Intel's 8th Gen (Coffee Lake) processors are here, and G.Skill met the CPUs with improved specs for its Trident line of DDR4 memory. The company upped the performance of its Trident Z RGB products, announced a new Trident Z kit, and revealed new DDR4-4200 memory.
Trident Z RGB
As you might expect from its name, Trident Z RGB is G.Skill's attempt to join the "RGB all the things" trend. Each module bears four LEDs that can glow with various colors and some of the effects (Color cycle, Wave, Music, etc.) you'd expect from a modern RGB product. But the Trident Z RGB memory kit isn't just a bunch of pretty lights—as we said in our review, it's also solid memory that performs well underneath all those LEDs.
G.Skill kicked things up a notch for Coffee Lake's arrival. We reviewed the Trident Z RGB 32GB DDR4-3600 with CL-16-16-16-36 timings; now the company will offer 32GB (4 x 8GB) kits clocked at 4,000MHz with CL-18-19-19-39 timings. That should give you the improved performance you want to accompany your new processor, new Z370 motherboard, and everything else you bought to complement Intel's latest cuppa... erm, CPU.
Trident Z
But what if you want to upgrade alongside Coffee Lake's debut without illuminating the inside of your system? That's where the new Trident Z kit comes in. G.Skill said in a press release that this new kit is the "king of DDR4 frequency" and made for "pure performance seekers." There are no LEDs, RGB or otherwise, to be found. Instead, you'll simply get 16GB (2 x 8GB) of DDR4-4600 memory with CL-19-25-25-45 timings.
G.Skill didn't offer much other info, but it did share a screenshot of validation tests with an Asus ROG Maximus X Apex motherboard and Intel Core i5-8600K processor. We can't vouch for these numbers—we'd have to run our own tests—but they're still useful to reference:
DDR4-4200
G.Skill's last announcement doesn't get a fancy name that would pique Poseidon's interest. The company simply revealed a middle-of-the-road memory kit that's supposed to sit in between the Trident Z RGB and Trident Z in terms of performance. (Presumably this last product won't feature the Trident Z RGB's pretty lights, either.) G.Skill said this memory kit is meant for "light workstations and content creation PCs."
The kit is dubbed the DDR4-4200 MHz 32GB (4 x 8GB). That might not roll off the tongue, but it lets you know pretty much everything you need to know about the product. The only missing piece of information is the clock timing, which is CL-19-21-21-41. G.Skill shared a screenshot of the product's validation tests, this time run on an Asus ROG Maximus X Formula motherboard and Intel Core i5-8600K processor:
Coffee Lake
All of this hubbub results from the official debut of Intel's new Coffee Lake processors. If you're curious about the new CPUs, you should check out our review of the Intel Core i7-8700K. And if you just want to know how the new platform compares to its Kaby Lake predecessor or AMD's Ryzen lineup, well, we have you covered there as well. Expect more announcements like this as manufacturers line up to greet Coffee Lake.
