Adata joins the 5GHz club by overclocking a DDR4 memory kit on air

Adata has become the second memory maker to achieve 5,000MHz on an overclocked DDR4 RAM kit without resorting to exotic cooling methods. Just as G.Skill did a little over two weeks ago, Adata used air cooling to break the 5,000MHz barrier, rather than liquid nitrogen (LN2).

Much of this comes down to theater, as neither company is actually selling a 5,000MHz memory kit. And even if they did, there would not be a whole lot of real-world benefit for users versus existing memory kits, like G.Skill's DDR4-4700 kit.

Nevertheless, it's nice to see memory makers pushing the envelope and embracing the overclocking scene. Hitting such high frequencies requires careful binning of premium memory chips. In this case, Adata used its XPG Spectrix D41 RGB memory kit outfitted with cherry-picked Samsung B-die chips.

"For us, the next critical step will be working to make this more than just a technological milestone, but something that will be accessible to gamers, overclockers and others, so that they can ultimately benefit from this amazing performance," said Tom Chan, director of Adata.

It's also encouraging to see these speeds being hit on air. LN2 is not a practical cooling solution outside of chasing overclocking records and participating in related competitions.

Adata is not the first company we typically think of when it comes to these sort of things—usually it's G.Skill and Corsair that make headlines for speed records and achievements.

"This exciting development is a reaffirmation of Adata's strong R&D capabilities and the outstanding performance offered by the XPG Spectrix D41 RGB," Adata said.

Point taken. Now it's a race to see which company will be the first to market with a DDR4-5000 memory kit.

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).