Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR3 2133MHz 16GB Memory Kit Review

In the mainstream enthusiast market for PC hardware, there are so many DDR3 memory kits to choose from, its no wonder we look at so many, filtering out the cream of the crop so that the number of options has been narrowed down. There is a group of people however that falls into a different market group, the extreme enthusiasts. These people strive to get the best of the best for their system. No matter what piece of hardware we look to buy, there are three different criteria that we have and every time you are only allowed to choose two of them – price, performance and quality. Broadly speaking the two most chosen criteria are price and performance, after all the vast majority of people want to get as much bang for their buck as they can. There are those that want an item with great quality and good price, but are willing to sacrifice some performance to get it. The last pair to choose is performance and quality and this is where we find most extreme enthusiasts looking, they want to get the best performance and quality they can, with no real concern to the cost.

Corsair has been producing high end memory kits for a number of years alongside their lines of cases, power supplies and cooling options. Of the memory kits they have in their catalogue, the Vengeance kits are some of the most popular with many different SKUs to pick from depending on specific user needs. Next up in the product line, we find their Dominator kits, which focus a little more on getting a more even balance between performance and quality. Earlier on in the year at CES, we heard the announcement that there was to be a new addition to the line-up, namely the Dominator Platinum. The new kit is set to be the pinnacle of Corsair’s memory line-up where nothing is sacrificed, and in fact we even see some additions made. With kits coming in a variety of capacities ranging from 8GB right up to 64GB and speeds from 1600MHz upto 2400MHz, there is certainly a few to chose from.

The kit that we have to look at today, is towards the middle of the new line-up in terms of capacity and speed and this is typically the type of capacity and speed that we commonly see purchased for most systems. Having used Corsairs Vengeance kits for quite a period of time in all of our test benches and seeing how well they perform, we have good hopes for the Dominator Platinum both in terms of stock performance and also seeing how much more they can do with their hand picked ICs that show signs of great performance potential over and above their rated speeds.