CORSAIR Vengeance Pro 32GB
2,666MHz C12 Kit
RRP: $599.99 | Website: www.corsair.com
Test Machine
• INTEL Core i7 4960X
• ASUS Maximus VI Extreme
(4802)
• ASUS ROG Poseidon
• Corsair Force LS 240GB SSD
• Cooler Master Silent Pro M2
1500W
• Windows 7 64-bit SP1 (FW
334.67)
T
here are many weird
and wonderful things
that can be said about
INTEL’s Haswell CPUs, this is
especially true for competitive
overclockers. Despite the
revolutionary manufacturing
process and the FIVR, the clock
speeds are by and large lower
than those on Ivy-Bridge CPUs
and of course even lower than
those of CPUs based on SandyBridge processors.(Air only!)
This was particularly true at
the beginning of the product
lifespan, but as usual, clock
speeds have improved since
then. That aside, what has
26 The OverClocker Issue 28 | 2014
always been impressive about
Haswell CPUs is the IMC which
is by far the best one or the
most capable in INTEL’s history.
Suddenly everyone fortunate or
unfortunate enough (depending
on your needs) to own Hynix
MFR memory kit was reaching
speeds in excess of 4GHz. Single
channel or otherwise, that is a
very impressive showing for the
IMC and obviously the memory
ICs as well. So as many of you
remember, for the longest
time it was memory frequency
record, after record courtesy of
this combination.
With a shortage of other
memory ICs it was inevitable
that these would be the
ones chosen going forward,
not only by CORSAIR but other
memory vendors as well. All of
which leads us to this set here.
You will recall that in issue 26
we took a look at the 2x8GB
C11 kit of the same frequency.
Initially we had low expectations
but upon testing we found the
kit to perform admirably and
overclock very well indeed. In
retrospect, that kit was even
better than we gave it credit
for at the time, because since
then we have been able to reach
even higher clock speeds and
improve performance as well. If
you didn’t get to read that review
you can read it here.
This kit in contrast has double
the capacity. Here we have lots
of memory for a very fair price
(especially in this climate). It
may only be C12 but you are
getting lots of memory and it is
2,666MHz. You may be thinking
this memory uses the same
chips as the set mentioned
earlier. If so, the results
would be fairly predictable.
Unfortunately, this kit uses
Hynix MFR ICs instead. Before
you write it off however, it is
double sided; thus it does not
suffer the tragic performance
associated with single sided
DIMMs. This should come as
a relief to many especially
those who seek out real world
performance and are less
interested in just performing
validation runs at the highest
possible frequency. After all,
why buy a 32GB kit if that’s all