G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-1600C9D-8GAO

Pros: Works at rated speeds. XMP profiles. Low cost for DDR3 at these speeds.

Cons: Could have better CAS latency but not bad.

Not the bright orange color (which I had hoped for) that is shown in the first two photos. Pay attention to the last photo, the actual color is more of a metallic firey brownish-orange. That said it is still orange, and quite attractive. I was just hoping for something brightly colored.

Overall Review: I did programming in H.S. back in the late 1990's, work in IT for the military and own an entire LAN setup at home. For a decade I poured over tech sites, and have learned a lot. These are things that allow you to put "high" tech knowledge on these reviews. I can always learn more so I put somewhat. We never stop learning new things.

Faster RAM speeds do little for most modern PCs - for integrated chips it makes more of a difference. The industry seems to have shifted towards more energy efficiency at this point rather than more power, something I'm fine with as the common desktop system has more power than it uses for most tasks.

I'm a fan of a program called "Speccy" made by Piriform. You can google it, it tells you a lot about your RAM and in my opinion it is superior to CPU-Z - however unlike CPU-Z you cannot run it without installing it.

Pros: It does it's job! It worked right out of the box, booted my system up, and ran all my games and applications no problem. I don't overclock RAM so I can't say on OC performance, but it worked great until...

Cons: ...3 months. I've had this set for 3 months and one of the modules has given up on me. Memtest was reporting errors in the hundreds of thousands and when the stick went out it took Windows with it. I had to do a fresh installation as it corrupted the OS in such a way that trying to access System Restore / Refresh would crash Windows.

When it works it's great but I've never experienced a hardware failure that had such catastrophic effects on my operating system.

Overall Review: I've used G.Skill exclusively for almost ten years now and in that time all their products have worked faithfully without any kind of failure. This is the first time I used one of the Ares Series products and experienced a failure only a few months in to it. I chalk it up as a lemon, but lemons grow in groups. I'd advise to stay away from this particular product. I don't want anyone having to do an OS install at 3am with a paper due in a few hours, because of unexpected hardware failure.

Filling out an RMA form as I type this.