warhammer23
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Wanted to get something really fast where I can store some movies, random data for back-up etc. From what I saw there are a handful of external USB 3.2 Gen2x2 (20Gbps) SSD enclosures on the market that can offer these speeds. As you would imagine, I found out after I got it, that my motherboard an ASUS B550-I STRIX, despite so many new bandwidth protocols, it still doesn’t have a USB 20Gbps port, so this M200 SSD is almost like a future proof item for me now. The M200 line-up consist of 6 different size options to choose from, with models from 250GB all the way to 8TB! I got the 1TB one which was close to $187. The overall design takes great inspiration from a popular sniper rifle, the CheyTac Intervention M200, hence the same name is used. It comes with just two cables, but only the Type-C to Type-C is the 20Gbps capable one. I really like that I can even pass some paracord through it. Anyway, let’s test it. Since my rig can only output 10 Gbps (USB 3.2 Gen2), I decide to try my girlfriend’s Macbook Pro M1 from 2020 which has two Thunderbolt 3 ports. But there is a highly known conflict for any drive outside the Apple ecosystem and thus I only got barely over SATA 600 speeds. The M200 then is compatible pretty much with any device that has a Type-C port. I did a quick test on my Note10+ and the transfer speeds were really good. But I wanted to see those 20 Gbps speeds in action and the only way I would achieve that is by getting a Silverstone PCI-E x4 USB 3.2 Gen2x2 adapter card on my secondary system. And voila, it did the max promised bandwidth. Overall, this T-Force M200 is one impressive bit of kit, since it is compact, light and very fast, as long as you have a Gen2x2 USB port. This, in itself, can be a bad thing or a good one, depending how you look at it. Bad, as in you might need a PCI-E x4 adapter card to fully access the available bandwidth, but you are stuck if you have a gaming console or an older Apple laptop. However, it can be a good thing, because this protocol might take a while until it becomes standard on all quality tier levels of motherboards. Also I discovered it has an ample amount of SLC cache (over 150GB?) for my 1TB model when I copied over 123GB in one go, the AC Valhalla game folder. Too bad it doesn’t have an IP rating as well, considering its rugged/military theme.
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Was building another computer for a a friend and when it came to the RAM options, he mentioned that he wanted white heatspreaders since he went for the be quiet! 802 white variant as well as the case. Well, say no more. Thus managed to play around with the white variant of the sexy XTREEM series from T-Force. As a side note, this time around they are available up to 64GB dual channel kits. The packaging are identical are identical with the first version of the XTREEM line-up but with the updated new white them of course. They are 48.7mm tall and have a 10 layer black PCB. From the Thaiphoon Burner decoding, they use SK Hynix chips and thus are rated out of the box for CL18-22-22-42 timings @ 1.35v. I assume, like the first series as well, the CL14 ones will use the Samsung B-die chips. The will boot up of in their default white LED setting which will make a perfect kit for those who want to colour coordinate an overall white themed build. But this doesn’t mean that you are stuck with only one colour because they offer the full RGB spectrum as well. Regarding overclocking, I managed to reach 4133 MHz by increasing the VDIMM voltage from 1.35v to 1.425v and more importantly with the same stock latencies and 1T command rate(!) but with only a small penalty in tRC 94 vs 82 stock XMP/DOCP. Here are the graphs and the overall results are quite expected. To conclude, even with the SK Hynix IC equipped chips, this XTREEM kit still performed magnificent in the overclocking scenario since I managed to get 533 MHz extra speed while maintaining the stock timings. Eye-candy wise, these are a marvellous creation and will spice up any build with their excellent light glow.
