Patriot Viper Steel DDR4 3600 MHz (64GB) review - Introduction

Patriot Viper Steel DDR4 3600 MHz CL18 64 GB (2x 32 GB)
Plenty of PATRIOTic RAM (with a radiator) made of steel!!  

Today, we are looking at Patriot Viper Steel 3600 MHz CL18 memory in a 64 GB set consisting of two 32 GB modules. At the beginning of 2019, we had an opportunity to check a higher-clocked kit from that series (4000 MHz), but the capacity was 2 x 8 GB. Patriot’s Viper Steel Series is offered at speeds ranging from 3000 MHz up to 4400 MHz, with XMP 2.0 support. You have to keep in mind that you’d need a suitable CPU and motherboard to take advantage of the 4400 MHz variants, as it’s not possible to achieve that frequency “automatically” with just any system. You can find the list of suitable combinations on the product page.

There is no RGB here, but the looks of this model are really great and should fit most builds. There are no colour variants to choose from either, so all you’ve got to do is match the desired capacity and frequency. Kits consisting of 32 GB modules are few and far between, especially clocked as high as the reviewed product. 3600 MHz with CL18 sounds really good. It’s almost optimal for Ryzen-based systems, considering the fact that this is dual-rank memory (you can check the performance benefits of various RAM settings in our article here).

he Patriot Viper Steel series is relatively low-profile (45 mm of height) so it shouldn’t cause any problems with CPU coolers. 3600 MHz is the highest frequency available from Viper Steel for the 64 GB kits. We are going to check how it performs on two platforms: a Z390-based motherboard/CPU, as well as an X470 one. We are traditionally still going to try to squeeze something more out of it, so maybe the standard 3600 MHz is not the last word here (but even that a good value for Ryzen systems). On the other hand, you need to remember that, until now, it was already quite an achievement if a kit like that had even a 3200 MHz clock. If you prefer, you can always stay on the safe side and stick to the advertised frequency and latencies, using  XMP. Naturally, these kits are optimized for both AMD and Intel systems (which will be tested in this review). The Viper Steel series is backed by a limited lifetime warranty. The MSRP is ~ $309.99 (32 GBx2, 3600MHz). Next page, please.