Packaging

The Team Group T-Force Xtreem ARGB starts off strong with a box that has a reflective coating. Everyone likes shiny things right? Once the outer sleeve is removed, a quick peek inside reveals the same packing and care as for a retail kit. Each DIMM module is held in place inside a clamshell to protect it from damages during shipping.


Team Group certainly knows how to create a product that looks like nothing else on the market. It looks the part of a premium product. Let's now see what is underneath.

Disassembly

Being this is dual-rank memory, both sides are populated with 1 GB ICs for a total of 16 GB per DIMM. After taking it fully apart, two things are worth noting. First, the heatspreader only has an aluminium base on one side, with the opposite being entirely plastic. Plastic isn't known for good thermal conductivity at all. Second, all the LEDs are placed on one side. Interestingly enough, this side happens to be on the side of the heatspreader that is just plastic. For memory that operates at 1.5 V, lacking a proper cooling solution may prove problematic with some user setups.


Getting a closer look at the ICs, these are Samsung B-Die (K4A8G085WB-BCPB). B-Die is known for its unmatched low latency DDR4 timings.

One of the downsides of higher frequency memory with tuned timings to match is that these are susceptible to WHEA errors after reaching a set thermal point. Samsung B-Die ICs generally start producing errors at 45°C and above.

While the official datasheet states a maximum operating frequency of 95°C for "Industrial" environments, 85°C is for "Normal" operations, which is strictly at JEDEC specifications and not when higher frequencies and lower timings are at play. This is why having good thermal dissipation is necessary for memory kits tailored towards performance. Operating DIMMs at 1.5 V is considered safe by Samsung. However, not all ICs are created equal, which means it is recommended never to exceed the manufacturer XMP profile voltage even if the data sheet says otherwise. In this case, this T-Force Xtreem ARGB DDR4-4000 XMP profile is in fact at 1.5 V.

System Setup

Once installed in both test systems, we get to see the RGB lighting in action. Well, just white because it was set to a static color by default. Using white opaque plastic, the entire top of the heatspreader will act as a light defuser. This helps provide unified lighting across the entire DIMM.

Before moving on to testing, a few technical details will be covered. To get the most out of this or similar memory kits, hands-on tuning of voltages and knowledge about more than just enabling X.M.P is required to get these stable. Combined with the fact that not all CPUs have memory controllers good enough and the motherboard needing to be up to a certain standard for the traces, this memory kit is unlikely to run at its rated XMP profile for the causal user without some assistance.

It should be noted that getting this memory to operate at 2000 MHz with a matching Gear Ratio (1:1) took a lot of trial and error. By default, the memory will run in 2:1 mode for most motherboards. Hands-on voltage tuning was required and compromises had to be made in order to run without WHEA errors.

Being this is dual-rank memory (i.e., two-sided DIMM and two pools of addressable memory), Command Rate 2 (2T) was enabled on Intel LGA 1700 and Gear Down Mode (GDM) on AMD AM4. On the Intel LGA 1700 platform, adjustments to the System Agent and VDDQ_TX voltages were required. For AMD, SoC voltage must be set above the I/O Die (IOD) because they share the same rail.