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I was building a computer for a friend who wanted some extra storage under $100. I had a quick look and found this one from Team Group, their new Vulcan G updated series. At what, 8 cents per GB, I think it's a good deal. Spec wise, this is what I could dig up about it: it has a Silicon Motion SM2258XTG controller, Toshiba 64-Layer TLC flash memory and it’s backed by a 3 years warranty (or 800TBW endurance rating for the 1TB). Only comes in 512GB or 1TB though. The budget approach comes from the fact that it doesn't have DRAM but it uses TLC cells with an impressive high capacity SLC cache (about 3500GB). Love that it has a metal shell, instead of plastic what most budget ones I have seen so far. Performance wise, it will do perform quite well in most synthetics and load time tests, as per any TLC SATA 6Gbps SSD 2.5". As for the copy tests, it will maintain a constant writing speed as long as you stay under the SLC buffer limit. After that it goes way down (100MB/s), but that's expected. Basically I did a quick copy test to the SSD of a single 4GB .iso file to test the burst speed followed by a copy of the same file, from the SSD onto itself. Then the same process is repeated but with a big mixed files 20 GB installation folder for The Rise Of The Tomb Raider game title. So yeah, the name of the game here is budget friendly and the T-Force Vulcan G with its excellent MSRP has done just that. I think this is an excellent first choice for any new builder without breaking the bank or for anybody looking to have some extra storage that will also performed reasonably well. I would suspect that a 2TB model would excel even better in the sustained speeds area if it will keep the same SLC cache ratio and of course, the same value for money.
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I was building a PC for a friend and he only wanted something stealthy and best bang for his buck. Found these T-Force Dark Zα 16GB 3600 MHz Cl18 kit. This series is available up to kits of 32 GB and 4000 MHz while having this ‘batarang’ design from its aluminium heatsinks. I like the all metal 0.8 mm thick aluminium heat spreaders with an aggressive design which is very reminiscent of Batman’s armour. Gave them some tests in my A4 build and I must say they blend really well if you are after a non RGB build. Besides the stock X.M.P/D.O.C.P value of 3600 MHz for 1.35v @ CL18 settings I tired try to overclock them further to see how much free performance I can squeeze out of them. Also I am not an expert on memory OC'ing and mostly looking after quick/safer settings. This been said, I managed a stable 4000 MHz for the same exact D.O.C.P values of 1.35v and latencies. Then tried to take it to another level but anything above 4266 MHz even with 1.5v (VCCSA 1.35v and VCCIO to 1.3v) it became a bit of too on the limit and gave some hiccups with stability. In R15 got some weird ones, The ‘simple’ OC behaves unoptimized maybe due to the higher (tRC of 91 vs 82) when compared to the stock D.O.C.P profiles, if anybody has any ideas. Then In R20 things scale a bit better. Next with AIDA64, I didn't get any better results vs stock form while in Geekbench, I saw some closer results to R15. In the end I get a nice surprise in Valhalla when the game scaled pretty well with OC values. All in all, they look like a sweet spot for realistic general needs and considering the asking price, you can’t go wrong here. They blend in any build (besides specific VLP necessity), they look great and they should offer some decent overclock headroom if you take your time with tweaking the sub-timings.
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32GB Team Group T-Create 10L Classic DDR4 3200 MHz
warhammer23 replied to warhammer23's topic in Member Reviews
DoctorNick Yes, it was 1.35v for the 3600 MHz. Will give it a shot another time. Thanks ! WikiForce Oh yes ! -
I found this kit to be very interesting just because on paper it looks slow but that's because it's geared towards extra stability. To further emphasis this, it does not use the popular X.M.P/D.O.C.P profiles for frequency and timings. Instead, it implements the full JEDEC memory standard, which the motherboard automatically detects and applies. Thus there is no need to activate anything in the bios, just simply install the memory and enjoy. To further explain the goal here, unlike regular computer tasks, content creators can actually utilize sizable system memory. Editing raw 4K or even 8K video, can easily require 64 GB of memory. What separates gaming focused memory from productivity memory, are the timings and rated speed. Games don’t utilize all of the system memory for