Temperature Performance

The G.Skill Pi-Blacks match the Corsair DHX and OCZ FlexII at a baseline 1.8V, and at just a small increase to its rated 1.9V at CAS-4 it's only a degree hotter, affording a lower temperature system than certainly the basic Crucial heatspreaders that's for sure.

Experiences and Value

We found that no matter what combination of timings we tried, the Pi-Blacks would absolutely not do anything sub 4 latency for CAS, tRP or tRAS - the lowest we could stably achieve was the rated timings of 4-4-4-12-2T at 1.9V. We tried overvolting but this didn't offer any extra performance, only heat.

We found that using the biggest performance difference for the popular P45 chipset was actually tRD - a chipset limitation, not memory. On the Gigabyte board this is the "Performance Enhance" option that can be changed between Standard, Turbo or Extreme - either this or adjusting precisely in the Advanced Timing Control section will greatly affect performance. Dropping down the performance level from Turbo to Standard with the 1,066MHz memory saw the performance drop significantly to sub-800MHz CAS-4 levels, effectively nullifying any point in buying and using faster memory settings. In this case, if you're under a strict budget, we'd highly recommend buying a better motherboard and cheaper memory - substituting more expensive PC2-8500 memory for these G.Skill Pi-Blacks.

It was disappointing to not achieve >1,000MHz stability in gaming though, but having to drop down the Pi-Blacks to 920MHz to enable the games to work without crashing didn't see any significant performance increase over 800MHz or difference to 1,066MHz even. On the other hand, there was also very little performance difference (nothing noticeable) between cheaper CAS-5 and these Pi-Blacks at CAS-4. Another slight disappointment was that we couldn't squeeze CAS-3 out of them, however this is not the first time we've been unable to achieve it as previously other PC2-8500 DIMMs have only stretched to CAS-4 at 800MHz as well. It depends on the ICs - we've only found the older Micron D9s to reliably achieve it.

At £56.17 the Pi-Blacks are only £6 more expensive than the 800MHz CAS-5 Corsair XMS memory we recommended in this month's budget build. Is it worth it? In some limited respects, yes - it has larger and better looking heatspreaders so aesthetically it's a winner and it should be a bit cooler too. The lower CAS rating might be fractionally helpful in a few scenarios but it's unlikely to change the computing experience - the biggest bonus is EPP if you're lazy and your motherboard supports it. The closest match we've found is this OCZ Reaper-X 4GB kit for a few quid less at £54 - however it's 4-4-4-15, rather than 12, it doesn't have EPP and it's rated to a much higher 2.1V rather than 1.9V the G.Skill has, so we'd certainly opt for paying the extra £2 for Pi-Blacks.

Final Thoughts

Combined with a Lifetime warranty, the G.Skill Pi-Black is simply good memory at a good price. It won't set your PC experience on fire but at least they look cool, they're cheaper than PC2-8500 parts yet will approach those speeds overclocked, and whether you think £6 is worth paying for something a bit funkier in your case, is up to you.

Is it worth 1,066MHz CAS-5 memory over 800MHz CAS-4 - yes in some specific scenarios, but for the extra £30-40 you'll pay for the privilege it could probably be better spent on upgrading the CPU, a better heatsink for overclocking, a faster graphics card or maybe part way towards another 4GB of memory.

G.Skill Pi Black 4GB PC2-6400 C4

• Performance
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• -
• -
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• 7/10

• Features
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• x
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• x
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• -
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• 8/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
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• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
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• 8/10

• Overall
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• -
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• 8/10

What do these scores mean?