists of two 16 GB modules with a frequency of 3600 MHz and CL20, which sounds … just bad. Even though the speed looks very nice for Ryzen systems (and it’s not bad for Intel either), the latencies are a bit disappointing. On the positive side, the Patriot Viper Steel RGB is a relatively low-profile kit. According to the manufacturer, it’s 44 mm tall, so it shouldn’t cause any problems with most CPU coolers on the market. As for the speed, 3600 MHz is the highest frequency that this product range has to offer (albeit with CL20). There are also 3200 kits with CL18-22-22-42, so that’s still not looking great. What can we say here? Patriot went for the looks, and not so much the performance. What’s the result of this approach? We’ll find out a bit further into this review. We are going to check how this kit performs on two platforms: a Z390-based motherboard/CPU, as well as an X470 one. We are traditionally still going to try and squeeze something more out of it, so maybe the standard 3600 MHz is not the last word here (or at least we might manage to fine-tune the latencies). If you prefer, you can always stay on the safe side and stick to the advertised frequency and latencies using XMP. The Viper Steel RGB series is backed by a limited lifetime warranty. The MSRP is ~145 $ (16 GBx2, 3600MHz). Ok, next page, please.