Teamgroup Dark DDR4-3600C14 - Quick Review

[SparkysAdventure]

This is not a review sample.

Team Group 8Pack RIPPED Edition 2x8gb DDR4 PC4-28800C14

TDPPD416G3600HC14CDC01

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team-group-8pack-ripped-edition-16gb-2x8gb-ddr4-pc4-28800c14-3600mhz-dual-channel-kit-black-my-001-8p.html

Part 1 - Intro

I only heard of this kit of ram because @sabishiihito posted about it on Facebook. At the time, it was priced at £139.99 including VAT, and ended up being about $175USD shipped to the US. That's maybe $10 cheaper than other 3600C14 bin kits including taxes, which sounds about right for a kit of RAM without RGB. My kit has a 10 layer A2 style PCB with Samsung B-Die ICs, and as far as I'm aware all kits of this bin do too.

I am a fan of computer parts that don't have RGB, and this kit matches my setup very well. It comes with a nice short aluminum (?) heatspreader and shouldn't conflict with most CPU coolers, unlike the Teamgroup Xtreem DDR4 which is quite tall.

Part 2 - Testing

My setup includes an EVGA Z390 Dark (running on the first public XP supporting bios), delidded i7-8700k (running at 50 core/47 cache for daily and 50 core/50 cache for heavy OC), an NH-D9L, an EVGA GTX 980 Ti Classified, and an EVGA 750W N1. My air conditioning is set to about 20C but being summer I doubt it ever gets that low, even at night.

2A - XMP

The kit is advertised as doing 3600mhz 14-15-15-15-35 between 1.4vdimm and 1.5vdimm. Interestingly, the XMP did not load the advertised timings. It set 3600 15-15-15-35 at 1.45vdimm. I don't know if others who purchased this kit have this problem, but I hope it will be fixed in a new revision.  I have been notified that the XMP issue is likely motherboard related. No need to worry. Here is the performance at the default XMP:

Thankfully, the memory would still run at the rated speed and timings just fine. I had to manually change cas latency in bios, but it's really not a huge issue in my opinion. See here:

2B - Manual daily overclocking

My initial impressions of this kit for daily overclocking were quite good. It booted my base profile of 4000 15-16-16-28 280 1t tight subtimings with no difficulty and passed memtest without a fan on the memory. I then tightened to 15-15-15 and it still worked without issue. I then put a 140mm fan over the memory and tried for 4133c15. Unfortunately, these settings would not train at all. I backed off to 4100 and it trained without issue. I was able to get it to pass benchmarks at 4100c15 but it was not quite memtest stable. I then tried to do 4000 ratio x 102.1 bclk, and ended up with 4080 15-15-15-28 280 1t tight subtimings memtest stable at only 1.5vdimm! The performance is quite good, as you see here:

This is slightly better than my previous best kit for daily overclocking, a pair of 4000c17 Trident Z Royal Silver that now belong to @Rauf.

2C - High voltage overclocking

This kit made my work easy. It booted up my 4800c14 profile first attempt and within 10 minutes I had 4800 14-13-13-28 220 2t passing Geekbench 3 reliably at 2.05vdimm, without any vtt tuning. 4133 12-11-11-28 220 1t should be doable at the same voltage, however I did not test it. 4800c14 with more optimized timings needed 2.06vdimm:

32493 passed but crashed before the screenshot. tWRWR_dr/dd at 5/5 would likely push me past the 32500 barrier, but it needed more voltage. Like many B-Die made in 2020, the voltage tolerance is low. I could not pass SuperPi 32m at with or without waza at 4800 14-13-13 or 14-14-14 for that reason.

These settings are not to be used daily. At such high voltages, memory access in Windows is limited to less than 2.5gb.

