GALAX HOF 16GB 3600Mhz Review
GALAX HOF Memory Kit looks mesmerizing but is its performance worth your buck!?
High frequency memory kits are getting more popular by every day especially since the advent of AMD Ryzen 7 that offers unprecedented price to performance ratio , some want it blistering fast gaming performance while others need to overcome hurdles during content creation and well some just want them just because they want the very best!
Today I have one such memory kit on my table from GALAX, the same manufacturer that created ripples throughout the graphics card division after launching their GALAX HOF GTX 1080Ti. I have with me today the GALAX HOF 16GB 3600Mhz memory kit for review.
Priced in at just around $110 or Rs 11,700 in India the GALAX HOF memory kit comes from the Hall of Fame lineup from GALAX which happens to be their top of the line product line that is intended at offering the very best the brand has to offer. With 3600Mhz at CL18 out of the box the memory comes in four frequency ranges of 3200Mhz, 3600Mhz, 4000Mhz and a 4000Mhz OC Lab edition. All these kits are compatible with Intel 100/200 series platforms, X99 and X299 platforms aswell as AMD Ryzen platforms.
What's in the Box!?
GALAX HOF are supposed to be the most elegant thing you'll come across in the PC Market today and the same philosophy is clearly visible when you look at the outer packaging. Its a pure white sleek enclosure with the brand name, product logo and capacity along with frequency are neatly enlisted. You'll observe that the entire case is covered by small prints of the HOF Crown giving it an extremely premium look!
The back has a small window at the bottom from where you can peek inside the case to take a look at the actual product itself which is great! Also some features such as the high grade aluminum heatspreaders, overcloking friendly nature and high quality components are also enlisted on top.
Once opened you'll realize that its not just a case but a multi layered enclosure that not only offers great protection to the memory sticks inside but also makes it one of the most beautifully packed memory kit I've ever seen period. Its more like you are opening a collage book or a photo album that has something beautiful written or printed on each layer/page imparting sort of a poetic nature to this whole process.
I was simply in awe when I opened the case for the first time, also the brief descriptions show GALAX's own faith and belief in their own product lineup which is impressive.
Take out the memory sticks from their hard foam cavity enclosure and you'll see that they have a thin plastic case to cover and protect the entire PCB contacts at the bottom. This is unforeseen for any memory kit of this stature and price. I expect more manufacturers to practice such high packing standards soon.
Taking a look at the sticks themselves you'll realize that they are pure white in color with accents of silver coming from the intricate detailing work done over the matte white aluminum heatspreader.
The HOF logo is printed right in the center and acts as a center piece for this magnificent kit. Each side is decorated with the Hall of Fame marque and abstract lines that are well polished and shine like chrome work. At the top the thick heatspreader ends up in the shape of a crown that not only looks great and compliments the HOF logo but is also very practical when it comes to heat dissipation.
The black PCB acts as a contrast to the whole appearance of the kit & looks just perfect in the entire scheme of things.
On the top the GALAX HOF has a plastic strip which unfortunately is not backlit let alone RGB backlit. This is something that I feel bad about but that's alright since the GALAX HOF is aimed at sheer elegance but still a simple white backlit strip on top would've complimented the look. I hope that in near future the upcoming HOF kits will have a backlit top or maybe a RGB backlit top very much like the G.Skill Trident Z RGB.
Under the hood the GALAX HOF uses hand picked Samsung B-die memory ICs over its eight layered all black PCB. This is the memories biggest highlight as Samsung B-die not only mean reliable and fast performance but they also translate to superior overclocking experience! Also by what we've observed recently AMD Ryzen platform seems to favor Samsung B-die based memories over others so it won't be entirely wrong to presume that this memory would be one of the best to use on a Ryzen build!
Benchmarks and Overclocking!
Installing the GALAX HOF is easy and the memory looks nothing short of utter brilliance when looked at especially if you have a black or best white build.
For the benchmarks we used the following test setup configuration --
CPU: Intel Core i7 7800X
Motherboard: MSI X299 SLI Plus
RAM: GALAX HOF 16GB DDR4 3600Mhz
Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid Pro 280
Graphics Card: Gigabyte GTX 1050Ti G1 Gaming OC
Storage: Corsair Neutron GTX 480 480GB
Secondary Storage: ADATA XPG SX8000 256GB M.2 SSD
Power Supply: Cooler Master MasterWatt Lite 700
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
GPU Driver: ForceWare 375.70
BIOS: 1.20
Plugging in the HOF memory and booting into Windows was a breeze and it immediately picked up the XMP 2.0 profile once enabled through the BIOS bringing the kit to the rated 3600Mhz at 17-18-18-38 with 1.35v. CPUZ isn't able to report the timings correctly on the RAM since the BIOS for the X299 platform are still getting mature but other suits such as AIDA64 CPUID report correct timings.
