Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB 2800MHz DDR4 Review

Introduction

With every new DDR memory release comes a decline in operating voltage and a decrease in heat output. In the transition from DDR2 to DDR3 and now DDR4 we’ve seen voltages plummet and having memory heatsinks is no longer necessary. This allows memory brands to release high performance memory kits in compact low profile form factors that require minimal cooling. Corsair’s Vegeance LPX 2800MHz 16GB DDR4 kit is a great example of this – it boasts a super-high frequency yet it still has a low profile design making it ideal for use in compact system builds and with large tower heatsinks that are definitely going to be necessary to cool some of Intel’s swanky new Haswell-E Core i7 5XXX processors.

What’s even more interesting about this particular kit is the XMP 2.0 feature. As you may or may not know when you use memory higher than 2666MHz with Haswell-E CPUs the base clock has to be changed from the default 100MHz. Corsair’s Vengeance LPX memory actually has an XMP profile which not only sets the memory frequency, timings and voltage but it also sets the CPU strap and base clock to the correct level. This is ideal because if you’re only a modest PC user having to set all those things yourself is quite daunting, the task even daunted me slightly when overclocking.

2800MHz goes well beyond the sweet spot of high performance DDR3 which was around 2000-2400MHz, we should expect to see some excellent performance from this new Corsair kit but the real question is: how well can most applications take advantage of this extra memory frequency? Let’s find out in today’s review.

Specifications

Packaging and Accessories

We won’t dwell on the packaging too much as it is very plain and simple: four modules neatly packed into a small rectangular box. This kit is a quad-channel variety so each module is 4GB in size.

A Closer Look

Corsair’s new Vegeance LPX range looks very similar to the DDR4 Vengeance LP range. In this case they actually have metal heat-spreaders not plastic ones but that aside the aesthetic similarities are striking. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing either: the design is clean and the fact Corsair offer a variety of colours (black/blue/red) is also a big advantage.