extended periods of time, but that’s exactly what professionals do with workstations. Because of the critical endurance required, workstation memory have to be focused on reliability and not pure speed. There are 3 capacity options, 2 main frequency categories and 2 latency sets which gives you 6 kits to choose from. You can have 16, 32 or even 64 GB in either 2666 or 3200 MHz @ CL19/22. Prices start from $60 all the way to $229 which is quite good considering you get 64GB. At just 32 mm tall they are perfect for any type of build, since they reduce the risk of any height interferences, like the CPU heatsink. The T-Create 10L DDR4 kit uses stamped aluminum for the heatsink which has a modest fin yet angular design that gives the heatsink more surface area for cooling and why not a unique style. No further need to emphasise that this memory is not intended for overclocking nor to be a speedy gamer kit. That said, we were able to squeeze out a respectable low-voltage overclocked profile, which produced an excellent performance boost over the rated JEDEC profile for 3600 MHz CL18-22-22-42 @ 1.35v. This is a great memory kit but it all depends on how you look at it. If you are a beginner in building your computer for the first time, this is the perfect solution, because of its plug and play nature. Team Group specifically made it like this to ensure bulletproof stability over raw speed. The fact that you can still overclock it to a similar kit that comes from factory with the XMP/DOCP profiles, is a great bonus because that’s the appeal of OC’ing – free performance. Its main purpose however, as they market it, is for content creators that require a a lot of capacity headroom and for its current price, it does just that. This 32 GB kit will be enough for 4K editing and if by any chance your workflow revolves around 8K, they have the 64GB variant as well. Combined with a low profile neutral colour heatsink, this can tick a lot of boxes even for small form factor builds. All in all, I don’t see why you can’t have this kit for all computer users, not just content creators and workstation professionals.
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Wanted a budget and a simple 1TB TLC M.2 NVMe drive so I can fit it on the back of my ITX motherboard in the DAN A4 SFX case. Saw that Team Group released their new T-Creator series (Expert - with 12 years warranty and over 12.000 TBW ! and the Classic). I got the Classic for now. Only a 1TB model so far @ NVMe 1.3 Gen3 x4 interface. It’s rated up to peak read/write speeds of 2100/1700 MB/s with IOPs up to 220K/200K (4K Random Read/Write) and comes with a 5 years warranty and 600 TB written. The synthetic tests show that it can reach the advertised speeds even at 50% capacity usage but the most important test revolves around the mixed files 67 GB installation folder for The Division 2 titles that has been copied onto the T-Create Classic 1TB. It had a pretty bumpy ride oscillating from 500-900 MB/s as the write average. From this test alone I can't pinpoint how big the SLC buffer/cache is but overall, the sustained performance is good. Finally, as for the operating temperatures, with an ambient of 20C, here it is under a benchmark run. Mind you it sits in the hottest place possible on this particular case, sandwiched between the motherboard and the wall for the GPU chamber, thus no airflow at all - so the numbers are really good. Very happy with it so far, it’s a budget friendly option, ticks a lot of sensible boxes, has a single PCB design and get’s the job done. Would hope for bigger capacity options for even higher endurance numbers but I think that’s why they made the Expert series.
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Finally guys I got my dream liquid m.2 from T-Force - the Liquid Cardea. I have been wanting this one since I saw it last year. I ordered the half a TB one and there are 3 capacity options from 256GB to 1TB. What so great about it well? Team Group has implemented a mini self contained water cooling system which consists of an aluminium plate designed to transfer heat into an acrylic chamber filled with liquid, for an M.2 drive, thus creating the world’s first water cooled NVMe drive. This NVMe SSD is really cool (no pun intended) and the cooling design is even patented. It comes by default with the coolant in blue and you can change this to anything you want. T-Force promises at least 10°C improvement over standard M.2 drives while offering read/write speeds up to 3,400/3,000 MB/s and IOPs up to 450K/400K on the 1TB model. Spec wise, all three capacity models use the PCIe 3.0 4x interface and NVMe 1.3 protocol, the same Phison E12 controller, are built on BiCS TLC