Test Methodology and Overclocking
The Vengeance LP modules are certainly attractive, but the Arctic White heatsinks don't sit particularly well with our above-pictured Sandy Bridge test rig. Cerulean Blue or Jet Black might have been a better fit, but neither of those operate at the ultra-low 1.35V.
It's nice to have the choice of colours, but Corsair's current line up is such that it's difficult to find the perfect solution for your build. If you're after a 1.35V solution, you're limited to the 8GB Arctic White kit. Want 4GB of Arctic White? That's currently not possible. Fancying a bit of low-profile Racing Red? You're out of luck, that colour's available only in standard, tall Vengeance form.
What is useful, however, is that the 26.25mm height of the Vengeance LP leaves plenty of room around the CPU socket, ensuring ample space for large CPU coolers.
Test equipment
To see how the 8GB Vengeance LP kit compares, we're putting it up against five alternative solutions of varying speeds and capacities. All six kits, our test bench and the benchmarks used, are detailed below.
Comparison Memory |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB | Corsair Vengeance 8GB | G.Skill Ripjaws-X 8GB | Crucial Ballistix Smart Tracer 4GB | Kingston HyperX Genesis 4GB | |
| Model | CML8GX3M2A1600C9W | CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 | F3-12800CL7D-8GBXH | BL2KIT25664ST1608RG | KHX2133C9AD3X2K2/4GX |
| Capacity | 8GB (2x4GB) | 8GB (2x4GB) | 8GB (2x4GB) | 4GB (2x2GB) | 4GB (2x2GB) |
| Speed | 1,600MHz DDR3 | 1,600MHz DDR3 | 1,600MHz DDR3 | 1,600MHz DDR3 | 2,133MHz DDR3 |
| Timings | 9-9-9-24 | 9-9-9-24 | 7-8-7-24 | 8-8-8-24 | 9-11-9-27 |
| Voltage | 1.35V | 1.50V | 1.60V | 1.65V | 1.65V |
| Price* | £50 | £50 | £95 | £60 | £75 |
| Cost per GB* | £6.3 | £6.3 | £11.9 | £15.0 | £18.8 |
| *Approximate, correct at time of writing | |||||
Test bench |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i5 2500K (3.3GHz, 6MB L3 cache, quad-core, LGA1155) | ||||||||
| Motherboard | Intel DP67BG | ||||||||
| Storage device | Crucial 256GB RealSSD C300 (SATA 6Gbps) | ||||||||
| Graphics card | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti (1,024MB) | ||||||||
| Power supply | Corsair AX750 | ||||||||
| Operating system | Windows 7 Ultimate SP1, 64-bit | ||||||||
Benchmarks |
|---|
| AIDA64 v1.60.1300 (download) |
| SiSoft Sandra 2011.4.17.43 (download) |
| MaxxMEM2 - PreView v1.91 (download) |
| HEXUS.PiFast (download) |
| Cinebench R11.5 (download) |
| PCMark Vantage v1.0.2.0 (download) |
| 3DMark 11 v1.0.1.0 (download) |
| Formula 1 2010 (homepage) |
| Just Cause 2 (homepage) |
| Power Consumption |
Overclocking
Overclocking on Intel's Sandy Bridge platform is a cause of contention among the enthusiast community, and it's clear to see why; overclocking is limited to multiplier-unlocked K-series CPUs, and even then there's little room to manoeuvre on other fronts.
When it comes to memory overclocking, Sandy Bridge offers little-to-no wiggle room for adjusting the system base clock, leaving users one option; increase the memory multiplier.
With that in mind, we're providing a very rough estimate of the overclocking ability of our comparison memory kits. We start by leveling the playing field by running all kits with modest 9-9-9-24 latencies, and then go up to 12x, 14x and 16x multipliers to see which modules maintain stability with voltage set at a maximum of 1.65V.
1,600MHz (9-9-9-24-2T) |
1,866MHz (9-9-9-24-2T) |
2,133MHz (9-9-9-24-2T) |
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|---|---|---|---|
| Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB (CML8GX3M2A1600C9W) |
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| Corsair Vengeance 8GB (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C90) |
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| Crucial Ballistix Smart Tracer 4GB (BL2KIT25664ST1608RG) |
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| G.Skill Ripjaws-X 8GB (F3-12800CL7D-8GBXH) |
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| Kingston HyperX Genesis 4GB (KHX2133C9AD3X2K2/4GX) |
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Like the tall-standing Vengeance memory, Corsair's LP solution struggles to get going on our Intel Burrage motherboard. The 8GB kit failed to run at 1,866MHz with 9-9-9-24 timings and in order to get the extra 266MHz of speed, we were forced to increase latencies to 11-11-11-27.
Corsair's adamant that the 1.35V Vengeance memory should show better overclocking potential, which suggests that our early review sample may not be quite up to spec. To be certain, the company is sending out a retail 8GB kit and we'll update our overclocking results as soon as it lands in the HEXUS labs.