DDR4 offers a fairly noticeable raw speed advantage over DDR3, something hallmarked by the speeds manufacturers have managed to reach of late; it’s impressive stuff.

Now, one of the leading memory manufacturers, G.Skill, has unveiled the world’s first 4.0 GHZ DDR4 memory module family, Trident Z.

Based on high-end memory chips from Samsung and in conjunction with custom-printed boards, those insane speeds were achieved on ASRock’s Z170 OC Formula motherboard, but the memory modules should remain at those speeds on any capable motherboard.

Designed to work with Intel’s soon-to-release Skylake-S processors (which you can read more about here, here and here) and Z170 chipsets, G.Skill’s Trident Z memory modules are not to be trifled with.

G.Skill Trident Z Memory Module.

The Trident Z range will offer speeds between 2.8 GHz and 4.0 GHz, the latter of which will only be available in 8GB kits.

More precisely: they will be available in dual-channel and quad-channel kits featuring 8GB, 16GB, 32GB and 64GB capacities. The highest-end modules are rated to run at 3600 MHz (CL17 18-18-38), 3733 MHz (CL17 19-19-39), 3800 MHz (CL18 20-20-38) and 4000 MHz (CL19 25-25-45).

As stated above, you will not be able to purchase large capacity kits for the highest rated modules. In fact, from 3466 MHz to 3733 MHz are available in 8 GB and 16GB kits, while 3800 MHz and 4000 MHz are limited to 8 GB.

It’s likely because to achieve such high speed modules, G.Skill had to hand pick every chip that went into their development, meaning a limited supply. Moreover, those speeds are for overclockers more than regular enthusiasts.

You do not need 4.0 GHz memory for gaming, no matter how demanding the game.

What we can tell you, however, is that these memory modules will not be cheap, not by a longshot.

For those of you with a slightly tighter pocket, you can look to G.Skill’s Ripjaws V family – they’re still rated to reach speeds of up to 3733 MHz.

G.Skill Ripjaws V Memory Modules.

The Ripjaws V modules may not offer the same performance as Trident Z, but they’re pretty darn close – they garner the same love and affection as their brethren.

They also come in dual-channel and quad-channel kits and will feature modules rated to run from 2133MHz to 3733MHz with up to CL17-19-19-39 latency settings.

Ripjaws V and Trident Z DDR4 Memory Series – Specifications.

The exact memory timings for both Trident Z as well as Ripjaws V modules follow.

Ripjaws V and Trident Z DDR4 Memory Series – Memory Timings.

If you’re looking for affordable memory, then the 2133 MHz Ripjaws V 8 GB kits is what you’ll be after.

Expect prices to rise substantially as the frequencies increase.

Source: KitGuru, The Tech Report

If blazing fast memory is what you like

Meet 3D Xpoint Memory: it’s 1000x faster than conventional SSD memory

NVIDIA Pascal cards sport 17 billion transistors and 32GB of HBM2 VRAM

NVIDIA’s GP100 Pascal GPUs to feature 4-Hi HBM2 and a 4096-bit memory bus