ocaholic - Memory > DDR3 > Corsair Vengeance Pro Series 2x8GB DDR3-2400 CL10 1.65V Review

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Closer Look

Although some of the Vengeance Pro models can be quite expensive, not being Corsair’s flagship lineup implies that these get no special treats when it comes to the packaging and additional accessories. So, the 2400C10 come in a simple plastic tray put in a simple paper box.

Being targeted mainly at enthusiasts who are likely to have custom builds with a specific theme, the Vengeance Pro lineup splits in four sub lineups; Blue, Gold, Red and Silver, the only difference between which comes down to the colour of the styling elements while the main features such as custom black PCB and heatspreaders remain the same.

The heatspreaders on Vengeance Pro modules are a two-part affair. The usual stuff is a pair of thin stamped aluminium plates designed to transfer the heat away from the memory chips on both sides via a strap of thermal pads. On each module these are accompanied by a detachable top, purpose of which seems rather vague as removal will not help to reduce the height in case one needs to maneuver the modules under a large CPU heatsink.

The 4.21 version number indicates that the memory should be based on Samsung chips of 4Gbit density. And indeed it is. The Samsung revision B is a common sight by DDR3-2400 10-12-12 rated models due to ability to clear this spec without any significant problems and being unable to do much more.

The SPD of the Vengeance Pro provides some basic information about the memory. It also features four JEDEC profiles up to DDR3-1333 and an XMP with DDR3-2400 using which a potential buyer won’t have to go though the routine of setting all the settings by hand.

Page 2 - Closer Look

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Photo Gallery

Page 3 - Photo Gallery

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Testing Method & Test Setup

To test the overclocking capabilities of the memory we are going to use Intel’s recently released Haswell platform. As memory overclocks are known to vary between different motherboards, we are going to perform the tests using two different platforms to be sure that our numbers are reliable.

Motherboard	ASUS Maximus VI Gene (BIOS 0607) Gigabyte Z87X-OC (BIOS F4)
CPU	Intel Core i7-4770K ES @ 4.0 GHz
Graphic card	ASUS GTX 580
Memory	Corsair Vengeance Pro CMY16GX3M2A2400C10R
SSD	Samsung PM840 Pro
PSU	Seasonic Platinum 660 Watts
OS	Windows 7, 64 bit SP1

Even though Haswell is very flexible on the memory frequency one can set, very few people actually do base clock (BCLK) overclocking on their daily setups. Therefore, instead of our previous procedure of fixing the voltage and raising the frequency in 10MHz steps we are now going to fix the frequency and minimize the voltage in 0.01V steps.
As usual, our stability method of choice is HCI Memtest. Since we are dealing with a 16 GB kit, we use eight 1500 MB instances and call things stable if we see all of them to go past 100% without showing a single error.
Not to get things too complicated, we only set the primary timings, command rate (1T) and the memory voltage by hand while the rest of the settings is left for the motherboard and SPD to agree on.

Results

The common practice on modern DDR3 memory is voltage only playing a role when it comes down to lowering the CAS latency with three other primary timings being voltage-unaffected. As it is known, Samsung chips (like the used on our Vengeance) are able to react to voltage changes up to 2.0V even though we are not fully certain whether values above 1.8V are suitable for daily application.
Either way, we could still get our kit to work stable at 1000MHz 7-9-10-27, 1100MHz 8-9-11-27 and 1200MHz 9-10-12-30 none of which were possible with a similarly rated G.Skill TridentX set we tested a year ago.
As usual with memory based on Samsung high-density chips, no full stability above DDR3-2500 possible, however, we were able to boot and pull a SuperPi 32M at 1300MHz with CL9 just for our own entertainment.

Page 4 - Results

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Conclusion

Checking up the price for 16Gb sets of Vengeance Pro 2400C10 in the EU via geizhals we see that offers start at 162 Euros excluding shipping. Despite Corsair having a respectable portfolio, this can hardly be called a bargain next to offers from Team Group and G.Skill who offer similar memory and service for close to a quarter off Corsair’s list price.
In the end, having tested two different models of the new incarnation of the Vengeance series we see that the new Pro lineup is business as usual with Corsair. While it does have some strong points and overall feels like a quality product, the pricing imposes a limit on the amount of situations in which it can be defined as good value for money.

Award

The Corsair Vengeance Pro CMY16GX3M2A2400C10R kit receives 4 out of five stars.