Corsair Vengeance PC3-14900 8GB 1866MHz Memory Kit Review

Not too long ago, Corsair announced a whole new range of memory branded as Vengeance which would aim to focus on stability and compatibility in mind and with Sandybridge being the key choice and the moment and the new Bulldozer platform being released recently, memory like this is a prime example of what the market needs.

With X79 on the horizon, quad channel is set to make an appearance very soon, but for now, these dual channel kits still look to be able to offer affordable performance, no matter what platform you use, from AMD or Intel.

Today we’ve managed to get our hands on the Vengeance 1866MHz 8GB kit which features a tall set of stylish red heatspreaders, but also comes in a stylish black colour depending on your preference. The Vengeance branding takes centre stage and really looks like they mean business with their vented slats.

On the other side we find the same design but with a barcode sticker including the relevant figures that we all want to hear.

It hasn’t been released to be the fastest kit around, but each 4GB module boasts a modest 1866MHz speed with 9-10-9-27 timings at a low 1.5V making it a perfect kit for both the latest AM3+ and Z68 chipsets.

As we said, it’s not aiming to be the fastest modules around, as Corsair have their Dominator range of modules for that particular market and has its value range for the basics. The Vengeance range, tries to offer something inbetween, but we’re eager to see how it performs and how far it can be pushed, as we’ve seen great things from Corsair before, so fingers crossed for these.

Test system:

• Asus Maximus IV Extreme-Z
• Intel Core i7 2600k
• Gigabyte GeForce GTX 580 SOC
• Corsair H80
• Corsahir HX1050W
• Kingston V+100 128GB SSD
• Lian Li T60

We would like to thank Asus, Corsair, Kingston and Lian Li for supplying us with our test system components.

Being aimed at a market where compatibility is key, we had no issues getting these modules running at stock through the use of the embedded XMP settings, and taking a look at the stock performance we saw a read speed of 19749 MB/s, write speed of 17944 MB/s, copy speed of 21288 MB/s and a memory latency of 44.8ns.

The numbers were slightly better than what we’ve seen on other memory kits of the same speed and this comes down to the slightly improved timings over the competition.Overclocking is always an interesting story with RAM as there are so many variations and factors to it, depending on how far you want to go. We decided to see how far the memory could be pushed in a no holds barred scenario.

After booting at stock speeds, we decided to slacken the timings off and up the voltage and try to go straight in at 2133MHz and to our surprise, went straight into Windows and ran absolutely perfectly, but craved more, and with the assistance of the BCLK, we were able to clock the memory even further to an astonishing 2145MHz at 11-11-11-29-2T @ 1.65V.

We are sure that the voltage could be dropped down ever so slightly, but on Sandybridge, 1.65V is still a safe limit and the latencies were perfect being loose as Sandybridge focusses more on bandwidth, which we certainly had in clear abundance.

Revisiting AIDA64 to see how things were affected, we saw a read speed of 21736 MB/s, write speed of 20208 MB/s, copy speed of 23848 MB/s and latency dropping to a low 41.9ns. These results are truly fantastic and exceeded all expectations that we were expecting.

Corsair really have excelled with this kit, and we can say that since we have been using and testing it extensively for quite some time and with the added bonus of it matching both our Crosshair V Formula and Maximus IV Extreme-Z, it really blends in well.

It’s not the fastest kit around at stock but does provide 8GB of stable and compatible memory and at a low price of £56.16 which you can’t go wrong with.

When we looked at the potential of how they overclock, we nearly fell off of our seats, as we weren’t expecting an affordable kit with stability in mind to get anywhere near to what we achieved.

With 2 colours to choose from, you’re bound to find something to match the rest of your system and provide a good amount of performance at the same time, and being aimed at both AM3+ and Z68 platforms, it really will cater for you, whatever type of system you have, and whatever type of user you are.

The Corsair Vengeance range of memory provides users with compatability and functionality at a price that is affordable, and if you want something a bit extra, Corsair cater for that too with their fantastic overclocking ability that we saw today.