A Closer Look

Taking a closer look at the modules, they are covered by red aluminum heatspreaders. It looks like G.Skill is going the very colorful route again, as their recent memory line-ups are available in different colors under the same family name. This tends to confuse the customer, since each different color is perceived as a different family and the user looks for specific differences. That said, if you want blue or black heatspreaders, they are available in various capacities with CL8 or CL7 for example.


Both sides of the memory are identical. There is a large sticker running across the entire side of the headspreader. Overall these make a good impression, just the green PCB does not really go well with the red - but that is just a personal opinion.


The company and memory name has simply been printed on these large stickers. They are both red to match the color of the heatspreaders.


There is also a white sticker with all the technical information of the kit itself. You will find everything you need on there: speed, capacity, CL rating and the required voltage to run the sticks at these settings.


Pulling the heatspreader off the module is not very hard, as the thermal tape does not make full contact with some of the ICs. Interestingly enough none of the memory chips have a label, so I could not tell who makes these. But, it does look like these chips were manufacturered in the 42nd week of 2009, yes - not 2010. I may be wrong, but generally "0942" tends to mean that.


There is a tiny black sticker on the edge of the PCB with the G.Skill logo. Nosy as I am, I peeled it off, destroying it in the process, but there is nothing to be found unterneath it. So the only reason for such a sticker is branding of the PCB itself, something that is not really necessary in my humble opinion.