With Intel’s 12^th generation Core CPU launch alongside the new CPUs, CPU Socket, and Motherboards/Chipset it also brought DDR5 into the mainstream market. Initially, DDR5 was hard to come by, but things have gotten better and along with that we are seeing some of the companies who didn’t have memory available at the launch getting their kits introduced. A good example of that is Patriot with their Viper Gaming lineups first DDR5 kits. They have named the new kits Venom which goes well when you combine it with the Viper branding. They have standard and RGB kits available and the kit that they sent over for us to check out is the Viper Venom RGB in a 2x16GB configuration running at 6200 MHz.

Product Name: Viper Venom RGB DDR5 2x16GB 6200MHz

Review Sample Provided by: Patriot

Written by: Wes Compton

Amazon Affiliate Link: HERE

Photos and Aesthetic

The packaging for the Viper Venom RGB kit has a full box over top of a plastic clamshell which is similar to past Viper kits. The front of the box has a large picture of the memory taking up most of the front which I like. The Viper Gaming logo is in the top left and then the model name is in the bottom right with a metallic gold finish. They do go a little crazy with the Viper branding with the logo, the Viper logos in the picture of the memory, and then also including Viper with the Venom name. The RGB kit is set apart with the RGB logo in the bottom left corner as well as having the lighting lit up in the picture of the memory on the front. Then in the top right corner, they show the capacity and configuration of the kit as well as the clock speed with a sticker that way the same box can be used for multiple models. On the back, there are windows with RGB colors around them for both sticks which let you see the serial numbers and confirm the model. The windows are larger than normal and let you get a look at the real memory as well. Beyond that, the back of the box highlights a few features with icons up top and they have all of the social media links for Patriot/Viper as well.

When you open the box up, the Viper Venom RGB kit comes out in a clear plastic clamshell tray which keeps both sticks from moving around and keeps them protected but visible with the box windows. Beyond the memory itself, the only other thing in the box is one Viper Gaming sticker.

The Viper Venom RGB kit comes with diffusers on both sides of the black PCBs. They are 2/3 black but the black transitions into a grey which gives the kit a little contrast. Viper branding is all over the memory with the Viper Gaming logo in red on the black and the Viper name in red on the grey sections. The RGB diffuser on top is visible from the side of the kit on the ends and in the groves as well as a small thin section at the top above the grey section. The groves match up with the angled bars bulging out on the heatspreaders which is also how they transition between the black and the grey. Both sides of the memory look exactly the same with the black on the left and the grey on the right and the notches at the top don’t line up with the other side. In fact, the only thing different from side to side is that the back side has stickers on them which have the serial number, model information, and a large bar code.

The top edge is where the action happens so to speak with the RGB lighting. For the non-RGB models, this is a black bar. But for the lighting to work the top is a white diffuser bar to diffuse the lighting out for more even lighting. The diffuser has the Viper branding in the center and they do wrap around on the ends as well sitting in between the heatspreaders on each side.

Test Rig

Performance and Lighting

Before getting into performance testing I did run CPUz just to confirm that the Viper Venom kit was running at the advertised speed. You will need to go into the BIOS and turn XMP on to get the 6200 MHz clock speeds and the timings. With that on the Vemon kit shows as 3100 MHz in CPUz which is 6200 MHz with Double Data Rate aka DDR. They have the 40 CAS Latency and 40-40-76 for the rest of the timings. CPUz also shows up the full timings table so we can see that the kit will default to 4800 MHz with 42-40-40-77 for the timings out of the box. They also have XMP profiles for 6000 MHz and 5600 MHz as well which that last one has lower timings if you would prefer that.

The most important tests in my opinion are the memory tests in AIDA64 which get us a look at the read, write, and copy speeds as well as the overall latency so I ran those first off. With DDR5 being new and this being our first DDR5 kit reviewed I am comparing the Viper Venom RGB kit against the 2x32GB Micron/Crucial kit that Intel provided at the launch. That kit runs at 4800 MHz with a CAS latency of 40 and 40-39-39 for the rest of the timings. In the AIDA64 memory tests, the Viper Venom kit with its much higher clock speed is way ahead of the stock clocked kit in all three of the speed tests. For the latency test, the Venom kit is also faster coming in at 75.5 ns vs 91.5 ns.

I was curious what kind of difference the overclocked memory might have so I also ran Cinebench R20 with its single and multi-core benchmarks. There was an improvement on the single-core test but the difference can be better seen in the multi-core test.

I also ran Passmark Performance Test 10’s memory mark which is a synthetic benchmark similar to AIDA64 but they combine all of the results and give a score rather than the pure performance numbers. Even with less capacity, the Viper Venom kit did well here gaining 366 points over the stock clocked kit.

In addition to the performance tests, I did also want to check out how the RGB lighting for our RGB kit looks. You can control the lighting using your motherboard lighting software which is a nice way to tie the Viper Venom kit in with the rest of your lighting. The default effect roles through the colors independently on each stick so they don’t match. But it does look good. The lighting is bright but still well defused which means as the colors change in an effect like this the colors blend together and you don’t get bright spots where the LEDs are.

Overall and Final Verdict

While it may feel a little late because the Intel launch was back in November, Patriot is right on time with their newly introduced Viper Venom DDR5 memory. DDR5 availability is just starting to open up and there aren’t many options that have higher clock speeds like the 6000 MHz that this kit is clocked at. The overclocked kit opened up the performance of our i9-12900K test bench with the kit showing a big performance increase over the stock clocked DDR5 that we had for the launch. It will be exciting to take a look at more kits in the future to see how things fill in. Beyond that, it is also exciting to have memory for expensive Z690 builds that will match/complement the look of the build. Some of the launch DDR5 as lacking heatspreaders and at best still didn’t have lighting.

Speaking of the lighting, the Venom kit’s lighting looks good and the top diffuser helps give a nice transition between LEDs. I’m also glad that you aren’t forced to use proprietary software, the kit has support for motherboard lighting software from all of the big names so you can tie all of your lighting together. As for the styling, Patriot went a different direction and didn’t just completely black the kit out even though I do love all black hardware. The mix of black the grey gives a little contrast that I think people will like. I would love to see an option with white heatspreaders as well as light white builds are popular now. They could also tone down the number of Viper brand references however, each stick has five of them and the packaging is similar as well.

Performance isn’t a problem nor is styling. But there are two areas which can still be a problem. Pricing and size/speed options. For options, the Venom kits are available with or without the RGB which is nice. All of the RGB kits are 32GB dual-channel 2x16GB kits, which could be expanded on a little with 2x23GB options at least. You get three clock speeds with 5600/6000/6200 MHz options and the kit we tested is the fastest of those. The black non-RGB kits are available in the same size and speeds as well as a fourth option with is a dual-channel 2x8GB 16 GB kit running at 5600 MHz. I’m surprised that kit doesn’t also have the RGB option. Beyond that, the 6200MHz kit has a CAS latency of 40 which is a touch higher than some of the options that are available for sale right now with 36 and 38 CAS Latency being options from a few companies. Beyond that for pricing the kit I tested today is selling on Newegg right now for $399.99 which is $130+ more than a stock clocked DDR5 kit. But is right in line with at least one competitor and cheaper than some of the others. The non-RGB kit is even cheaper at $369.99. That is $30 bucks saved if you don’t have interest in the lighting, that’s not a bad deal.

Live Pricing: HERE

Author Bio

Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org

Editor-in-chief

You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.