Corsair Vengeance RGB - Stunning RGB...Striking Speed
Corsair is no stranger when it comes to PC peripherals or even memory kits, while everyone who owns a PC or is an enthusiast knows about the former the latter portion is dictated by legendary kits such as the Dominator series of RAM kits which came in the DDR3 days and is still holding the top grounds in today's DDR4 era. While the Dominator is meant for those who want perfection with no holds on the price tag the other offerings include the Vengeance LPX and Vengeance LED that caters to lower section of buyers who have their own reasons to go for either of the kits. Last year Corsair took a step further in their Vengeance lineup and introduced the Vengeance RGB series which is ofcourse as the name suggests has RGB lights that replace the solid red light that the Vengeance LED came with.
While cosmetically the Vengeance RGB and Vengeance LED are same the same thing the real difference comes in the variety of kits the RGB lineup comes with including both memory size aswell as frequencies. The Vengeance RGB starts from a kit of 16GB and goes all the way upto 128GB rated from 2666Mhz to a whooping 4266Mhz! As of now these are available in white & black body colors and officially listed to be supported by Intel 100 and 200 series motherboards with no AMD Ryzen support listed whatsoever.
Our kit today is a white Corsair Vengeance RGB 16Gb kit which is rated at 3000Mhz CL16 at 1.35v and is priced in at $219 or Rs 17,000 in India which is on the premium end of the spectrum but with all the bells and whistles such as RGB LEDs, full aluminum heatspeders, matte finish on either sides, full white body and even temperature sensors that is all backed up by a robust 5 years of Corsair warranty its nothing too surprising as per the present trend.
What's in the Box!?
Corsair brings the Vengeance RGB in a sleek and slim box that is laced with Corsair gaming colors theme with a multi colored background depicting the product image in the center along with the name, size and frequency neatly printed on the bottom aswell as on the top left corner. The kits is certified to work with Intel 100 and 200 series platforms and nothing is said about AMD Ryzen so far.
At the back we see two slits in the middle from where one can take a peek inside the packaging to make sure the sticks are of the same model by reading the detailed sticker stuck on the backside of the module. Along with that we have a promotional message from Corsair on top and a Corsair Link logo at the bottom to signify that the lights can be controlled through that utility.
Open the box and we have the RAM securely packed inside a blister pack which is good enough to keep it safe during bumpy transit.
If you remember the Corsair Vengeance LED then probably you won't find any difference between that and the new Vengeance RGB as they both are similar from the outside down to the lowest bits. The body is completely white with the product name written write on the front side in the conventional font and fashion.
On the top we can see the vents for ventilation aswell as for the RGB lights to glow out through them. These are removable and can be stripped off easily revealing a single light bar at the bottom. Also on top we have textured and grained out sails logo of Corsair which are clearly visible inside a chassis when the lights are on. At the back we have the sticker with all the vital details here and out kit comes with a model number CMR16GX4M2C3000C16W which is version 3.32 of this category of kits. Oddly this kit is also rated different than what the official website of Corsair says and comes with a latency timing of 16-18-18-36 at 1.35v while the website rates this kit at 15-17-17-35 this is mainly because this particular model is not based on Hynix memory ICs but uses Micron memory chips which unfortunately gives it looser timings and also makes me apprehensive that this kit would be troublesome if used with a AMD Ryzen platform! Also its a disappointment since at this price point I expected Hynix chips if not Samsung B die which most of the competing models from other manufacturers use.
Benchmarks and Overclocking
Corsair Vengeance RGB uses SMBus and is meant to work with the Corsair Link utility for giving the user a control over the colors and behavior of the RGB lighting & I had absolutely no problem in getting the memory recognized right out of the box along with my Corsair H150i Pro RGB cooler. The utility gives the control to set colors and animation scheme either for one individual kit or to link both together depending on the user preference and style of usage. The control are pretty simple and straight forwards and the biggest USP is sadly a downside too as its a great news for people like me and other who already use a Corsair peripheral that uses the Corsair Link utility as it brings everything in one single place but the kit isn't just compatible with nay of the motherboard lighting apps and using Corsair Link solely for the RAM might appear as a hindrance to majority of customers. It would be great if Corsair also made this kit compatible with motherboard based lighting apps for catering to a wider audience and giving the kit an added edge.
