With the launch of Intel’s Sandy Bridge-E processors last month came what seemed like a billion quad-channel memory kits to choose from. We posted about Corsair’s and Kingston’s offerings, with both companies focusing mostly on more sane 16GB kits but also offering 32GB kits for those who wanted them. I knew it wouldn’t take long before some other company would come along and offer a kit that borders on extreme, and that company proves to be G.Skill.
The kit falls into the company’s RipjawsZ family and includes 8x8GB modules, totalling 64GB. That’s not so special, but what is, is the fact that they are clocked to DDR3-2400 and utilize timings of 10-12-12-31-2N at a voltage of 1.65v. On paper, these sorts of specs might seem reasonable, but the fact of the matter is, getting such speeds on modules so large is difficult, and to be able to clock eight of them for sale in a single kit is even more so.
Given that Corsair sells a 32GB DDR3-1866 CL9 kit for $799.99, I knew that G.Skills’ offering would have to be priced much, much higher. After contacting the company, that assumption proved true, as I was told these would retail for between $3,900 and $4,000. Yes, $4K for a kit of RAM. In all regards, this kit is going to be considered overkill, but G.Skill still holds the rights to the bragging rights in the quad-channel arena.
Because of the extreme speeds, there’s only one motherboard qualified to handle these modules: the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme. This is thanks to the fact that ASUS has implemented a Digi+ RAM feature on its X79 boards that improves power efficiency to the point where you can run two super-fast kits just as easy as you could run one.