When it comes to overclocking DDR4 memory I follow one rule only, that is not to exceed the 1.5v barrier and try to stay below that as much as possible to deliver results that are safe for real world usage and can be implemented on a 24x7 basis. To overclock the GALAX HOF I managed a stable 4000Mhz at 19-19-19-39 with 1.45v anything above that was just not possible for booting into Windows or running any benchmark whatsoever. The heatspreaders on the GALAX HOF do a wonderful job in keeping these kits cool even under the heaviest of loads.
Note that this is the same frequency at better timings than the 4000Mhz GALAX HOF kit available out there and hence it adds tons of value to this 3600Mhz kit!
Our benchmarks would be done at the default 3600Mhz and 4000Mhz overclocked frequency along with the Intel i7 7800X at 4.5Ghz to avoid any kind of bottleneck.
AIDA64 Cache & Memory Benchmark
AIDA64 Extreme Edition is a great tool to bench your CPU and RAM in terms of their read-write-copy abilities. Its clear that the GALAX HOF is offering similar to better performance than competing memory kits, the only competition is from the Galax HOF kit.
7-zip
7zip is a compression and decompression program that utilizes the processing power of the CPU alone. It is a synthetic benchmark that gives results very close to real life scores. A similar result can be seen over here aswell.
wPrime v2.10
wPrime is a leading multithreaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton’s method for estimating functions.
SuperPi Mod v1.5
SuperPi is a simple program that utilizes the processing power and memory speed of the system to calculate the value of Pi upto 1 Million or 32 Million decimal point depending upon what you choose. The time is calculated in minutes and seconds, we'll take them both in seconds, so lower the score faster is your computer.
Cinebench R11.5 and Cinebench R15
Cinebench uses Maxon's Cinema 4D engine to render a photo-realistic scene of some shiny balls and weird things (we miss the motorbike). The scene is highly complex, with reflections, ambient occlusion and procedural shaders so it gives a CPU a tough workout.
As Cinema 4D is a real-world application - used on films such as Spider-Man and Star Wars - Cinebench can be viewed as a real-world benchmark.
3DMark Fire Strike
Fire Strike by 3D Mark is a test suit that plays a cinematic scene to determine the FPS, GPU temperature and CPU temperature scaling everything via a cumulative score. It is a great tool to benchmark your GPU since the render is GPU dependent.
Update
Let's test it on Ryzen!
On popular demand we've tested the GALAX HOF 16GB 3600Mhz on our newly build AMD Ryzen platform to give all of you an idea of how this memory performs when coupled with a Ryzen CPU, which is quite a logical question indeed considering how successful and impressive the AMD Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 Platforms have been.
Our test bench for this part of the review is as follows -
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700
Motherboard: Asus X370 Crosshair VI Hero
RAM: GALAX HOF 16GB DDR4 3600Mhz
Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid Pro 280
Graphics Card: Gigabyte GTX 1050Ti G1 Gaming OC
Storage: Corsair Neutron GTX 480 480GB
Secondary Storage: ADATA XPG SX8000 256GB M.2 SSD
Power Supply: Cooler Master MasterWatt Lite 700
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
GPU Driver: ForceWare 375.70
BIOS: 1403
We all are already aware of the memory frequency issue that Ryzen platforms have as of now but my Asus X370 Crosshair VI Hero with its latest BIOS update managed to get the memory kit at 3466Mhz at 18-21-21-49 at 1.35v which I'm sure can be tightened further upon in terms of timings but we didn't have much time to test this memory on Ryzen properly so pardon me for that. The system was perfectly stable and I kept the AMD Ryzen 7 1700 at 3.8Ghz to avoid any bottlenecks in performance.
Even upon AMD Ryzen the GALAX HOF shows impressive performance which rubs shoulder with Intel at even lower frequencies indicating towards a similar to better real world performance especially when the memory would work at its full potential of 3600Mhz!
My Verdict
GALAX and its Hall of Fame series in terms of memory kts might not be as well known as other brands at present but when it comes to performance the HOF literally pulverizes the competition to bit at around half the asking price! The memory is definitely one of the best looking if not the best looking kit out there in the market today offering subtle white looks with enormous yet beautifully designed heatspreaders that do their job more than perfectly making the kit highly recommendable for gamers, system builders, modders and even enthusiasts. Based on the Samsung B-die the memory kit is no slouch in overclocking and reached a blazing fast 4000Mhz in our test which is a whooping 11% jump over its base frequency. With an after market RAM cooler one can manage to run this kit at this high frequency 24*7 as it doesn't need too much voltage to reach there adding tremendous value to this kit. All this makes the GALAX HOF so perfect that even Captain America would approve of it! *wink*
"GALAX HOF is the best memory kit that one can but in the market today, offering impressive performance, great overclocking headroom and unmatched looks all at nearly half the price as that of the competition!"
Pros -
- Extremely well priced
- Impressive performance
- Great looks
- Overclocks well
Cons-
- Too perfect!
I give it a perfect 10/10 earning out Gold Award!
This is the article GALAX HOF 16GB 3600Mhz Review this time, hopefully can benefit for you all. well, see you in other article post.
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