Coming over to testing the kit I've used the following setup -
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700 @3.6Ghz
Motherboard: Asus X370 Crosshair VI Hero
RAM: Corsair Vengeance RGB 16GB 3000Mhz
Cooler: Corsair H150i Pro RGB
Graphics Card: MSI RX580 Gaming X
Storage: Kingston A400 256GB
Secondary Storage: Corsair Neutron XTi 480GB
Power Supply: Corsair AX860i 860W
Case: Corsair Obsidian 750D
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
Now as this kit is not optimized for AMD Ryzen platform it was tough to get it to work on the rated frequency of 3000Mhz at CL16 moreover this kit is from Micron and not even Hynix which makes the job even so more tougher as the Infinity Fabric inside the Ryzen chips don't go well with Micron chips but lean more towards Hynix and Samsung B die respectively! With some tweaking around in the BIOS and latest Agesa update I managed to run the Corsair Vengeance RGB at 3000Mhz 16-18-18-36-1T using 1.4v rather than the 1.35v that the XMP profile is rated at.
I would like to see Corsair soon rolling out out of the box compatible kits for AMD Ryzen since the platform has gained unforeseen momentum and is popular among gamers aswell as content creators.
Overclocking the kit was impossible since no matter what voltage you put in or how much I tried to lower down the timings wrt frequency the result was unstable system or boot failures. So this kit is definitely not meant to be overclocked no matter which platform you are using and I'm not surprised to see this aswell since Micron ICs are not famous for being overclocking friendly but are meant to be used as they come out of the box!
AIDA64 Cache & Memory Benchmark
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 1.5
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.
Cinebench R15
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.
3DMark Fire Strike and Time Spy
Fire Strike by 3D Mark is a test suit that plays a cinematic scene to determine the FPS, GPU temperature and CPU temperature scaling everything via a cumulative score. It is a great tool to benchmark your GPU aswell as Memory since the render is GPU dependent and is highly sesnitive to RAM timings and frequency giving accurate measure as to how the components will perform in real life during graphics intensive tasks.
Rise of the Tomb Raider
The latest installation of Lara Croft in the spectacular Rise of the Tomb Raider 2016 with stunning graphics and rich location makes it a great game to benchmark with while enjoying in the due course! We used DX12 and settings were at Very High on full HD resolution.
GTA V
Grand Theft Auto V is an open world, action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. If you like open world adventure then this is something that you don't wanna miss with great graphics, catchy story line and unlimited potential for mods that keep coming in and out every now and then on the web. Our settings are as follows with very high quality, 16xAF, 2xMSAA and FXAA enabled.
Far Cry 5
Far Cry 5 was developed by Ubisoft Montreal and Ubisoft Toronto. The developers built this open-world action/adventure first-person shooter using the company's own Dunia Engine, originally derived from Crytek's CryEngine and first introduced alongside Far Cry 2 back in 2008. Naturally, continuous improvement makes it far more advanced now than it was a decade ago. Settings here are at High presets with no customization at all running at 1080p.
My Verdict
The Corsair Vengeance 16GB 3000Mhz memory kit is a decent offering coming in with a balanced set of features. The out of the box 3000Mhz frequency might not sound too exciting immediately but if we look at the RGB lights that it has to offer along with its integration to the famous Corsair Link utility then we have ourselves a thing to thoroughly consider especially if you are already a Corsair product user that makes use of the Link utility.
Coming in a wide variety of size and frequency this new range surely makes it self noticeable. Performance wise the kits are only Intel compatible and not meant for AMD Ryzen with no signs of a new lineup coming up even though the new Ryzen Gen 2 CPUs are retailing around the globe. Choice of Micron chips for this price point is something that I highly detest as one expects atleast Hynix if not Samsung B die for the premium price tag this kit comes with. I could make the kit work at 3000Mhz on AMD Ryzen but most people won't be making it a big negative mainly due to the choice of memory IC over here! I really don't know if I was the unlucky one who got this kit or its what Corsair is now rolling out since the Corsair website does not list the latency of this kit as that on my kit.It sure is a slouch at overclocking but does a good job for the stock frequency that it comes with falling in the same performance bracket as its competitors. The biggest short coming of this kit right now is its price tag which puts it in line with higher frequency kits which obviously don't offer any LEDs but do offer better performance & even with a few RGB models rated at higher frequency at a marginally higher price but which use Hynix or Samsung B dies, hence shrinking the Vengeance RGB's market slice a bit.
"Corsair has done a commendable job with the Vengeance RGB in almost every department including product integrity proving a holistic appeal to the kit. Price tag is on the higher end so if you use an Intel platform and want a Corsair memory kit to complete your all Corsair setup then the Vengeance RGB is the thing for you, if not then you'll be better off looking at other options too!"
Pros - - Brilliant RGB implementation
- Compatible with Corsair Link
- Striking looks
- Solid Build Quality
- 5 Years warranty
- Micron Memory IC
- A bit expensive
- Only compatible with Intel Platforms
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