Introduction

DDR3 has now started to come to the mainstream market in full force thanks to Intel; only they can be thanked for DDR3 at the moment as AMD still hasn't embraced this new memory standard. This can be considered a good thing when looking back at what happened to DDR owners when AMD brought DDR2 support.

DDR3 is the next step in PC memory architecture; this thanks to its higher clock speeds, improved memory bandwidth and lower power requirements which make it more ideal for laptop and notebook users as well. Not only can it deliver more bandwidth over DDR2, but it runs at a more power efficient 1.5v rather than 1.8v, resulting in longer battery life.

Companies are spitting DDR3 out left, right and centre now, and that is something that can only benefit the end user. The more modules that come to us, the cheaper they become. We have already seen the big players hitting speeds in the 1600-1800 MHz range, and that's just the beginning for DDR3.

We have been sent a new kit from a company that has only just come aboard with TweakTown, and as always we are more than happy to broaden our horizons with new companies and new products. Patriot Memory (who we haven't heard much about until recently) has a pretty impressive range of modules listed on their website, and they've kindly sent us their latest PC3-15000 (1866 MHz) kit for review. Let's see how they perform.