Team Group T-Force Night Hawk RGB DDR4 RAM Review: Beastly Beauty
- Phenomenal build quality
- Excellent performance
- Lifetime warranty
Team Group was kind enough to be a part of our In Win 101C build and suggested we use their T-Force Night Hawk RGB RAM kit. For those unfamiliar with their brand, Team Group has quietly become one of the most highly rated computer component manufacturers. Their T-Force product line is designed for those who demand the highest speeds and top-tier performance from their computers. Today, we review the white 16GB Team Group T-Force Night Hawk RGB DDR4 RAM kit and after reading, the name Team Group will be the first you think of when purchasing your next set of computer memory.
Who is Team Group?
I’ve been building computers for over fifteen years and hadn’t heard of Team Group until a few years ago when I noticed that they manufactured gamer-oriented computer memory. Team Group was founded in 1997 in Taiwan. Their product lines include SD cards, USB drives, SSDs, RAM and other accessories. Gamers tend to flock to Team Group’s T-Force product line and for good reason, their memory is fast and very well made.
Unboxing & Initial Impressions
The kit we are reviewing is the 16GB (2x 8GB) variant. The box displays the “T-Force” logo, Night Hawk branding and several design award badges.
The back of the box includes some verbiage and a few quick facts about the Night Hawk kit. You can also see the RGB software the Night Hawk kit is compatible with including Team Group’s own T-Force Blitz software, ASUS Aura Sync, Gigabyte RGB Fusion and MSI’s Mystic Light Sync.
The two memory modules are stored in a plastic case which has slots on each side to secure each module in place.
The front and back of each memory module displays the following: “RGB”, “T-Force” and “Night Hawk”.
Once I removed the modules from the package, I immediately noticed how great they felt in my hands. Certain products just have a great feel and the Night Hawk memory is most certainly among them. They have an excellent weight; the build quality is outstanding, and the unique design of the Night Hawk memory modules is truly stunning. The heat spreader is made of metal, the PCB is black and there are RGB lights on the top, front and back.
The RGB lights have some really cool effects. The primary effect is a multi-colored rainbow that shows 3 colors at once and shoots down from the top of each stick to the bottom. This effect works in sequence, the first module goes and then the second. Each time a module conducts the cycle, the multi-colored effect changes to three different colors. There is a green/blue, red/orange and purple/blue. They even do this while your computer is asleep!
For most of my computer building career, I’ve used Corsair memory kits. I’ve yet to be disappointed with Corsair’s quality, performance or find a competitor’s product that truly competes with them until the T-Force Night Hawk kit. Here’s how the Night Hawk RAM looks compared to some Corsair Vengeance LPX DIMMs.
The build quality is just as good if not better than Corsair’s venerable Dominator line and that is a testament to the level of craftsmanship found in the Night Hawk RAM. Team Group did a fantastic job manufacturing this RAM.
Performance & Overclocking
The 16GB 3200 MHz kit has timings of 16-18-18-38, a CAS latency of 16 and a 1.35V voltage. Manufacturers tend to use best case scenario numbers when rating memory and while what you purchase may be 3200MHz rated RAM, getting the full 3200 MHz is entirely dependent on your motherboard/CPU configuration. Luckily for us, we had no problems whatsoever with our EVGA Z370 Classified K motherboard and i7-8700K CPU.
We were easily able to overclock the Night Hawk kit to its 3200 MHz spec using the built-in XMP profile. We installed the Night Hawk kit in our EVGA Z370 Classified K motherboard and paired it with an Intel Core i7-8700K overclocked to 5.0 GHz.
During stress testing we did not experience any BSODs related to memory and it continued to hold up under video editing and animation tasks in Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects.
Conclusion
Team Group thoroughly impressed us with their T-Force Night Hawk RGB memory. The attention to detail, and level of craftsmanship that went into building the Night Hawk kit as well as the solid, steady performance are enough make this a product well worth your money. However, the excellence does not end there! In addition to checking all the boxes of a quality overclocking memory kit, Team Group designed some of the most beautiful RAM ever conceived and added in several unique and customizable RGB lighting effects.
Last but certainly not least is Team Group’s lifetime warranty, knowing that you’ll always have a working set of memory more than pays for itself. We are happy to state that this is one of the best memory kits on the market right now and can assure readers that it’s a buy!