A Closer Look

XPG Lancer RGB is available with either White or Black heatspreaders. The special limited Lancer MERA edition featured in this review is unfortunately only sold with black heatspreaders. Although, a color swap would go against the established lore that XPG has presented, even if it's a bit vague on the details. The MERA edition holds some similarities, like the physical dimensions and overall memory heat spreader characteristics, but changes some of the design elements from the stock lancer modules as well. As such, for all intents and purposes, whether you buy this special edition or the normal Lancer version, besides decorative distinctions between the two, both should be considered the same in terms of the performance metrics.



XPG has given this Lancer memory the MERA treatment. With the character's face on the right and some unique patterns on the left that are mirrored the other side as well. XPG does a decent job of the standard SCI-FI Anime character that from a distance could be mistaken for a Manga character that already exists.


On one side of each DIMM module is the identification sticker listing the SKU, rated XMP / EXPO operating frequency and applied voltage for said memory profile.


Laying the DIMMs on the side, you can see "XPG" in bold black lettering in the center. 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 XPG Lancer RGB DDR5-7200 kit weighs in at 72 grams on the scale. For Z-height, it comes in at 44 mm rounding up. At first, these seemed unnecessarily tall; however, closer inspection reveals a double purpose. The larger light diffuser mitigates the issue of being able to distinguish individual LEDs. XPG's approach to this common problem is a good solution, though at the cost of CPU cooler restrictions due to the increased DIMM height.


After taking the heat spreader off, we see that these are single-sided DIMMs with eight 2 GB ICs. This is as expected for a DDR5 32 GB kit since densities increased with DDR5. The thermal pad covers all the memory ICs. This particular kit does not have any coverage for the PMIC and surrounding components.


A closer look at the ICs shows that these are SK Hynix (H5CG48AGBD-X018). Currently, Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix are the three suppliers of DDR5 ICs. When it comes to higher frequency memory, SK Hynix is currently unmatched and without a direct competitor. Micron's first DDR5 iteration, Rev.A only reached a mere 5600 MT/s, with the recently released Rev.G coming in at 6600 MT/s. Samsung has been mostly absent so far, with Samsung B-Die (DDR5) rarely seen in retail kits above 6400 MT/s. While both companies have more revisions in the works, SK Hynix's new A-Die memory is currently the only one breaking the 8000 MT/s retail barrier.

The kit we have here today uses SK Hynix A-Die. It will overclock the highest of all the current memory ICs offerings. New 3 GB ICs from Micron and SK Hynix are also available to consumers, but lag behind from looser primary timings and sub-timings due to the increase in capacity.


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 seen with DDR4. The PMIC has the part number "APW8502C." A quick search has APENC come up as the manufacturer.