Let's take care of the obvious elephant in the room: The asking price is absurdly high for such a competitive tier with mediocre timings. Of course, price isn't everything and shouldn't be the sole focus of a review. Just a quick look at a few websites showed that the competition is fierce. I found the OLOy WarHawk (ND4U1636181DCWDX) for US$163, XPG Spectrix D41 (AX4U360016G18A-DT41) for US$140, and G.Skill TridentZ RGB (F4-3600C18D-32GTZR) for US$152, all with the same density, speed, RGB LEDs, and timings within just a minute of looking for the cheapest alternatives. The list goes on, and if you spend a little more, the primary timings tighten up.

Market prices are always fluctuating, but most competitors have better timings and cheaper prices by a decent margin. I ask you to be aware of what your alternative options are for whatever the current price is before blindly buying solely based on the Lexar name. You may even find an ongoing sale from Lexar to sweeten the deal.

Currently Lexar has an ongoing sale for $160 over the e-tailer Amazon (Link HERE). At this price, I would consider this a much more enticing offer as it matches many of the competitors. Remember when I said prices fluctuate all the time? It just so happens to line up with this review publication.

If you are into the overclocking scene for system memory, you will be disappointed. The SpecTek ICs are a bit unpredictable. Your headroom will vary greatly between batches. For the kit I have here, the DIMMs did not like an increase in voltage or tighter timings at all. A minor boost of 100 MHz is all it could muster. Memory overclocking is particularly challenging, and you will find the motherboard and CPU play a large role towards the final outcome. Therefore, saying these are a total loss in this sector is a bit extreme. That being said, the SpecTek ICs used here are not what you want to see if your goal is solely to overclock system memory. I generally suggest buying kits at the frequency you want to run in the first place. Overclocking or tightening up the primary timings is just a bonus.

Now to focus on what I like about this product. The Lexar Hades OC RGB black-brushed metal finish is a nice touch and allows it to stealthily fit into many different system builds. This makes it ideal for most theme-orientated builds where the user wants the memory to stay in the background to have the lighting do all the talking. Speaking of which, the RGB lights are diffused across the top with opaque white plastic. From the side, individual LEDs stand out if the room is dark enough, which may be a concern for some depending on the preferred viewing angle.

The RGB section isn't a complete loss due to the high compatibility across motherboard manufacturers, which allows use of the included RGB software instead of relying on Lexar to provide a good lighting experience. Many users do not want to install extra software if they do not need to. It is nice to see Lexar paying extra attention to the small details in the bigger picture of system builds.

The default JEDEC SPD of 3200 MT/s was unexpected. Even though at a CAS value of 22, that is already better than most kits I have seen. If you for some reason cannot enable the XMP profile or it is giving you problems, this fallback value is acceptable, just not ideal.

That being said, the new trend of loose primary timings is here to stay. Mind you, this is a 2x 16 GB (32 GB) kit. Add that Lexar used 2 GB ICs to make it a single-rank setup and these types of timings are expected. The single rank will help with CPU memory controllers that are fidgety when dealing with higher frequency memory. This single-rank design is also going to benefit CPUs or motherboards that have poor memory support for higher-destiny DIMMs.

In conclusion, the Lexar Hades OC RGB DDR4-3600 2x 16 GB kit is not my first choice due to the sheer number of available alternatives in price, 32 GB kit size, and timings, but it still has some charm. I would not discount Lexar's first major attempt at this particular market just yet. I'm keeping an eye on Lexar and wait to see what future projects the team heading up the system memory division has in store for us. For now, it is best to weigh your options when it comes time to buy new memory, though. Many competitors offer similar products, which makes it increasingly difficult to stand out among the many established brands.