memory cells (thus making use of an SLC cache as per any TLC drive) and come with a 5 years warranty (1 year for the liquid heatsink). The performance and endurance numbers scale with the capacity. So we have 380, 800 and 1665 TBW respectively for the 256, 512GB and 1 TB models while the performance starts at Seq read/write of 3000/1000 MB for the 256 GB model, 3400/2000 MB for the 512GB and 3400/3000 MB for the 1 TB while the IOPs vary between 200k to 450k. No other way to describe besides very cool ! The acrylic enclosure is fully transparent so you can see the coolant which as mentioned can be changed to any colour. The black plastic cover can be slide in and out in order to access the securing screw. Another great detail is the presence of a fill gauge on the side. Ok wanted to install it in my ITX case so I can see it every time I open the side panel. One very important detail to mention with this specific motherboard (ASUS B550i STRIX) is the fact that the fill plug from the M.2 Cardea hits the main I/O plastic shroud. So, you have two options: either remove the shroud or cut out a small gap (like I did) since it’s just plastic. Also it goes without saying that the stock M.2 heatsink from the motherboard will not fit anymore since the liquid cooler is so tall. Performance wise it behaves as you would expect from a quality TLC NVMe drive on the PCIe x4 3.0 bandwidth. I did also a big file transfer of 67GB mixed files (the installation game folder for The Division 2). It maintained ~1 GB/s write speed up until the SLC cache get filled (which I can’t find the exact capacity for this, but from my observation it happens after ~ 25 GB written, when it dips from 1 GB/s to around 600 MB/s). Now for the temperature tests which we are all waiting for. Even in a hot ITX case like the DAN A4 SFX, with no airflow on the motherboard, it didn’t surpass 57 degrees C while my other M.2 drive was over 70C. This clearly proves that the liquid solution T-Force employed works absolutely perfect and keeps the M.2 cool and thus virtually it will never throttle despite an ambient room temperature of 24 C and being practically on top of a very hot chipset which was around 77 degrees C. So to conclude this thing really works despite my efforts to make it throttle in such a hot environment.
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I am slowly becoming a big fan of this company. Can't wait to get my hands on that liquid cooled M.2 Cardea SSD just because it's quite unique. Until then I wanted to try out the DELTA MAX RGB SSD. Looking at the basic idea, this was bound to happen and they are certainly not the first but so far their implementation is hands down the best looking option out there. Having a full RGB screen on your storage device seems useless at first glance since most users keep them hidden but if you have a case with vertical mounting for 2.5″ drives, well, that changes everything. Personally I think it looks so gorgeous even when it is not even in use with thas glass-mirror surface ! They came in either a 250 GB, 500 GB or 1TB capacity option with 60 TBW, 120 TBW, and 240 TBW respectively regarding the endurance rating. Plus they managed to respect the SSD format and to keep it at 9.5 mm thick. Then it’s really cool that they thought of backward comparability so all users can enjoy the light show. This means if you don’t have a 5V RGB connector on your motherboard you can still plug it in the USB 9 pin port and still use it with the built-in light effects. If you do have an RGB port available, then the sky is the limit since it will synchronise with your motherboard light controls software. In my case I used the ASUS AURA and which instantly recognised the T-Force SSD as the ‘RGB strip’ since it uses the 5V RGB header. It uses a Silicon Motion SM2258 controller, Samsung 3D TLC flash NAND and Hynix DRAM. I can't find the exact capacity for the SLC cache (I did find it for the 1TB model which is 10GB so I would presume it's smaller for the 500GB variant that I have) but it performs really well even when it's filled with like a small performance penalty like 10-15%. Regarding results, in synthetic tests it does what it says on the box. Then I copied the installation folder (66 GB) for The Division 2 from another SSD onto the the DELTA and it kept the full speed at max SATA interface speed all the way through. Only copying the same from it onto it per say, after the cache got filled I got the small drop of 10-15% as mentioned above which is really good where most SSDs will drop to 40-50% write speeds. Anyway, here is the gorgeous bling that this drive brings to any display / show build ! Install a few puppies of these and enjoy the fireworks!
