XPG Gammix D45 review: DDR4 RAM still boasts great value

Sayem Ahmed
XPG Gammix D45 RAM

Finding the best sticks of RAM for you might be a head-scratching issue, but the XPG Gammix D45 still shows that DDR4 still is the best value option for most gamers.

Shopping for RAM is not the most exciting thing in the world, nor is it as important as your CPU or GPU, but it is still integral for your system’s performance. The XPG Gammix D45 promises to offer value RAM, with an understated look to stealth out your PC build without any unnecessary RGB frills.

Key specs

  • Platform: DDR4
  • Speed: Up to 3600MHz
  • DIMM: 288-pin, desktop RAM
  • Capacity: 2x8GB
  • Timings: CL 18-22-22
  • Where to buy: Amazon

Design

XPG Gammix D45 RAM in a lovely little X

The XPG Gammix D45 RAM kit is purely utilitarian, with a plastic black shroud over the DIMMs themselves. While they look nice, they certainly don’t do anything for the kit’s thermal dissipation potential. When we inserted the kit into our system, HWinfo also noted that you were not able to view the thermal data on this kit, which is disappointing.

However, despite this, we never experienced any indications that the sticks got too hot, especially when next to a mismatched pair of Corsair RAM that we used to monitor the temperature on and around the DIMMs, which remained at around 5 degrees over ambient case temperatures, which is very respectable.

The lower-profile design of the RAM sticks makes it a suitable alternative to purchasing over the bigger kits that you see on the market, and it will also do especially well in ITX-based systems.

Performance

XPG Gammix D45 and Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro RAM side by side
We compared the XPG Gammix RAM to our older Corsair RAM kit.

We used our usual work PC while testing the XPG D45 RAM kit, it’s specs are as follows:

  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600
  • GPU: Nvidia RTX 3080 Founders Edition
  • Motherboard: NZXT N7 B550
  • Cooler: Cooler Master Masterliquid PL360 FLUX
  • Case: Lian Li Lancool II Mesh
  • Power Supply: Corsair RM850x

We tested the XPG Gammix D45 across two different configurations, including a mismatched model to showcase if you have an aging system, like us, what the performance might look like if you were to get yourself another kit.

It should be noted that this XPG kit of RAM’ has a CAS latency of 18-22-22 out of the box. This is a fairly good sign for those who might want to look at pushing the clocks higher than the rated 3600MHz, as there’s a lot of room to make the timings slightly looser in service of that.

There were no issues with our motherboard finding the kit’s rated XMP profile, and we flicked it on ahead of testing in our UEFI BIOS.

3DMark performance: Time Spy Extreme

When tested in Time Spy Extreme, the XPG RAM kit performed about as you would expect, especially when compared against a slower, 3200MHz Corsair Vengeance RGB kit.

  • XPG Gammix D45, 3600MHz (2x 8GB): 6893
  • Corsair Vengeance RGB, 3200MHz (2x 8GB): 6876
  • Mismatched pair, 3200MHz (4x8GB): 6890

From our synthetic results, you can tell that this RAM kit might score marginally higher than our slower Corsair RAM, and this does translate into real-world performance, too. Since Time Spy Extreme is primarily a CPU and GPU-based benchmark, it only marginally improved our results. You can gain a better understanding of what to expect with faster 3600MHz RAM in real-world terms.

Cyberpunk 2077 performance

In Cyberpunk 2077, you’ll have a much better idea of what framerates to expect from the RAM kit, with the faster speeds managing to get us slightly more frames in game. It should be noted that this was tested at Ultra Quality at 1440p.

  • XPG Gammix D45, 3600MHz (2x 8GB): 63-65FPS
  • Corsair Vengeance RGB, 3200MHz (2x 8GB): 57-61 FPS
  • Mismatched pair, 3200MHz (4x8GB): 60-65 FPS

It appears that running the RAM kit did not drastically improve performance too much, as the game isn’t too heavily reliant on RAM, you might see an increase in performance. However, it does make some marginal performance gains. Even when paired with another kit, you are getting minimal gains here if you already have a kit of DDR4 RAM, or are looking to upgrade slightly.

Should you buy it?

Strictly speaking, DDR4 is on its way out, but that means that you might get a decent upgrade for an older system. Just don’t expect too many performance gains to go alongside it while gaming. It may help stabilize framerates in some titles, with minimal gains in others.

Really, you shouldn’t be going out and buying yourself a kit of DDR4 for a new build right now, as it’s been superseded by the DDR5 platform unless you are building a budget system. Until then, this kit will do the job with reliable performance, with no-frills performance. It’s not the fastest kit out there, but it will most likely be quite reliable.

If you are looking to upgrade an existing PC with more RAM, make sure that you’re actually going to make use of it in technical applications, or creator-lead work, as games do not offer a huge boost to performance.

6/10

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About The Author

Dexerto's Hardware Editor. Sayem is an expert in all things Nvidia, AMD, Intel, and PC components. He has 10 years of experience, having written for the likes of Eurogamer, IGN, Trusted Reviews, Kotaku, and many more. Get in touch via email at sayem.ahmed@dexerto.com.