A Closer Look

The G.SKILL Trident Z5 Royal comes in two color variations. One as "Silver" and the other "Gold." Those familiar with G.SKILL Royal series from the previous DDR4 generation will not see a difference in the design besides the "Z5" marking. What makes the "Royal" different compared to the other Trident Z5 series is the glamorous heatspreaders, but it still keeps one of the easily recognizable designs that have been part of the Trident Z series identity.


The G.SKILL Trident Z5 Royal series brand name has also been placed in the right corner of each DIMM.


On one side of each DIMM module is an identification sticker listing the product number, rated XMP / EXPO operating frequency, voltage, and primary profile timings.


Laying the DIMMs on the side, you can see that the standard plastic strip has been swapped out for a more fitting diamond inspired design. The entire plastic strip in the middle will be illuminated when the system is powered on and lighting can be controlled with supported ASUS Aura Sync, GIGABYTE RGB Fusion, MSI Mystic Light Sync, and ASRock Polychrome Sync motherboard software.


The G.SKILL Trident Z5 Royal DDR5-8000 Z-Height is 43 mm after rounding up with calipers and weighs in at 68 g on the scale.


After taking the heat spreader off, we see that these are single-sided DIMMs with eight 3 GB ICs. A single thermal pad strip covers all the memory ICs. This particular kit does not have a thermal pad covering the PMIC and surrounding components. Although it is not required for this XMP profile, as an operating voltage of 1.35 is perfectly fine without additional cooling, it would have been nice to see G.SKILL start to add a thermal pad. Those who are concerned about potential PMIC related failures should know G.SKILL offers a limited lifetime warranty just in case of premature failure.


Currently, Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix are the three suppliers of DDR5 ICs. However, only Micron / Spectek and SK Hynix have released Non-Binary 3 GB ICs to the consumer market. Both of which "perform" worse than their 2 GB counterparts due to different sub-timings. So far, Micron 3 GB ICs have shown to reach at least 7000 MT/s, while SK Hynix has seen up to 8400 MT/s in a retail kit so far.

A closer look at the ICs shows that these are SK Hynix (H5CGD8MGBD-X021). Which can be abbreviated to SK Hynix 3 GB M-Die, not to be confused with SK Hynix's first DDR5 M-Die (2 GB) in 2021. Up until the release of 3 GB ICs, the previous world record crown was held by SK Hynix A-Die (2 GB) which is still considered a good choice for high frequency overclocks paired with lower primary timings, only to be outdone by the SK Hynix 3 GB variant.


With DDR5, one of the major changes is how the motherboard directly provides 5 V to the memory module's PMIC, which is then stepped down and split accordingly. No longer is the motherboard responsible for regulating the voltages, as with DDR4. The PMIC has the part number "OP=AM KY1," software reports Richtek being the manufacturer.