Silicon Power X-Power Zenith RGB DDR4 3600 Memory Kit Review

Jun 28, 2021 at 10:11pm EDT

Silicon  Power X-Power Zenith RGB line of DDR4 memory brings speed and looks to a more affordable price point making it more accessible for today's custom builder and gamer. Sporting a very attractive heatsink arrangement that allows the kits to be able to drop in most any build without impacting the aesthetics. If that isn't enough in the looks department then you should be covered by the addition of integrated addressable RGB lighting on the top of the memory modules. While the kits range in capacity from a DDR4 3200 single 8GB stick up to a dual DDR4 3600 16GB kit we were sent the 32GB DDR4 3600 kit that comprises of dual 16GB modules. The kit carries an MSRP of $203US.

Silicon Power X-Power Zenith RGB DDR4 3600 - A Closer Look

Packaging for the Zenith RGB is rather lackluster and completely void of useful information. This is quite honestly one of the only two real issues I have with the kit, but both are revolving around the transparency of components. However, this is a more entry-level price point kit so it's understandable to a degree.

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The modules themselves are quite attractive with a nice finish that will fit right into most any custom build's aesthetic. The aluminum heatsink also carries the X-Power logo on the side as well, even though you won't really be seeing that one much.

The label on the DIMMs is the only indicator of what you're getting into and all you're going to get out of that label is the speed of DDR4 3600 CL18 as well as the serial number.

Silicon Power is indeed proud of its X-Power logo as they've made sure to include it on the top side of the RGB diffuser, but it works out well enough there.

The lighting is effective but the diffuser could use some work as you can easily tell where the LEDs are in the module, resulting in a less than smooth transition between colors and a more spotted coverage of color. Control is handled by your motherboards software with no extra software for the memory itself.

Testing Setup

The Silicon Power X-Power Zenith RGB 32GB DDR4 3600 CL18 memory kit is clearly using Hynix memory modules but it's unclear just which ones; MFR? AFR? CJR? Who knows because Thaiphoon Burner nor any other software seems to know either. But performance should be typical for the speeds and stats of this kit, so lets find out.

Our Memory test bench is based on the ASUS TUF Gaming X570 Pro-Plus and a Ryzen 9 3900X with a T-Force Cardea PCIe Gen 4.0 NVMe storage drive. Our tests are primarily synthetic tests based on real-world memory-intensive programs from Aida64 for measurements to compression/decompression workloads.

 

ComponentModel
CPUAMD Ryzen 9 3900X @ 4.3GHz All Core
MotherboardASUS TUF Gaming X570 Pro-WiFi
PSUCooler Master V1200P
OSWindows 10-64 Bit
GPUNVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti FE
CaseLian Li T70X

Silicon Power X-Power Zenith RGB DDR4 3600 Performance

Aida 64 Bandwidth

Using Aida 64 we are able to get a good idea of the overall bandwidth from the memory kits in Read, Write, and Copy performance.  I separated them out into their own charts per each measurement so they would be easier to read and digest.  A great aspect of this benchmark is that it is readily available to everyone to try out and see where your system's performance lands for a point of comparison.

Aida 64 Read MB/s (higher is better)
R9 3900X DDR4 3200
R9 3900X XMP
R5 3600X DDR4 3200
R5 3600X XMP
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
Silicon Power Xpower DDR4 3600 CL18
49.5k
55.3k
45.6k
50.6k
HyperX Predator DDR4 3600 CL17
49.2k
55.2k
45.5k
50.8k
Viper Black RGB DDR4 3600 CL17
49.3k
55.4k
45.5k
50.5k
Apacer VOX RGB DDR4 3200 CL16
49.7k
49.7k
45.3k
45.3k
Muskin Redline DDR4 3600 CL18
49.5k
55.3k
45.6k
51.5k
Hyper X Fury DDR4 3600 CL17
49k
54.9k
45.3k
50.5k
Aida 64 Write MB/s (higher is better)
R9 3900X DDR4 3200
R9 3900X XMP
R5 3600X DDR4 3200
R5 3600X XMP
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
Silicon Power Xpower DDR4 3600 CL18
47.5k
53.3k
25.6k
28.7k
HyperX Predator DDR4 3600 CL17
44.6k
53.3k
25.6k
28.8k
Viper Black RGB DDR4 3600 CL17
47.3k
53.2k
25.6k
28.8k
Apacer VOX RGB DDR4 3200 CL16
47.5k
47.5k
25.6k
25.6k
Muskin Redline DDR4 3600 CL18
47.3k
53.2k
25.6k
29.3k
Hyper X Fury DDR4 3600 CL17
47.1k
53.3k
25.6k
28.8k
Aida 64 Copy MB/s (higher is better)
R9 3900X DDR4 3200
R9 3900X XMP
R5 3600X DDR4 3200
R5 3600X XMP
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
Silicon Power Xpower DDR4 3600 CL18
51.7k
54.1k
46k
50.2k
HyperX Predator DDR4 3600 CL17
51.4k
56.7k
46.1k
50.4k
Viper Black RGB DDR4 3600 CL17
51.5k
56.7k
46.2k
49.3k
Apacer VOX RGB DDR4 3200 CL16
52k
52k
46.5k
46.5k
Muskin Redline DDR4 3600 CL18
51.4k
55.1k
45.8k
50.2k
Hyper X Fury DDR4 3600 CL17
51.2k
56k
46.3k
50.6k

Aida 64 Latency

Latency is the name of the game in this benchmark.  The lower the latency the faster the response from the memory.

