These sticks are flawlessly @3000 MHz since Day 1 of my build. No issues!

It is ram. As mentioned I had trouble getting it to play nice with my MSI B350M Gaming Pro, but it works just fine.

I actually got a GeIL EVO Forza, but it's identical, the only difference AFAIK is the cosmetics of the heat spreaders. Apparently GeIL is a pretty well-established company, just somewhat new in the direct-to-consumer memory category. Well, all I can say is the RAM looks great, and has gone straight to 3000 MHz without any issues once XMP is enabled on two different motherboards.

I wanted 16GB cause I like to game without closing my browser, which sometimes has like 100 tabs open. I was a little concerned it wouldn't be enough cause I hit 75% usage constantly with 8GB, but I haven't had any utilization issues with 16GB at all. I did want to go for DDR4 RAM for future proofing, better performance, and now it's about the same price as DDR3 (and in that line, Kaby Lake mobo). I went with 3000MHz DDR4 RAM cause 2133MHz has pretty bad latency issues. In exchange, I went with a not so well-known brand. So far, it's been a great decision. The RAM looks nice and I've had no trouble hitting 3000MHz. I do notice that the system does do much worse when I don't have XMP enabled and the RAM runs at the default 2133MHz, so I suggest that everyone spend the $10 extra or so for faster RAM. Reviews online say that you maybe lose "only" 5-10% CPU performance and not to bother, but let me ask you: is 5-10% of your system performance worth $10? Here's some metrics for non-believers.

http://www.techspot.com/article/1171-ddr4-4000-mhz-performance/page3.html

I have had nothing but trouble with this RAM, but not for reasons you might think. For the first few months, the computer would turn up BSoD's with codes like "Bad Pool Header". After wiping and reinstalling Windows, we thought we had it down. We were wrong, and ended up running MemTest86+ from a boot drive. To our alarm, we received a stick of RAM with 9846 errors. I had to send both sticks back (even the one that worked) as per GEIL's RMA Rules. The customer service was extremely difficult to get in touch with and their website was far out of date. Customer service was based in China, which meant my 12am emails were responded to quite quickly (it being 2pm there) once I found the correct email address.

I bought this memory on sale on Newegg for about $22.00 less than normal price, which might explain the defective stick.

Pros:

• 16GB for the price of some 8GBs

• DDR4-3000 with CAS of 15

• Heat-spreader

Cons:

• First piece was defective

• Below-par customer service

Substitutes:

• For the price, it depends on the market. I see a Team Dark 16GB for about $65 at the time of this review

• Kingston, Mushkin, or Corsair, and I would honestly do 4GB sticks next time