Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 32GB 5200MHz Memory Review

DDR5 is the newest memory technology to hit the market. It has higher base clocks than DDR4 and lower power consumption due to the removal of the voltage regulator from the motherboard and moving it to the DIMM itself. The drawback for DDR5 at the moment is the timings, they are slower than DDR4 and could therefore allow DDR4 to pull ahead in certain tasks. Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 32GB 5200MHz Corsair has been selling RAM in the Vengeance range since 2011, it's been over ten years since we first saw it hit the market and it has been a popular budget option for gamers ever since, and today we have our hands on the latest iteration of Vengeance memory with the Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 32GB 5200MHz kit of memory. So it's time to find out if it still holds up as a good budget option for gamers or if the early adoption of DDR5 means spending more on it than it's worth. Packaging & Unboxing The front of the box is unapologetically Corsair, it's a very bright and vibrant yellow with a photo of the product and simple information on its specs. In this case, we have a 32GB dual-stick kit of 5200MHz memory. We see at the bottom of the box that it has Intel XMP profiles which should allow for an easy way to get the rated performance. The back of the box retains the bold yellow colouring and features a whole lot more information on the kit in a multitude of languages. There are two little cut-out windows that show the information on the back of the DIMMs themselves. Inside the box is very simple, it's a plastic housing that keeps the Ram from rattling around loosely in the box and holds it in the right position for the cut-out windows. A Closer Look The front of the DIMM itself looks very clean aesthetically and features a silver coloured metal plate that has the Vengeance logo printed onto it. The back of the DIMM has the same design but missing the silver metal plate and instead has a sticker containing information about the DIMM. Both sides of the DIMM have a very Corsair-styled pattern of repeating and alternating triangles in a different finish which means it catches the light very nicely Looking at the DIMM from the top down, as you are most likely to see it when it's installed, we can see a simple design with a Corsair logo and a split between the two halves of the heat spreader. The bare DIMM is very simple, it has eight D-Ram chips, each being 2GB, and the voltage regulator as part of the new DDR5 spec. The big change that separates DDR4 from DDR5 is the move of the voltage regulator onto the memory itself, it is no longer controlled on the motherboard; here we can see a closer look at how it looks on the PCB. If we take a closer look at the D-ram Chip itself, we can see that they are Micron ICs with the part number ISA45 D8BNJ 7RRQ. At the time of writing, not much is known about these chips, there isn't even a page on Microns own website about them. The final thing to look at physically is how they look installed in a memory slot. They look "gamer" but also modest and wouldn't look out of place in a professionals PC How We Test Here at eTeknix, we endeavour to disclose vital information regarding the benchmarking process so that readers can quantify the results and attempt to replicate them using their hardware. When it comes to our benchmarks in our reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory although there are a few exceptions. Remember that your choice of graphics card, CPU, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there's always a margin for error when using any software. Therefore, your experience may vary. Testing Your Own System Links are provided below, as well as the settings we use. We encourage you to not just look at how one product compares to any other, but how it compares to your own. If you're looking to build a new system, you should benchmark your current PC using our benchmarks and settings where possible. You should then look at the percentage improvement from your current hardware to the hardware we tested to give you a ballpark figure of how much an upgrade this will provide you with. Test System ProcessorIntel i9 12900kMotherboardMSI Z690 TOMAHAWK WiFiMemoryChanges Per ReviewGraphicsGigabyte RTX 3080 Gaming OC 10GBStorageSeagate Firecuda 530 2TBPower SupplyCorsair RM1000xSoftwareWindows 10 Professional 1909DriversNVDIA GeForce 497.29 DCH Software Used CineBench R23 (download)AIDA 64 Engineer (download)WPrime (download)3DMark (download)HWMonitor (download)CPU-Z (download) Methodology In our RAM reviews, we keep things relatively simple. We put the RAM kit that is being tested into our test system and benchmark it at its first XMP profile using a variety of benchmarks and tests. Once complete, we apply a reasonable overclock where possible and benchmark the same software with the overclocked values. The CPU clock speed is set to default for both runs. AIDA64 In AIDA64 the Vengeance got very similar results to the more premium Corsair Dominator Platinum kit, staying well within the margin of error. We can also see how this test favoured the clock speed of our memory over the tighter timings on the lower clocked DIMMs. In the write speed test, we saw the Vengeance kit below the Dominator Platinums again but this time with a smaller gap. The copy speed test had the Vengeance kit once again below the Dominator kit but with a slightly bigger gap in performance than in the write speed test. The latency test had the Corsair Vengeance in the best position, beating out even the Dominator Platinum kit that had been the best scorer in every prior test. Calculation Performance The Vengeance got second place to the Dominators once again here but only by a very small margin. In sharp contrast to SuperPi, WPrime had the Vengeance get to the very worst results as the test seemed to favour the tighter timings of the lower clocked memory kits. Rendering Performance Corsair is again in second place here but not to their own Dominator Platinum kit this time around. The highest scorer was actually the SK Hynix with the lowest scorer being the Dominator Platinum. Blender fared poorly for almost all of our tested memory. The only kit that didn't end up with the same results as the other kits were the SK Hynix kit which ended up being the fastest in this test. Whilst the Vengeance was second-worst in corona, It was four seconds faster than the worst scorer, and only two seconds behind the two kits tied for first place. FutureMark Performance Fire Stike was another test that seemed to favour faster timings over faster clock speeds and as a result, we had our two Corsair kits reach the bottom of the scoreboard, with the Vengeance beating the results of the Dominators. The tables had turned in Time Spy as the higher clocked kits ended up on the top of the scoreboard, but with the Vengeance only barely taking a lead over the Asgard AESIR. Shadow of the Tomb Raider Experience Lara Croft’s defining moment as she becomes the Tomb Raider. