I know this isn’t a ‘deal’. Anything that was less than half the price just a handful of months ago can only be viewed as anything but a deal. However, the price of RAM is out of our hands and more importantly, retailers’ sticky mitts, too. So if you’re hoping for a nice DDR5 kit to suddenly turn up cheap for your fresh gaming PC build or upgrade, then you’re out of luck.
Anyway, let’s get down to the important stuff. This kit is advertised as being for AMD processors only by virtue of its EXPO overclocking profile. However, I’ve yet to test a decent Intel motherboard that doesn’t recognise EXPO. Raptor Lake and Arrow Lake CPUs are also generally quite happy with their memory controllers running at 6400 MT/s.
That’s not quite the case with AMD’s Ryzen chips. Only two of the Zen-powered processors I use in my full array of test equipment are happy with their integrated memory controllers running at this speed: the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and the Ryzen 9 9950X. It’s not because those specific models are fine with it, but more just that the samples that I have are.
Not all Ryzen chips will like 6400 MT/s RAM but you can always tweak the speed down in the BIOS. (Image credit: Future)
However, since the V-Color kit is rated to 6400 MT/s CL32, it will have absolutely no problem running at 6000 MT/s CL32. What you’ll need to do is dig into your motherboard’s BIOS/UEFI DRAM settings to force those settings. Some make it very easy, though. For example, MSI’s latest boards sport a ‘try it’ feature where you select a speed and CAS rating from a drop-down menu.
Obviously, that’s far more time and effort than simply clicking on the overclocking profile in the BIOS, but at least you know you’re not paying a silly amount of money for something that isn’t fast and snappy.
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