- Density: 16GB (4x4GB Module)
- Speed: 2133MHz
- Timing: 9-11-10-27
- Type: DDR3
- XMP: version 1.3
- Format: DIMM
- Pin Out: 240 Pin
- Voltage: 1.5V
EVGA X58 Classified 3XSLI motherboard (Model E760) BIOS 83
Intel Core i7 980X CPU @ 4.2Ghz
12GB Corsair DDR3 2133Mhz 9-11-10-27 @ 1T Command Rate @ 1.5V O.o
3 x EVGA GTX580 SC cards in 3-way SLI
4 x OCZ Vertex 2 240GB SSDs in RAID 0
Silverstone ST1500 1500 Watt power supply
The pros and cons of this product are as follows:
Pros
1) Operates at low latencies which is just incredible given the speed and amount of memory on each stick. The memory operators nominally at 9-11-10-27 @ 1T Command Rate...YES, that's 1T Command Rate which is not listed in the specifications (in my case, only 12GB since the X58 chipset on my motherboard only supports a tri-channel memory setup; the fourth stick is in my computer drawer for now until I upgrade to Intel's Ivy Bridge CPU in April!)
2) Operates at an incredibly low 1.5V (my old Corsair 6GB 2000Mhz DDR3 kit operated at 1.65V)
3) Operates just fine in dual, triple, and quad-channel memory configurations!
Cons
1) Cost yes, other companies also have 2133Mhz DDR3 12GB and 16GB kits, but nothing compares to Corsairs product quality, warranties and customer support!
2) Kit does not include the Airflow Pro LED Indicator ($55 sold separately, and yes Amazon sells it) luckily I already had one that I bought for my previous Corsair Dominator GT memory kit
3) Not much room left to overclock beyond 2133Mhz, but that's to be expected given the low latencies of the memory
Do yourself a favor and get yourself a set of this memory you won't be disappointed!
Buy Corsair Dominator 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 2133 MHz (PC3 17000) Desktop Memory (CMT16GX3M4X2133C9) Now
Even though this memory is rated at 2133 MHz, I think I've been told that when a Sandy Bridge processor is highly overclocked you can't expect the cpu's IMC to handle speeds as high as 2133 MHz. So right now I'm running 16 Gig, 4x4 at 1866 MHz. I have to use quite a bit more voltage than Corsair states (1.63v) to run at 1866 MHz and 1T, but so far it's performing well. One important thing for those trying to achive good speeds... you have to increase VCCIO (VTT) to run 4 sticks at 1866 MHz. When I run just two sticks, the default voltage of 1.1v is fine. But to get 4 sticks to run I had to up it to 1.12v to get it stable.Overall, I LOVE Corsair. They are a fantastic company with some of the most knowledgable tech support I've ever had the privilege to speak with.God bless quad channel 2133mhz RAM! Wow! Fast, blazing, whatever you want to call it, it's awesome! My Motherboard (Asus P9X79) only takes 1800mhz natively (awwh) and I won't overclock, so not even experiencing it's full potential!! Steps down beautifully, still sizzles. Great heat dissipation as always. Corsair products are well designed. Worth every penny!I recently built a high-end Home Theater PC (HTPC) and wanted 16GB of the fastest memory I could find. The Asus motherboard I used had lots of room to tweak and overclock every component, and I wanted something that would ultimately give me great performance without pushing it so far as to cause heat and stability issues. The Corsair memory seemed like a good place to start.
Out of the box, these give the impression of being very high quality. The connectors seem topnotch, and the casing, heat fins and so forth are definitely about the best machined parts I've ever seen for this type of product. Certainly, it dresses up any motherboard.
Unfortunately, I forgot to measure how much space I had from the bottom of my motherboard memory slots to the top of my case, and in my particular situation, I just couldn't make the Corsair fit. The rather large on-board heat sinks are just too tall to fit a low-profile HTPC case. Still, I was anxious to get this system running, so I installed the Corsiar anyway and ran the PC without the top of the case on for several days.
I was quite impressed with overall performance. For some reason, my Asus motherboard detected these puppies as 1333Mhz memory (and even at that speed, they performed well), but once I adjusted to rated speeds and timings (2133), it really picked up. By trial and error, I was able to tweak the voltages and timings a few percent further, but clearly these guys are running fast enough there isn't enough headroom to take it much further.
According to most of the memory benchmarks, this is the fastest memory I've ever had. If you're looking for serious maximum performance, you should definitely give these guys a try.
My only gripe is the heat sinks, which seem a bit overkill for the product. Even pushed to the limit, the Corsair never really got too hot, seldom exceeding 40 degrees (C) and keep in mind, that's in a fanless HTPC case. I'd love to see a clean way to remove the heat sinks...I would have definitely kept these in my HTPC.
Then, there's the price. While I commend Corsair for offering a high-performance and well-built product, it's triple the price of memory a tier down in performance. The fastest compromise I could fit in my case ended up being Kingston Genesis, about $79 here at Amazon. No doubt the Corsair is faster, but for the price difference, I could have easily gone to 32GB or maybe even 64GB. From an overall system performance perspective, 64GB of moderately fast memory might be a lot better than 16GB of blazing speed memory.
To be clear, these are all minor complaints, and my overall impression of Corsair's product is definitely favorable. In fact, although it didn't fit my HTPC, I *did* keep rather than return it, so it will definitely find a home in a different system of mine.
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Running this on an ASUS P8H77-V LE and it runs all 16GB just great. It defaulted to 1333MHz and using the BIOS tweeks I wasn't able to bump it all the way to 2133MHz, but I think that's probably to be expected with all four RAM slots being utilized. It's running stable at 1600MHZ and I'm fine with that. I doubt I would notice the difference. Since I'm not really interested in overclocking as much as having a stable system with lots of RAM to run 64 bit operating systems, this RAM does the job perfectly.
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