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Lara must master a deadly jungle, overcome terrifying tombs, and persevere through her darkest hour. As she races to save the world from a Maya apocalypse, Lara will ultimately be forged into the Tomb Raider she is destined to be. Available now on Steam. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Corsair took the top positions once again, but SK Hynix remained on their tail with only a single frame per second difference between it and the Vengeance. Metro Exodus Metro Exodus is a first-person shooter video game developed by 4A Games and published by Deep Silver. It is the third instalment in the Metro video game trilogy based on Dmitry Glukhovsky’s novels, following the events of Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light. It was released in 2019 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Stadia and in 2020 for Amazon Luna. A Linux and macOS conversion was released in 2021. An enhanced version of the game was released for Microsoft Windows on May 6, 2021, and was later released for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on June 18, 2021. Available now on the Epic Game Store and Steam Metro Exodus saw much the same results as Tomb Raider but with the higher clocked memory taking a slightly higher lead over the slower kits who both have the same score. Dirt 5 DIRT 5 is a fun, amplified, off-road racing experience created by Codemasters. Blaze a trail on routes across the world, covering gravel, ice, snow and sand, with a roster of cars ranging from rally icons to trucks, to GT heroes. With a star-studded Career, four-player split-screen, innovative online modes, livery editor and more new features, DIRT 5 is the next generation of extreme racing. Available now on Steam. Unlike the other gaming tests, Dirt 5 seemed to prefer faster timings over faster speeds, this led the Vengeance to hit the bottom of the scores, but admittedly only by one frame per second. Overclocking When overclocking memory, it can be done in a variety of ways including increasing the frequency, slackening timings and changing the relevant voltages. Of course, a combination of these measures can also be done to get the very best performance. When we overclock memory in our reviews we go for all out frequency. This is primarily done by tweaking the DRAM frequency within the BIOS. To do this, we take the default clock speed, which we set based on the JEDEC profile, or via XMP if the memory modules allow it, and then increase the DRAM frequency step by step while keeping timings and voltages the same as per the JEDEC or XMP profile. Once we increase the frequency, we boot into Windows and test stability using AIDA64's built-in memory benchmark test. If the overclock is stable, we boot back into the BIOS and further increase the frequency of the modules and re-test for stability. In total we managed to gain 200MHz in frequency on the Vengeance kit before the computer started crashing, the crashing we experienced was blue screening upon start-up. While we could have adjusted timings and voltage to try to reach higher speeds but our goal in overclocking isn't to reach the highest possible results but instead to find what an average user could expect from the most basic level of overclocking. The results come as no surprise as the higher clock speed of our overclocking gets better scores. The results become a surprise in the latency section, the higher clock speed had the worst latency even though between 5200MHz and 5333MHz there was an improvement in latency. How Much Does It Cost? The Corsair Vengeance DDR5 32GB 5200MHz kit of memory comes in at around £270 or $360. This price does sound absurd but it's worth remembering that this is the newest memory technology and with time the prices will come down, but at the moment we need to evaluate it for the price it is currently going for. Is this kit the most expensive DDR5 kit available? no, is it the cheapest? also no. Overview In general, the Corsair Vengeance DDR5 saw very respectable results, coming in just below the Dominator Platinum kit in most situations but managing to beat it in a select handful, it matches the performance you would expect when comparing its price to that of the Dominator kit. The design of the kit has a very clean and mature look to it, it would easily fit in any dark themed PC build that doesn't have an overabundance of RGB and Is even small enough to comfortably fit in a small form factor case, we had managed to get it into the NZXT H1 with no issues with clearance issues with the AIO tubing. Unless you happen to need a small form factor kit of memory or a higher base clocked kit without wanting to try your hand at some basic overclocking, I don't know if I can recommend this kit to you, the other kits we tested saw very similar results to each other for lower price tags when we look at the lower clocked kits. Comparing the Vengeance to the Dominator kit though is another story, the Dominator comes at a much higher price and has the additional cost of RGB to account for. Should I Buy One? In conclusion, I would say that whether you buy this kit or not comes down to two major considerations, the first of which is size, if you need a small form factor kit then this is absolutely the kit for you, I won't even hesitate to recommend it to you. The second consideration is if you don't care about the speed of the memory and just need something that works well but doesn't look ugly then I'd suggest maybe going for a cheaper kit and saving that little bit of extra money.