G.Skill serves up 4GB sandwich on eight-layer platter

CHINESE NEW YEAR has seen G.Skill announce its new 4GB PC2-8500 “low latency” memory kit. The memory, officially dubbed the F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK, is a pack of 2x2GB sticks and is rated as DDR2-1066 CL5-5-5-15.

Under the typical G.Skill heatspreader sandwich, the memory is connected through an eight-layered PCB (“traditional” DIMM manufacturing uses six-layer PCBs). Although more complex to manufacture (ie: pricier), it allows for overall better signaling and routing therefore reducing noise, lowering signal distortion and providing a more stable impedance (this is where I discovered “stabler” isn’t a word in the English language), hence the default 1066MHz rating and lower latency.

G.Skill specialises in this sort of tricked-out memory, and you can usually expect their out-of-the-box performance claim to hold true. This is the kind of thing that appeals to people that don’t really have the skills to overclock their memory, but it should also provide some leftover oc-ability for the whiteline-fever fraught enthusiast.

2GB also means the chips under the sandwich are higher density modules - and that’s usually a harder trick to do. We’d like to see these babies land on a highly overclockable mobo with exotic cooling just to see how much you can squeeze out of them. µ