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: Works, high latencies, no difference. Best buy here. I bought 2 more sticks before a car runs out of gas in Taiwan and dram prices go up.

Cons: none yet, expect warranty to take care of this if needed

Overall Review: Orange is cheaper than blue as of today. Ram going up, parties over.

Pros: Very fast

Cons: none yet

Overall Review: Ive purchased these Ares ram sticks for a couple PCs, theyre very good if you plan to use an aftermarket CPU cooler like the Coolermaster EVO212 because these are lower profile to fit under the cooler unlike some ripjaws depending on your MOBO. Overall very pleased with the many Ive bought, never any DOA

Pros: This is good memory that runs like it should. Runs the XMP profile with correct timings at correct voltage with no problems.

Cons: None it works great.

Overall Review: It really isn't that bright orange matte color. If you look at the third picture you'll see its actual color of a nice darker metallic orange that looks really nice if you like the color. For the price just just cant beat this RAM.

Pros: - Fast, affordable, stable - Low profile heatsink is very nice, especially when using large, aftermarket CPU heatsinks. No problems fitting this RAM in with mine.

Cons: Im not a huge fan of the orange heatsink (I wanted the blue one, but the orange was on sale at the time and the blue wasnt and it wasnt worth the price difference. this is not a real con lol).

Overall Review: My brother and I have been buying mainly gskill ram for the last number of years and we've never had a problem with a single stick of RAM from them (whereas Ive had problems with every other brand Ive tried in the same time period). Gskill makes excellent ram, do yourself a favor and get it!

Pros: I like the color. I got it on sale. It clocks correctly on my motherboard (ASRock 970) w/ FX-6300 CPU. No tweaking required. Runs STABLE! No weird memory dumps or blue screens at all (Windows 7 x64). Low height. Ram has gotten ridiculous with humongously tall heatsinks.

Cons: None!

Overall Review: I plan on buying another set to bring me up to 16GB on my system. Not dissapointed at all with this purchase.

Pros: Works good. Only ran at 1333 but once I set the timings and clock in bios it ran at 1600 9-9-9-25 as advertised.

Cons: none

Overall Review: My system... Phenom 965, mis 6770, 8gb gskill, asrock 960gm

Pros: Got this the day it came out 3 yrs ago... ahhh what a day, but anyways i now run 16gb 4x4 with these still never had an issue. Many hours of gaming a day for 3 yrs and still have no complaints.

Cons: None solid ram for a budget build or a long lasting build such as mine.