Apacer Blade Fire DDR4-3000 16GB Dual-Channel Memory Kit Review

It wasn’t long ago that we reviewed the Apacer Blade memory and soon after we were whisked away to Taiwan and on display during their media brief was the new Apacer Blade Fire memory kits. The new Blade Fire memory kits differ from the original Apacer Blade by having built-in LED modules that illuminate the DIMMs in glorious red. Aside from the physical aspect though, the Apacer Blade was the company’s much-awaited jab at the high-end enthusiast market and with the Blade Fire, Apacer is making sure it shows enthusiasts that it can keep up. 

Read on to find out more about the Apacer Blade Pro!

Features

• DDR4 LED gaming memory module, high frequency, low power consumption, low latency.
• Compatible with Intel® 100 & 200 series motherboards.
• Respectable capacity of 64GB, frequency up to 3200MHz with 16-16-18-38
• High stability and compatibility brings the users an astounding gaming experience.
• Ranged in four different clock speeds from 2800/3000/3200MHz.
• The XMP 2.0 support for simple overclocking.
• Various LED light patterns, a battling saber on fire in the battleground.

Official product page

Closer Look

The Apacer Blade Fire is packaged in the same full-colored print box as the original Blade. The packaging has a clear window on both front and back to give a peek of the kit inside. 

The overall design of the Blade Fire hasn’t changed at and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the dagger design shroud of the Blade Fire is actually really nice to look at… depending on your tastes.

A closer look at the Apacer Blade we can see the good paint job on the heatsink and a bit of silver paint-apps on the dagger trim. The Blade logo (yes, its the same as the Wesley Snipes movie logo) is printed on the side. Saw tooth protrusions emanate from the top along with some further tooling.

Once installed on our board we can check the height of the Apacer Blade Fire. We take a shot from the tall side together with a tower-type heatsink and we can see that there will be some clearance issue here if this was a dual-tower. Some coolers like the Noctua NH-D15S have clearance for taller memories though so be sure to take note of that before buying.

Lights on!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSJAHAYgu8N/?taken-by=b2g.bossmac

Lighting on the Apacer Blade Fire is pretty much automatic and it will switch from wave to ripple on its own. There’s really nothing you can do but just admire the red LED light show. The color does limit the kits application if you’re looking to color match.

Performance Testing

Test Setup

Processor: Intel Core i7 7700K
Motherboard: ASUS ROG Maximus IX APEX
Memory: APACER Blade Fire DDR4-3000 CL16 16GB
Storage: Intel SSD 750 NVME U.2 SSD
PSU: Seasonic Platinum 1000
Cooling: Thermaltake Water 3.0 Riings 360mm
Monitor: ASUS PG27AQ UHD Monitor
VGA: NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition

We’ll be taking a look at these memories in their native speeds on a stock Core i7-7700K. This is the ensure that results can easily be replicated by anyone with similar systems and achieve results on a more uniform setup. As always we present the numbers for your own conclusion.

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User Experience & Conclusion

We’ll discuss a bit of overclocking in this segment as we’ve decided to not dedicate a section for it in this review. Overclocking the Apacer Blade Fire wasn’t too complex and it happily took DDR4-3200 with CL16-18-18-38 without any complex tweaking other than setting the memory multiplier and timing. I feel like the kit can go further with a bit of tweaking and we’ll cover that in an update some time in the future. Given the performance is on par with the other kits in our test, bumping to DDR4-3200 easily made it much more competitive with the DDR4-3200 rated kits in our charts.

Ultimately, kit selection right now has moved from performance to looks and with RGB all the rage these days, the crimson LED on the Blade Fire sure looks a bit dated for a flagship but regardless, Apacer has managed to step-up their game and we’ve had no issues whatsoever with the Blade Fire from installation to usage.

The Apacer Blade Fire is a decent pair of RAMs if you’re looking for a black and red motiff memory with some higher clock speeds than the standard kits available right now. Great looks and decent performance put it on the list of well-performing DDR4 sticks out there and there’s some headroom for a bit of overclocking in there, too. If there’s anything to nitpick on the Blade Fire, its probably the lack of RGB but we know that’s coming soon.

We give the Apacer Blade Fire our B2G Recommended Seal!