4GB Corsair Dominator PC3-12800 C8 1600MHz Memory Review
Manufacturer: http://www.corsair.com/
Price: £139.99 inc VAT
Best Price: http://pricebomb.co.uk
4GB Corsair Dominator PC3-12800 C8 1600MHz Memory Review (CMD4GX3M2A1600C8)
Corsair is a manufacturer that needs no introduction in the world of high performance memory, with a history of products spanning more than 15 years. The Dominator series has sat at the pinnacle of the firm's memory range for some time, though in recent months has undergone something of an overhaul.
The modules are still double height, but this time they are bonded to the integrated circuits beneath and have a removable section along the top edge. These ship with traditional fins as standard, but the more adventurous user can replace these with a water cooling block or even a peltier.
The specification of these modules is better than average, with rated timings of 8-8-8-24 and a clock speed of 1600MHz (PC3-12800). This is delivered at the 1.65V industry standard voltage, making the modules a perfect match for a socket 1156 Core i5 or Core i7 processor.
The modules ship with an extremely handy XMP profile in addition to the traditional SPD making setup elementary. You simply enable the profile on supporting boards and it does the hard work, setting the relevant bus speeds, voltages and timings automatically. This worked perfectly on our test motherboard.
Benchmark Results
The Corsair was able to deliver an Everest read result of 13988 MB/s and a latency of 48.6ns. In Sisoft Sandra, the throughput was measured as 19.34GB/s and the latency at 66ns. These results are good, but not as fast as G.Skill's cheaper and cooler-running ECO series memory, which managed 14600 MB/s and 47.9 respectively in Everest, and 19.48GB/s and 65ns in Sandra.
Overclocking
In our overclocking tests the Corsair delivered the goods, sailing past our first check point of 1800MHz. At 1900MHz the kit again was able to POST, but the kit crashed before Windows could load properly. This is a satisfactory showing from RAM rated to 1600MHz, but enthusiasts would do well to check out the other kits in our group test before purchasing this memory.
Conclusion
With memory prices at their current sky-high level it's important to get the best you can and although this Corsair Dominator memory is good, others options are better still and are considerably cheaper to boot.
| We Like |
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Verdict |
Score |
- Great build quality
- Superb aesthetics
- Respectable timings
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Great looking and high quality memory, but if you are looking for the best possible performance the G.Skill ECO series kits offer superior overclocking and tighter timings.
|
79 |
| We Don't Like |
|
- Not the best value kit
- Other kits overclock better
- Average stock performance
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On the next page we take a look at the 4GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 ECO Series Memory. Read on.
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