Corsair Vengeance 8GB 1866MHz C9 Review

[CryptiK]

I applaud your honesty, good to see. Nothing wrong with memory that wont overclock or wont allow timings to be tightened without 15% over stock voltage applied, but the point for Corsair here is clear - don't market it as an oveclocking product, or say its made for overclockers. In fact leave the word out of the marketing campaign and sales pitch altogether! For something to be able to claim it is designed with overclockers in mind, well, it must be able to overclock! The marketing team would probably try and weasel out of it saying the higher than JDEC standard MHz of the modules allows you to overclock your CPU or some such evasive statement, but we know they are just trying to reel in the gullible and make a quick buck. Poor form.

I have 30GB of Corsair Dominator Hypers here so I know they can make great ram and I've paid for it, but they should be straight up with their marketing from the top end products right down to the budget sticks with no BS.

[Ket]

Marketing might try such a evasive statement, but then we would fire a comment back along the lines of Thats why god invented memory dividers, we do not need faster clocked memory to OC our CPUs. When we buy faster memory, its because we want the extra bandwidth, and more pointedly, the product to do what it claims Anyway, I'm waiting on the Corsair chap to get back to me. I'm not sure how often he is on here so if he hasn't replied to my PM by the end of today I will send him a direct email

[BeepBeep2]

As most of you know, I've worked very closely with Asrock ironing the bugs out of their P67 and Z68 boards, this included testing multiple configurations in which I used Mushkin, Patriot, no-name and G.Skill memory, all of which operated flawlessly. In this case, the problem is extremely cheap ICs or at the very least ICs which would suit a 1600MHz kit being used on a 1866MHz kit where to put it bluntly the ICs come across simply as sub-standard. While I don't dispute some Vengeance kits will be good, that is going to be because they use much better ICs and that will be reflected by the revision number on the modules. The kit I tested is revision 8.16 as I already mentioned, and they certainly do not meet any of Corsairs claims.

@ Beep, as I said in the other thread, good high capacity kits in the UK are hard to come by . With the exception of the G.Skills the only other option I could find appeared to be the Vengeance kit. As there were no reviews for the 1866 Vengeance kit I figured what the hell aquire a kit and review it. Anyways, a offer has been made from a chap at Corsair to make sure I get a different revision kit, I've taken him up on his offer and just waiting to hear back from him, we shall see how the replacement fairs and I'll make any necessary amendments to the review.

I'm sure the Hynix kit will impress you a bit better, though I agree that using Nanya chips for these kits that barely do specification was a bad choice. Offering you a Hynix (not sure what else they'd use) kit is almost like trying to cover up the mistake...as if these Nanya kits weren't supposed to fall into an overclockers hands or something

[Ket]

Agreed totally. I don't even see Nanya used on value memory kits anymore so its unfathomable to me why Corsair would slap such poor ICs on a kit of memory that is advertised as being geared for overclockers and low voltage. I've been told by the Corsair fella that a RMA has been dispatched to my email and he will try to make sure I get a kit with Hynix ICs. Hopefully everything will go smoothly

[CryptiK]

Yeah, it might make it a bit better for you, but what about all the other poor suckers who purchased them and got the nanya IC's that barely run at spec?

[BeepBeep2]

Agreed totally. I don't even see Nanya used on value memory kits anymore so its unfathomable to me why Corsair would slap such poor ICs on a kit of memory that is advertised as being geared for overclockers and low voltage. I've been told by the Corsair fella that a RMA has been dispatched to my email and he will try to make sure I get a kit with Hynix ICs. Hopefully everything will go smoothly

I have a kit of 2x1GB DDR2 specced at 800 4-4-3-8 2.2v from SuperTalent here I bought in '08...guess what chips it had? Qimonda. Actually it was my fifth set, the first four didn't run spec at all. Newegg was kind enough to take them back.


Kit I bought in 07 was Promos and did 1040 4-4-4-8...kits before that were STT's highest bin GKX. (Often did 1100-1150 CL4) These were trash.

[l0ud_sil3nc3]

Both kits are ver. 5.11

I'm not sure why you think these are "high end"
I paid a total of $170 for 16GB.

agreed these are definitely not top shelf and I am not expecting anything other than what they are rated at especially for the price ($115 shipped for 16GB)

[Ket]

I called Corsair on what they claim the kit can do, which is designed to overclock, geared toward overclockers. This particular kit at least fails on every count of the Corsair claims. In lamens terms, thats called false advertising and is wholly illegal (at least in the UK).

