At Computex 2016 Corsair unveiled some really interesting product lineup which were not only technically new like the ML120/ML140 Levitation cooling fans but were aesthetically pleasing aswell. But one thing that took everyone by surprise and was the perfect amalgamation of technology and cosmetics were the new Corsair Vengeance LED DDR4 Memory kits!
These new kits not only are revamped from the inside but have a zing to them in the form of LED lit heat-spreaders! Thanks to Corsair India we happen to have one of these kits for review with us today, the kit we have today is the Corsair Vengeance LED 16GB DDR4 kit with red LEDs.
The kit is available in two LED colors as of now, red and white. More colors are expected to come later this year. Vengeance LED kits are currently available in 2 x 8GB, 4 x 8GB, 2 x 16GB, and 4 x 16GB hits, with speeds ranging from 2666MHz to 3466MHz. Kits up to 4333MHz are forthcoming. All Vengeance LED kits feature XMP 2.0
Corsair takes great pleasure in boasting about their new product so here is a snap to sum up all of that in one go.
Packing and Closer Look
Corsair has since last year gone all black and yellow with their packing and the same goes for the Vengeance LED DDR4. A bold photograph of the memory stick and the product name occupy most of the front fascia followed by vital details printed on the top right corner.
At the back we have two cut outs through which the actual sticks can be seen through resting inside the box. I like this approach towards packing.
Inside the RAM sticks are kept in a clam-shell packing and you can already feel that the kit is quite chunky!
Corsair Vengeance LED is an all black memory kit with perforation on top for ventilation and LED lights to glow through. The kit measures in at 50mm in height putting it on the taller side! This 50mm height might cause issues with big and beefy air coolers so make sure you check your cooler before going for this kit.
In the front the Vengeance LED is printed on a plain and clean heat-spreader. The back has a sticker with some important numbers and stats such as the rated frequency-latency, voltage consumption, product's version and even that its a stick belonging to a kit of two for a total of 16GB.
The LED looks like a plain strip when powered down and the matte black finish gels in quite well.
Interestingly the vent strip is removable! This is probably an indication that we might see some swapable strips of various vent shapes rolling out soon for the Vengeance to add a touch of customization to this mix.
Test Setup and Benchmarks
Installing and booting up into Windows was easy with the Corsair Vengeance LED DDR4, the LEDs even lit up red from the get go itself which follow a random pattern of lighting up and going off more like a modified version of the 'breathing mode' that some components have these days. I wish it was possible to have some control over the pattern of their blinking but sadly that's not possible!
The test setup for this review was as follows --
CPU: Intel Core i7 6950X 3Ghz Deca-Core Broadwell-E
Motherboard: Gigabyte X99 Phoenix SLI
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LED 16GB (2x8GB) Memory Kit
Cooler: Corsair H100i GTX 240mm Liquid Cooler (Push-Pull Configuration)
Graphics Card: Inno3D GTX 980 4GB DDR5 iChill Black Edition Accelero Hybrid S
Storage: Corsair Neutron GTX 480GB SSD
Power Supply: Corsair AX860i 860W 80+ Platinum
OS: Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit
GPU Driver: NVIDIA ForceWare 355.60
BIOS: Version F4
A noticeable factor with this kit is that it enables the XMP 2.0 profile to reach its rated 3200Mhz speed automatically when inserted into the motherboard. The rated voltage is 1.35v which isn't high at all for a kit at 3200Mhz.
Our Intel i7 6950X is overclocked to 4.3Ghz and the Vengeance took up the specified speeds and ratings of 16-18-18-36-2T with 1.35v
Since Corsair claims the kit to be great for overclocking so we put it to test and at the same 1.35v we managed a stable 3400Mhz at 17-18-18-39-2T which is quite impressive since I value tighter timings over higher clock speeds and for me a CL17 memory is not at all bad.
For the benchmarks we'll stick to the default XMP settings of 3200Mhz since that's what most of you will be using it at.
AIDA64 Extreme Edition v5.75
AIDA64 implements a set of 64-bit benchmarks to measure how fast the computer performs various data processing tasks and mathematical calculations. Memory and cache benchmarks are available to analyze system RAM bandwidth and latency.
7-zip
This suite allows you to measure the performance of your computer. The benchmark shows a rating in MIPS (million instructions per second). There are two tests, compression with LZMA method and decompression with LZMA method. Once the total passes reaches 100, the score is taken. Higher the score better is the computer's overall performance.
SuperPi Mod v1.5
SuperPi is a simple program that utilizes the processing power and memory speed of the system to calculate the value of Pi upto 1 Million or 32 Million decimal point depending upon what you choose. The time is calculated in minutes and seconds, we'll take them both in seconds, so lower the score faster is your computer.
wPrime v2.10
wPrime is a leading multithreaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton’s method for estimating functions. It is influenced by memory timings and frequency.
Cinebench R15 and R11.5
Cinebench uses Maxon's Cinema 4D engine to render a photo-realistic scene of some shiny balls and weird things (we miss the motorbike). The scene is highly complex, with reflections, ambient occlusion and procedural shaders so it gives a CPU a tough workout.
As Cinema 4D is a real-world application - used on films such as Spider-Man and Star Wars - Cinebench can be viewed as a real-world benchmark.
Intel XTU
Intel XTU is a utility mainly used to overclock the processor and memory to benchmark the system for its stability and performance. The score obtained is a projection of the computer's true potential signifying its performance in real-life tasks.
My Verdict
The Vengeance series has for long been the backbone of Corsair's Memory division, delivering bang for buck performance with every iteration be it in DDR3 or DDR4. So does the Vengeance LED DDR4 live up to the expectations?Of-course yes! The product is not only beautifully designed and perceived but on the inside the performance is almost everything you can ask for from a 3200Mhz memory. Its not just the raw out of the box performance that impresses me but more importantly the memory overclocks well which is something the previous LPX series lacked drastically! Its great to see that Corsair took all the feedbacks and worked on them for this product.
The subtle LED lights are obviously a big plus point since they look nice, are subtle and blend in well with most of the motherboards out there even with the new Gigabyte line of X99 and Z170 boards that have built-in DIMM slot LEDs. I hope that Corsair will roll out more colors or vent strips soon for the Vengeance.A little tall with 50mm height but that fine since I've seen even taller memory kits than this so its definitely not the tallest one out there.
I highly and whole heatedly recommend the Corsair Vengeance LED DDR4 memory kit to everyone out there who values a perfect blend of style and performance over price, willing to shell a tad bit extra to get something that'll put their systems miles ahead of the others!
I give it 9.5/10
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As always great review Vishvesh!
ReplyDeleteI was looking for a LED RAM in India from a broadly available brand for the ease of warranty claims which I've finally found in form of the Corsair Vengeance LED RAM.
Will be buying it next month for my new build.
Waiting for your next post.
Glad to know that you liked my post.
DeleteYes its definitely a great memory kit especially with LEDs on top.
Thank you for the appreciation.