Aida 64 Latency (Lower is better)
R9 3900X DDR4 3200
R9 3900X XMP
R5 3600X DDR4 3200
R5 3600X XMP
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Silicon Power Xpower DDR4 3600 CL18
77
72
77
72
HyperX Predator DDR4 3600 CL17
78
71
78
70
Viper Black RGB DDR4 3600 CL17
77
71
77
75
Apacer VOX RGB DDR4 3200 CL16
75
75
75
75
Muskin Redline DDR4 3600 CL18
78
73
78
71
Hyper X Fury DDR4 3600 CL17
79
72
79
72

Zip Benchmark

7-Zip is a very popular and free compression/decompression software tool that is used to zip and unzip files. We tested

7-Zip Compressing (higher is better)
R9 3900X DDR4 3200
R9 3900X XMP
R5 3600X DDR4 3200
R5 3600X XMP
0
16667
33334
50001
66668
83335
100002
0
16667
33334
50001
66668
83335
100002
Silicon Power Xpower DDR4 3600 CL18
85.5k
86.1k
48.3k
48.5k
HyperX Predator DDR4 3600 CL17
87.2k
90.7k
48.7k
51k
Viper Black RGB DDR4 3600 CL17
85.8k
89.4k
49.4k
51.5k
Apacer VOX RGB DDR4 3200 CL16
87.6k
87.6k
51k
51k
Muskin Redline DDR4 3600 CL18
86.3k
87.8k
49.4k
50.2k
Hyper X Fury DDR4 3600 CL17
86.1k
90.4k
48.5k
50.4k
7-Zip Decompressing (higher is better)
R9 3900X DDR4 3200
R9 3900X XMP
R5 3600X DDR4 3200
R5 3600X XMP
0
272918
545836
818754
1091672
1364590
1637508
0
272918
545836
818754
1091672
1364590
1637508
Silicon Power Xpower DDR4 3600 CL18
1.5m
1.5m
788k
818.8k
HyperX Predator DDR4 3600 CL17
1.6m
1.6m
840.4k
829.4k
Viper Black RGB DDR4 3600 CL17
1.6m
1.6m
829.4k
829.4k
Apacer VOX RGB DDR4 3200 CL16
1.6m
1.6m
823.9k
823.9k
Muskin Redline DDR4 3600 CL18
1.6m
1.6m
823.9k
829.4k
Hyper X Fury DDR4 3600 CL17
1.6m
1.6m
829.4k
835.1k

WinRar

WinRar's benchmark takes a measurement of the system's capacity for file compression and translates that to KB/s showing that it really favors overall speed for the highest output. A great aspect of this benchmark is that it is readily available to everyone to try out and see where your system's performance lands for a point of comparison.

WinRar Benchmark KB/s (higher is better)
R9 3900X DDR4 3200
R9 3900X XMP
R5 3600X DDR4 3200
R5 3600X XMP
0
7000
14000
21000
28000
35000
42000
0
7000
14000
21000
28000
35000
42000
Silicon Power Xpower DDR4 3600 CL18
32.6k
34.7k
21.2k
21.4k
HyperX Predator DDR4 3600 CL17
34.8k
36.8k
22.7k
24k
Viper Black RGB DDR4 3600 CL17
34.2k
36.6k
22.7k
23.8k
Apacer VOX RGB DDR4 3200 CL16
35.2k
35.2k
23.2k
23.2k
Muskin Redline DDR4 3600 CL18
34.7k
36.3k
22.6k
23.8k
Hyper X Fury DDR4 3600 CL17
34.7k
36.7k
22.8k
23.9k

Far Cry New Dawn

Far Cry New Dawn may not be the same kind of competitive multiplayer game as Rainbow 6, but it is still al title that is known to put the hurt on the CPU so it should also share a very similar outcome.  While the performance delta of just over 25FPS isn't as staggering, it's still a big enough gap for people to really consider faster memory when using these higher-performing CPUs. This was tested at 1080p Ultra Preset paired with an RTX 2080 Ti

Far Cry New Dawn 1080p Ultra AVG FPS (higher is better)
R9 3900X DDR4 3200
R9 3900X XMP
R5 3600X DDR4 3200
R5 3600X XMP
0
40
80
120
160
200
240
0
40
80
120
160
200
240
Silicon Power Xpower DDR4 3600 CL18
131
138
127
133
HyperX Predator DDR4 3600 CL17
130
140
125
136
Viper Black RGB DDR4 3600 CL17
130
142
125
137
Apacer VOX RGB DDR4 3200 CL16
137
137
132
132
Muskin Redline DDR4 3600 CL18
135
139
128
134
Hyper X Fury DDR4 3600 CL17
134
142
128
135

Silicon Power X-Power Zenith RGB DDR4 3600 Conclusion

The Silicon Power X-Power Zenith RGB 32GB DDR4 3600 CL18 memory kit isn't going to knock your socks off, but it's not going to rob you blind either. Capacity, speed, and stability is what this kit has going on. The less aggressive timings makes it much more friendly for a wide variety of systems to be able to run it full speed, even my tempermental Core i9 9900K on a Z370 board had no issues running it wide open.

But that doesn't give them a pass for missing information on the packaging and the lack of transparency on the modules used. The problem with this is that it leaves the setup open for manipulation in the future, something I would hope Silicon Power wouldn't do. But as it stands they're a solid kit of ram with little to worry about.

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