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I had the Night Hawks RGB and love them to bits just because of the way they looked and how heavy they were. But they were just 1 mm too tall for me to close the side panel in the DAN A4 SFX. When these new ARGB kits came out I was instantly hooked I mean personally I think they look absolutely stunning due to the clever design of using a mirror like plastic covered aluminium alloy heatsink which also lights up. Apparently they have Samsung B-Die ICs and are under the 51 mm for height requirement my case (49) so this should be interesting. You have the option to select from up to three different frequency and timing option kits (3200, 3600 or 4000 MHz / CL14, CL16 or CL18). The price varies between $116 to $180. I think they do 32 GB kits at least what's on the website. Not the most powerful CPU to do testings but the new 3100 so far is handling stuff pretty well. I got the new ASUS B550i STRIX ITX board and managed to OC the kits just on the stock D.O.C.P profiles from 3600 MHz to 4000 MHz! Then I even managed to lower the timings (at 1.45v VDIMM and 1.08v for the SOC) for the same frequency and thus having CL14-15-15-35 1T; basically replicating the more expensive sister kit with the same specs. Here are the results for the 4000 MHz on the stock profile and will add more info as I further tweak the stability and waiting for a newer bios and a better CPU. So far they are quite cool and if you are into the RGB rave, they are quite stunning. Perfoamnce wise, so far I never had a kit that I can 'oc' just on the stock profiles for 400 MHz gains.
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I decided to play around with some new RGB RAM from T-Force Team Group. These apparently are guaranteed to have Samsung B-die IC memory chips. I like that they come in variations of twos and what i mean by that is the fact that you can choose from two size options (8GB or 16GB), two speed ratings (3600 MHz or 4000 MHz), two RGB exterior designs (plain or with totem designs) and two timing sets (18-20-20-44 1.35V or 18-22-22-42 1.35V). I like that futuristic/abstract SF sword look that it has so hence the name reference to the legendary tale. The heat-spreaders are from aluminium and have a solid feel regarding build quality. They are on the tall side and measure 48 mm in height at their tallest point since given their design the light-bar kind' goes down as a diagonal. Speaking of the light-bar, it is fully RGB compatible with all of the big motherboard vendors and I had no problems sync it to my board's ASUS AURA software. The light is very nicely diffused since as they claim the light-bar has a 120 degrees spread. So, I decided to OC them but unfortunately I ran into some limits since my B450 motherboard with a 2nd gen Ryzen CPU can officially work up to 3600 MHz which is exactly what these kits can do out of the box. After some fiddling with the timings, I manged to make them to boot at 3800 MHz for 1.40v but failed to perform in any benchmarks. These being said, these RAM might have extra performance that awaits to be discovered but my rig is the bottleneck in this case. So I decided to tighten the timings. I ended up having 17-19-19-44 2T but with 1.45v which is on the high side for daily use. So I must get an X570 board and a 3rd gen CPU to see how much potential is left to OC. So yeah I will get back to you on that. Here is just some quick tests I did.
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Team Group Vulcan Z DDR4 3200 MHz Low Profile RAM
warhammer23 replied to warhammer23's topic in Member Reviews
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Hi guys. Decided to share a quick review regarding some RAM I have found from Team Group that seam to me to be a best buy. But more importantly that they will let me install the Alpenföhn Black Ridge low profile cooler in the Dan A4 v4 SFX case. Until that cooler arrives I decide to share some thoughts on the Vulcan-Z. Other popular choice for that are, of course the Corsair Vengeance LPXs, but I wanted to give these a try as well. They come up to 16GB kits all the way to 3200 MHz and are 32.8 mm in height (Just shy of the 33mm limit for the Black Ridge – still fingers crossed lol). Here they are compared to my 53 mm tall Night Hawks RGB ones. Missing the RGB though but sometimes you can't have everything. Then I decided to try to OC them. Exactly like the Night Hawks, I squeezed another ‘free’ 200 MHz just from the XMP/DOCP profile without any changes for voltages, latencies etc. Did some quick tests which show some gains and Witcher 3 profited from those extra increase in bandwidth – 1 or 2 fps as an average. I am not that into OC’ing so I didn’t feel the need to push them further than 1.45v for 3600 MHz. They survived a Cinebench R15 but failed the AIDA64 benchmark. With some extra fiddling I am sure they could be stable but again not my main interest especially since they have A-Die chips which shouldn’t OC that high as the B-Die ones but still quite impressed with the extra free stock profile headroom. My only complain is mainly to aesthetics, maybe they should offer more heatsink color options to match more system schemes. I will update with extra pictures how everything comes into place when my new CPU coolers arrives. Thank you