Unlike a traditional review, which focuses on products you can purchase from retail outlets, this memory kit instead provides a glimpse into what Team Group could offer the PC enthusiast community. Below is a bit of commentary with a guided prospective as we break down the subject of memory support in general and its impact on games.

To properly convey why this memory kit is an engineering marvel, we must first revisit the importance of memory frequency in correlation to the CPU integrated memory controller. In the time frame of modern computers, system memory has gone through cycles of playing a significant role in a desktop computer's overall performance. We can see this with every major generation going from SRAM, DDR, DDR2, DDR3, and so on. The cycle continues as with every new generation of memory; the base frequency increases, as does the latency. At first, the gains are often negated by higher overall latency. By the end of each generation, the gap widens and the generational cycle repeats itself.

Fast forward to mid 2019—the AMD Ryzen Zen 2 architecture (3000 series) just launched with a new way to support higher frequency memory Intel users have been enjoying for a number of years. This AMD breakthrough was an extension of Ryzen Infinity Fabric, locked away for the previous Zen architecture. This permitted system memory to operate in a 2:1 ratio to the CPU's integrated memory controller (IMC). Theoretically, this provides much higher bandwidth due to system memory no longer being limited by the IMC internal clock. On paper, this sounded great; DDR4-4000 kits could now finally be used, and while the memory was operating at 2000 MHz, the Infinity Fabric (FCLK) now only had to run at 1000 MHz. Even extreme memory kits like 5000 MT/s were supported for the AMD overclocking community.

In practice, this new increase in supported memory configurations was hit with a massive latency penalty once switching to Gear 2 (2:1 Ratio). With that in mind, while maybe not an intentional marketing campaign, AMD marketing ultimately deterred users from going above what was dubbed "the sweet spot" that is still in effect today. This magic number is DDR4-3600, as the highest plug and play XMP/DOCP memory profile with a Gear 1 ratio to match. To add confusion among consumers, official memory support for Intel and AMD ends at DDR4-3200 in later CPU generations. On the desktop consumer space this would be Intel 11th and 12th Gen Core processors and the AMD Ryzen 3000 and 5000 series (with expectations to APUs). This technically places the marketed "sweet spot" above what is supported by either CPU manufacturer.

At first, AMD was the only one to offer a gear ratio, and then Intel 11th Gen processor came out in 2021. Intel users still had memory limitations, but with a much higher bar as Intel 9th and 10th gen processors use single-rank DDR4-4000 without much manual intervention from the user.

As seen in the charts, breaking Gear 1 Ratio generally has a negative impact on gaming performance. Even though the bandwidth throughput has increased, latency penalties are found not only from the memory, but a lower operating IMC as well. This leads to the general recommendation of running DDR4 at the highest supported frequency in your computer without switching to Gear 2. The only exception to this rule is for certain benchmarks and a select few games.



This brings us full circle to the engineering sample we received. Most would assume that the memory is in fact operating in Gear 2 mode due to being a 4000 MT/s kit, which surpasses what is considered plug and play. It is certainly not a bad assumption given the information provided above. However, the CPU IMC can operate at an even higher frequency with enough accompanying voltage. There is of course a hard limit that just cannot be overcome. That number tends to land right in the 2000 MHz range for the IMC and will vary based on silicon quality and CPU architecture. The complications continue as an increase in DIMM count puts a strain on the controller as well. World records are performed with one DIMM, while the consumer uses two or more. Four DIMMs installed on a dual-channel CPU will require more voltage for the same frequencies as two. This extends to dual-rank memory, which in itself acts similar to four DIMMs as each rank has a different pool of memory that can be accessed. This can be simplified—the more pools of memory, the harder the IMC has to work to operate at the same frequency.

For this article and the memory on hand, we now can go deeper into the technical details with the fundamentals out of the way. The AMD Ryzen 5800X IMC voltage was adjusted, allowing the Team Group memory to keep its Gear 1 Ratio while maintaining a frequency of 4000 MT/s. A few challenges come with dual-rank as the Command rate generally must be set to 2T for Intel or Gear Down Mode (GDM) for AMD. This increases the latency as well. For AMD GDM, only even CAS values are allowed, thus turning the XMP CAS value of 15 into 16. Switch over to Intel i9 12900K and Gear 1 Ratio currently is not possible with the hardware on hand. At least not for dual-rank memory, which lead to the decision to include both the highest frequency using Gear 1 Ratio (3800 MT/s) and XMP profile of 4000 MT/s Gear 2 Ratio benchmarks for games.

Now that we have covered how important the relationship of system memory and CPU memory controller is, analyzing the benchmarks in context is possible. That being said, memory frequency isn't everything as the in-game graphical settings are arguably the most important factor in generating frames. This is due to what is called being "GPU bound." Once the graphical load outpaces the CPU, it becomes a game of waiting on rendered frames. To be more precise, the CPU will be left in an idle state as it waits for the GPU to finish calculations. If the CPU is faster than the required graphics card render time, no extra frames will be gained from either the memory or a faster CPU. The reverse will happen as well. If the CPU takes longer to complete its operations, the GPU is waiting on the data to complete each render. Depending on the game, it could be resolved by more CPU threads, in-game physics, and AI code optimizations, or simply higher CPU clock speeds.



Benchmarks running games at medium graphical settings saw a massive frame rate increase, upwards of 40 FPS average for Battlefield 5. Exactly the same system configurations for all memory kits are used with multiple runs to ensure lower margin of error. The benchmarks speak for themselves. You are simply leaving performance on the table in many games if you are CPU bound. This extends to competitive gaming where frame times are everything. Setting aside obstacles like monitor refresh-rate, server tick rate, and human response time, a competitive advantage is possible with a higher frame rate, at least in theory. That debate is best left to the comments section. A solution to this frame render limitation is for the end user to use a better CPU. However, what happens if you are already using the best currently available?

So after all of this, what does Team Group offer here? Well, it's a dual-rank 4000 MT/s memory kit with low timings. However, improvements could have been made with a change to the heatspreader. While unknown for certain whether normal production methods were used due to it being an engineering sample, having one side of the DIMM cooled by plastic does not help when it comes to performance tweaking. Overclocking was omitted as it would be best-suited for a second article. It would be interesting to see how low the timings can go using a waterblock and raising the voltage to 1.8 V+. If this is something of interest to you, please leave your thoughts in the comments.

Besides a potential thermal issue, getting this memory to operate in Gear 1 Ratio is extremely unlikely unless you are already familiar with different supporting voltages and the core concepts behind memory overclocking. This becomes a major drawback to potential buyers as it's hard to recommend to many outside of the hardcore enthusiast community. With that, let's end this journey on a few last words.

Team Group has something special for those who seek the best; however, it enters territory many consumers simply do not want to deal with. Memory overclocking is a subgroup inside the already niche community of hardcore overclockers. If ever released to the public, this Team Group T-Force Xtreem ARGB DDR4-4000 memory kit will certainly save a lot of prep time with highly pre-binned ICs. The fact that it even exists is a marvel of DDR4, though it may be ahead of its time. As the DDR4 cycle is nearing the end and DDR5 has become the new, we may never see a true plug and play platform using a DDR4 memory kit of this magnitude.