[Ket]

Yeah, it might make it a bit better for you, but what about all the other poor suckers who purchased them and got the nanya IC's that barely run at spec?

I would suggest any poor sod who gets a kit of this memory and its Rev. 8.16 to return them immediately. If a product can barely run stock specifications, you know the kit has a high probability of failing in the future because the kit is already being pushed right to the edge.

[eXa]

Ah bugger, this is bad news.
First they sold the 1600mhz vengeance with Hynix BFRs, then they started using other worse ICs, so i have been going for the 1866kits instead (i have 2 v5.11 kits here) to be shure to get the Hynix IC. Now i cant buy them anymore either...
I guess Corsair dont want my money then, because now i HAVE to buy G.skill instead.

[zsamz_]

Ah bugger, this is bad news.
First they sold the 1600mhz vengeance with Hynix BFRs, then they started using other worse ICs, so i have been going for the 1866kits instead (i have 2 v5.11 kits here) to be shure to get the Hynix IC. Now i cant buy them anymore either...
I guess Corsair dont want my money then, because now i HAVE to buy G.skill instead.

i avoid buyin corsair cause of this
gskills all the way

[l0ud_sil3nc3]

i avoid buyin corsair cause of this
gskills all the way

agreed GSkill kits have never been better than now

[bassplayer]

That's great that Corsair is replacing these for you but as others have mentioned, it doesn't change the fact that these sticks can come with a terrible IC that barely does specifications. I'll stay away from this kit based on your original conclusion!

[Mungri]

Sounds almost as bad as my ver 2.12 sticks - 1600 Mhz Cas 9, 1800 Mhz Cas 10 and absolutely nothing better.

Corsair Website says - 'Great overclocking memory'.

Balls it is, I should have got G. Skills. Definitely wont be buying or recommending Corsair sticks again after these.

@ Beep, as I said in the other thread, good high capacity kits in the UK are hard to come by

Use Memoryc to buy your ram, they recently had the 2x4 Gb cas 7 1600 Mhz G Skill set at just £65. They sold out fast though and are now back at £100.

These might be worth looking at:

http://www.memoryc.com/computermemor...11dualkit.html

The timings might look horrible, but Cas 11 2133 Mhz indicates that if it scales well, you should get Cas 10 2000, Cas 9 1866, and Cas 8 1600 out of them too.

Theres nothing decent out for triple channel 1600 Mhz 4 Gb sticks other than these that cost far too much:

http://www.memoryc.com/products/desc...GB_/index.html

[chinook]

I have the 2.12 sticks but the 1600 cas8 kit. Not much of a difference. I thought it would be higher binned but i was wrong. The kit does 1600 cas 8 on 1.68v or 1920 cas 10 1.72v and that's it. It's nice to have 8gb to play with but if i were to make a purchase again, my money will not go to Vengeance line.

[CryptiK]

DDR3-1920MHz CAS10..............I think I just threw up a bit in my mouth

[Ket]

These 8.16 sticks very much warrent a big red avoid sticker, especially as Mr. Corsair man who said a RMA had been dispatched to my email address last week still hasn't made a appearance in my inbox, or the spam folder.

[Blindsay]

Damn, glad i saw this thread i was originally looking at these two kits

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820233166

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145329

and wasnt sure the $100 difference wasnt worth it but maybe now it seems it is hmmm

[Formula350]

I've said this before and I'll say it again: WHY can no other manufacturer offer DDR3 like what OCZ was releasing when they were bringing their product line to a close? They offered 2000+MHz kits at CL7, with 1866 @ CL6 (was like 6-8-6 I think, I would have to check if anyone really cared to know). I was so sad that none of those turned up being available in the US as I would've bought some, even though I don't need any!

I might be mistaken, but while digging for the stock voltage on these KingMax Nano modules I came across finding that the JEDEC standards require ICs to be capable of operating at up to 1.9V. "Operating at" is what I feel to be the key words since to me it implies "running at that voltage while causing no damage". Now, two things about that make sense to me: First, the reason I looked for the voltage of that kit is it's a "2133MHz" kit with no mention of voltage, and I figured they were 1.6V (apparently 1.5V, according to XMP profile *shrug*), yet I was running them at 1.8-1.9V since my older OCZ Reaper HPC DDR3-1600 CL7 kit are the 1.9V variety. Second, one would expect that 1.9V through any DDR3 would run particularly hot (the Reapers, despite having a heatsink, run warm enough worthy of mention). As a matter of fact, these KingMax sticks running at 1600 1.9V are barely warmer than ambient, much to my surprise!!

