XPG Lancer Neon RGB ECO DDR5-8000 32GB CUDIMM Dual-Channel Memory Kit Review

TweakTown Rating: 93%

Our Verdict

The Lancer Neon RGB Eco may be as available as hens teeth, but they are a slick looking kit of DDR5 with a ton of thought dropped into them, and performance you should expect at this speed.

Pros

• Amount of lighting
• Exclusive thermal coating
• Overclockability
• CO2 conscious

Cons

• Availability
• XPG PRIME
• Specific hardware needed

Should you buy it?

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Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

When we hear the word eco, we think back to the naked Samsung sticks back in DDR3 or a kit of RAM keeping the voltages down in JEDEC territory while adding a few hundred to a thousand MT/s over that 4800 MT/s starting block. However, XPG is taking a different tact regarding what makes them the world's first eco-friendly RGB gaming modules. Rather than crippling the product with some extremely low voltage, which also requires a ton of IC binning, XPG looked at the manufacturing process instead.

Looking at things like the heatsink, which is plastic, XPG opts to use fifty percent recycled plastic materials and forest stewardship-conscious packaging materials, which decreases carbon emissions by 72.5%. They also claim they have an environmentally friendly in-mold roller, which provides the design and sticker placement.

The best part is that we are not dealing with an average speed set of DDR5 here, as XPG pushed the speed of these Lancer Neon RGB Eco kits up to 8000 MT/s, which is what we have in hand. While you are enjoying all the benefits of the lower timings, normal voltage used for the speed, and an XMP/DOCP profile that takes this kit to the upper echelon of speed options pre-CU-DIMM, all while knowing you did your part to lessen the stress on this giant blue ball we live on.

The Lancer Neon RGB Eco comes with the part number AX5U8000C3816G-DCLANRSG, which is one of the easiest in the game to read. The AX stands for ADATA and XPG, while the U5 stands for UDIMM DDR5. 8000C38 is easy enough, and so is the 16G that follows. In the end, we see DC for the dual-color box and LANR for Lancer Neon RGB, leaving the SG for color with silver and gray.

What we did not mention in that opening is that the heat spreaders on the Lancer Neon RGB Eco are made of plastic for one reason only: sixty percent RGB illumination. Rather than aluminum, XPG uses plastic and sixteen RGB LEDs to make the Neon glow more than anyone else. The Hynix ICs are set with a 4800 MT/s 40-39-39-39-77 2T 1.10V JEDEC profile, but enabling XMP or DOCP takes these modules to 8000 MT/s 38-48-48-128 2T with 1.45V.

Looking at their size, the PCB is the longest part of the stick, measuring 133.3 mm end to end. Height is 45.3mm, and thickness is 8.7mm, neither of which is that surprising. However, 56.3 grams per stick, using plastic spreaders, is something we did not expect.

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On this side of the big blue ball, we were able to locate some of the 6000 MT/s sets of Lancer Neon RGB Eco DDR5, ranging from $149 to $155, depending on which of the lesser-known locations you feel is safest. In the big players of online sales, we see nothing from XPG in this line, but we did notice them on sale for £169 to £185.99 for what we have, but again, that does us little good. With some conversion done, if they do make it to our side, that would be around $250. It is not an extreme price tag for such a DDR5 kit, but let's see if it is visually appealing with no go or if XPG has something you will want to stuff into your next build.

Packaging and XPG Lancer Neon RGB Eco

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Bright red is the choice of color to house the Lancer Neon RGB Eco memory. Along with an illuminated view of the module in the middle, there are mentions of the cooling coating, 60% RGB area, 50% recycled plastic, 72% reduced CO2, and an Eco tag. At the bottom, we see Mera, the name, 16GB x2, and 8000 MT/s.

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Along with allowing a view of the stickers on the RAM, we are told this is desktop UDIMM. There is some legal information, the product sticker, and a code to scan to get you to XPG to check these out.

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Behind the cardboard is translucent plastic, locking the modules in place. This ensures the RAM is kept away from damage and that static does not kill it on its way to you. Looking a bit closer, we also see stickers over the XPG logos on the sticks.

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With nothing to block the view, we like the low pyramidal shaping of the plastic, and the brushed black sticker with white paint pops against the sea of gray. While we get the XPG name and DDR5, they are most proud of the Eco bit; otherwise, they would say Lancer or Neon.

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The other side of the sticks is identical to what we just showed, down to all but one detail: the product sticker. At the right end, you will see the sticker with the part number, speed, density, timings, voltage, and serial number.

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With the slightest of angle changes, the six pyramidal shapes are much more defined. A ridge between them makes a level place for the metal sticker application. While these look great, we cannot wait to add power and view the RGB bling.

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The diffusers are concave, leaving an indent along the top. At either end is a flat portion, where at the right, the XPG name is painted on it. Also, they are highly textured, whereas many diffusers are smooth.

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Popping off the diffuser lets us see the thermal tape covering the Hynix H5C648AGB0 ICs and a portion with tape at the top, which allows the sixteen LEDs to shine upwards. However, it leaves the PMIC uncovered.

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The unlocked Richtek 0P=BH PMIC in the center manages voltage control, with the Montage SPD chip at the top left.

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XPG delivers the most illuminated heat spreader in the game; there is no doubt about that. The brushed metal sticker brilliantly covers the hot spots, and the color changes are smooth and intense.

These four images show the timings of the Lancer Neon RGB Eco. Upfront, we would have liked a lower tRAS and a slightly tighter tREFi, but the tRFC looks good for the speed. Some of the clocks in tab two are also higher than we would like, but otherwise, it looks like a strong set of DDR5.