Part 3 - Conclusion

Overall, I'm pleased with this kit of RAM. It overclocked well beyond its rated speeds. It looks great and fits my system well. It's a great budget overclocking option, especially for people who don't have the money to buy a set that's been handpicked by a pro or or who don't have the means to go digging through the used market in search of a golden ticket. I hope the XMP issue is fixed soon, as more casual users may have a problem with it. I would like to see the Teamgroup Dark 3600c14 for sale in the US market. I hope the XMP issue is fixed soon, as more casual users may have a problem with it. 

I rate it an 8.5 9/10, definitely recommend.

Edited July 3, 2020 by Sparky's__Adventure

[twopaca]

excellent work, hope to see more of this in the future.

[gymleader]

I'm the xmp reddit guy. I am still really shocked your board doesn't list the 14 profile.

Was 4000 15-15-15 at 1.45v or 1.5v?

Not that I am ungrateful for this but I would like future reviews here to use say a 3 column table with speed, timings and voltage displayed. Just makes communication easier that way imo.

As for your last statement, Teamgroup is doing some pretty weird market segmentation with the upper tier RAM. The ARGB clone of this RAM was briefly sold on Newegg for $175 but either routinely goes out of stock super fast or it's being intentionally pulled. I haven't seen anywhere else to buy the flagship ARGB at all. The only way to buy equivalent specs is this Ripped kit from the UK

On another long and winding tangent I guess this XMP profile is the best you can get right now, especially for Ryzen. G. Skill used to have a 3600C14 Neo kit at 1.40v but it went EOL within months. The only reasoning I see for that is they couldn't get IC that good on a constant basis so they just pulled it.

[SparkysAdventure]

@gymleader 

4000 15-15 was also at 1.5v.

I believe the Teamgroup ARGB available somewhere in Europe, and here in the US it goes out of stock pretty often.

This was my first review, and there are definitely more tests that I want to run next time.

Can you reply with the part number of that 1.4v rated kit?

[gymleader]

Thank you for info. If you do more tests I would be interested in 3800 and 4000 stable timings at 1.45v as this is likely what people will use for Ryzen 4000. I know 1.5v is safe but this probably requires the user to have good case airflow to make sure temeprature is not an issue.

G. Skill 1.40v EOL kit: F4-3600C14D-16GTZN

Currently still sold 1.45v kit on Newegg: F4-3600C14D-16GTZNB

[gymleader]

Hi again

I know this isn't exactly related but if prices were very similar would you recommend these over the F4-3600C15D-16GTZ?

From what I know:

G. Skill will only run 15-15-15-35 at 2T. An A2 PCB is not guaranteed.

The 8 Pack can most likely do the 14-15-15-35 at 1T with 1.45v. A2 10 layer for sure.

 

[SparkysAdventure]

@gymleader How similar are the prices? I know someone who binned like 50 kits of 3600c15 gskill and every single one was a2.

[gymleader]

Ripped is £140 vs £150 G. Skill from Newegg imported from US or if I want to buy from UK, it's £170.

Also good to know about the A2 thing. Would be interesting to see that sample size of speeds and timings achieved.

 

[SparkysAdventure]

@gymleaderat that price just buy the ripped

[gymleader]

OcUK has this for £119.99 now. £20 off standard price.

 

[SparkysAdventure]

@4n0nym0u5b3nch3r 3866 14-14 1.5vdimm with tight subtimings should work just fine I think, if your board/IMC can handle it

Edited July 11, 2020 by Sparky's__Adventure

[SparkysAdventure]

@4n0nym0u5b3nch3rkeep in mind kit to kit variance

[SparkysAdventure]

@4n0nym0u5b3nch3r Do you think it would be possible to get 3466 cl12 working?

Edited July 15, 2020 by Sparky's__Adventure

[SparkysAdventure]

@4n0nym0u5b3nch3ri always bench my daily lmao

might have bricked a few daily OS but never lost any data that I couldn't recover

 

[gymleader]

RAM is currently £99.95

Started £139.99. 3 weeks ago it was on sale for £119.99