Also, my Nanya-made modules (not just IC) overclock rather well. They are 1066 7-7-7 ECC and I maxed out the controller on my old 555BE at 1790MHz, 1.78V auto timings (resulting in 11-11-11 2T though), passing DOS MemTest 4.10 *shrug* Might be like what Ket told me when I bought them a year and a half ago, that ECC modules are quality binned chips and perform well, which indeed the did. They've got a thermal diode as well, maxing at only 37C (bare IC). I should shove them back in now that I've got a 1090T and see how much further I can push them lol

[/ramble]

Good job on the bluntness though, Ket I'm sure it's the case with most manufacturers, that after modules have been on the market long enough to get good enough word-of-mouth penetration, they drop back to lower quality ICs which barely make the grade :\

I still think all this BS with timings going sky high is killing the memory market. If OCZ can do it (high speeds, low timing and voltage), anyone can -_- 1866 CL9 isn't going to be any better than 1600 CL7. Equation to show that:
(img = link to further in depth article for anyone interested)

1600 CL7 = 8.75ns latency.
1866 CL9 = 9.64ns latency!
Even worse,
1600 CL9 = 11.25ns latency

What would it take to run CL9 and reach the same latency of 1600@CL7?
Well, 9*2000 = 18000. Divide by 8.75ns since we want the speed, and we are left with 2057 (1028.5MHz DDR)

Not to say there isn't more to it and that 1866 CL9 couldn't outperform 1600 CL9 due to... well technicalities beyond my knowledge lol (but I figure time = time and you can only do so much in a certain amount of that time, and no way around that when working on the same architecture)

[/rant]

[/post] haha

[Ket]

ECC modules go through much more testing than non-ECC modules, ensuring they are much higher quality. I forget the exact numbers but for non-ECC memory I think something like 1 error every 200hrs is considered acceptable, whereas for ECC modules that figure is much higher, again I forget the exact numbers but somthing like 1 error every 10,000hrs. CAS latencies inevitably have to go higher with high density modules. Currently what I would consider a fix for high timings which isn't too far away from becoming reality (its a DDR4 spec) is for modules to get upgraded to true 128bit per module.

[eXa]

Also, my Nanya-made modules (not just IC) overclock rather well. They are 1066 7-7-7 ECC and I maxed out the controller on my old 555BE at 1790MHz, 1.78V auto timings (resulting in 11-11-11 2T though), passing DOS MemTest 4.10 *shrug* Might be like what Ket told me when I bought them a year and a half ago, that ECC modules are quality binned chips and perform well, which indeed the did. They've got a thermal diode as well, maxing at only 37C (bare IC). I should shove them back in now that I've got a 1090T and see how much further I can push them lol

1790 1.78v and 11.11.11.? 2t is just plain terrible...

[Ket]

If that 1066 ECC kit can hold 7-8-7 or 8-8-8 @ 1.6v 1600, thats actually not bad and just shows the much more rigorous testing ECC modules go through.

[eXa]

I dont think that has anything to do with testing, rather wich ICs used. almost everything can do 1600 11.11.11...

[chew*]

Ah bugger, this is bad news.
First they sold the 1600mhz vengeance with Hynix BFRs, then they started using other worse ICs, so i have been going for the 1866kits instead (i have 2 v5.11 kits here) to be shure to get the Hynix IC. Now i cant buy them anymore either...
I guess Corsair dont want my money then, because now i HAVE to buy G.skill instead.

i avoid buyin corsair cause of this
gskills all the way

Wanna bet these are nanya?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231456

And this is likely what you would get oced with nanya.........seems someone did not test every possible timing combo. I see no 2t at realistic timings which many 8 gig kits require. For instance my buddy has the above set i linked. 1 T is not realistic

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231473

If you want hynix, bend over.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231462

[BIKeINSTEIN]

Wow conclusion- similar experience as those with 1600CL9 Vengeance- I become Ket fan.
Maybe Corsair meant to say- this is "overclocked" memory for user who usually buy 1333MHz sticks.

Are those Vengeance heatspreaders made of plastic?
The XMS3 sticks i had were more solid/rigid, way heavier and cold to touch- i mean they were Aluminium i think.

That said, the 1600CL9 and 1866CL9 4GB sticks are OKish buys, for most users who usually buy cheaper/slower sticks, as long as the prices are low.