Test System Details

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To obtain the Intel CPU-Z screenshots, you will see directly following this image; this is the system we used to do it, as well as to get the results seen in the following pages. Thanks to ASRock, our wallet, HYTE, Patriot, GIGABYTE, and be quiet! for supporting us with this venture. Detailed specifications of the system can be found below.

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As we expected, we took the appropriate actions to safely boot and enable XMP to see what we get. We see in CPU-Z that we indeed have a set of 8000 MT/s RAM running with 38-48-48-128 2T timings. They require 1.45VDIMM, and our motherboard sets 1.28V for the IO and 1.40V for the System Agent.

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Not many sets of DDR5 can run Cas 34 at 8000 MT/s, but XPG is able to do that and allows us to lower the tRCD and tRP to 46. While not a huge change from the XMP profile, this does require adjustment to the VDIMM, this time using 1.55VDIMM and 1.53VDDq while leaving the IO and SA voltages as they were above.

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Returning the VDIMM and VDDq to 1.45V, we could push the speed up to 8600 MT/s while still keeping the XMP timings. Timing adjustment did little to increase speed or gain stability, and we could run some tests at 8800MT/s and boot into Windows at 9000 MT/s; we were well above 1.6VDIMM and never got stability locked down.

Chad's Intel DDR5 Dual-Channel Test System Specifications

Intel Performance

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Falling into line just behind Patriot is where we expected XPG to land, but the 124,678 XMP result is a bit higher than we guessed. Tighter timings lost us in the realm of 600 MB/s read performance in AIDA, but with added speed, we gained 5834 MB/s, only changing the memory speed.

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Right on the heels of Patriot, XPG gets good write results in AIDA64, with XMP starting us off at 101,586 MB/s. A timing reduction nets us 538 Mb/s more performance, but with 600 MT/s more speed, we boosted that XMP score by another 4141 MB/s.

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XMP copy performance is great for the speed and not far behind the faster kits at 108,712 MB/s throughput. Overclocking delivers big gains, with tighter timings netting us 1690 MB/s and added sp3eed netting us an astounding 8694 MB/s.

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Latency is decent compared to the rest of the kits in the chart. We started things out at 80ns right out of the box. Playing with timings did reduce latency a touch, but at 8600 MT/s, we got it down in the mid-seventies.

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We have another set of RAM that seems to be doing poorly in Super Pi. Although it is still performing better than the faster Corsair CUDIMMs, the XMP result at 367.5 seconds is too long. Timing adjustment hurt us, which should have helped, and speed helped, but it was not enough for the 600 MT/s increase in speed.

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As we can see, when it came to PCMark 10 testing, it liked the XMP profile best, just a few points from the top of the chart. We felt that lowered timings would have an adverse effect, but that 9792 score at 8600 MT/s is a bit shocking.

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With less speed, XPG outpaced Corsair, and we have not even tinkered to improve file compression time. We knocked off another six seconds at CAS34 but got eight seconds less from XMP, adding more speed to the equation.

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If you plan on transcoding, the best way to run the Lancer Neon RGB Eco is out of the box. While we did take a hit by overclocking, with a 400 MT/s penalty, XPG still got there faster than Corsair can.

Final Thoughts

It had not crossed our minds that the manufacturing of RAM could be cleaned up so much. Using plastic as a heat spreader opens the world of recycling to XPG, allowing them to inject less new material into the molds. Opting for plastic goes against what we all think of with heat spreaders; by name, they should take the heat from the ICs and voltage components, but XPG couldn't do that here, so they opted for a thermal coating. Whether we can see it or not, something is working under the hood, as the XPG Lancer Neon RGB Eco got no hotter than any other DDR5 at 1.45V, and the fact that it took over 1.60VDIMM and still stayed within testable limits is near amazing. Most assume that you have a PCB, some ICs, solder it all up, and slap on a spreader, but XPG has shown us there is so much more that can go into a set of memory.

On a visual level, the Lancer Neon RGTB Eco is nice to look at, and even though gray at idle, once the PC is up and running, all you get is the overabundant amount of spreader that is illuminated, with a gentle wash of brilliant colors that make smooth transitions without seeing all of the LEDs. At first, we thought the brushed black sticker was a bit much for something so well designed, but it adds a ton of contrast and works brilliantly to hide the sixteen LEDs from the user's view.

On a performance level, there was only one time when we wished that the XPG DDR5 would have stood a little taller. While it crushed AIDA, file compression, transcoding, and PCMark efficiency testing, Super Pi handed them their butts on a platter. Considering many times the Lancer Neon RGB Eco outpaced the Corsair CUDIMM at 8400 MT/s, with less speed is impressive, and so is the fact that this 8000 MT/s kit ran tight on the heels of the Patriot Viper Extreme 5 at 8200 MT/s says something for what XPG has delivered to us.

The nail in the XPG coffin for the ones on the wrong side of the globe is that you cannot have these, well, not the 8000 MT/s version. Guessing at cost is never good, but you may have to step up to around $250 in the worst-case scenario if they ever hit the American market. That is nearly $100 more than what you would pay for the Patriot solution in our charts, but there is much more going on visually with XPG.

Ultimately, if it were readily available, we would tell you to run out and grab a kit; they are a blast. Delivering super strong XMP performance results and flexibility to overclock and tune them, all wrapped up in that sexy visual aesthetic, it is almost worth asking an overseas buddy to get you a kit. Considering we are three months behind the announcement and samples leaving XPG, we assumed they would be more available, but it's hard to give an editor's choice award to a product many will never have the chance to own. We love saying we took the time to use something environmentally friendly, and it's only bettered by what we got. Still, anytime we recommend them, we will lead you down a rabbit hole of disappointment trying to find them.