INTRODUCTION

   As far back as i can remember RAM was one of the 4 most important "ingredients" when building a brand new PC system right alongside the CPU, mainboard and the graphics card. This to date hasn't change but even though just 5 years ago most consumers thought that having 8GB in their systems was more than enough (some even went as far as to consider it overkill) today even 16GB is not quite enough for many applications, gaming included. Granted 16GB RAM kits are still extremely popular and are found in the majority of the current generation gaming systems today (our previous primary test rig also has that amount of RAM installed) but 32GB and above are what most professionals and enthusiasts aim for currently. Well since we finished building our test rig a while back, we decided to gather several DDR4 quad kits to test starting with the Dominator Platinum RGB 32GB 3200MHZ CL14 (4x8GB) kit by CORSAIR.

   Founded in 1994, CORSAIR has grown from pioneering the high-performance DRAM market into one of the world’s leading providers of high-performance PC peripherals and components. CORSAIR offers a complete range of products to equip gamers, enthusiasts and e-sports athletes, including mechanical keyboards, precision gaming mice, wireless headsets, high-performance components that gamers use to build gaming PCs, and the CORSAIR ONE fully-integrated gaming PC. With a company-wide commitment to quality, innovative design, advanced features and high performance, CORSAIR products have won thousands of media and industry awards, earning their place in gamers’ hands and PCs following years of development and engineering by a team dedicated to building great products they themselves would want to use.

   The Dominator Platinum RGB DDR4 RAM kit is Intel XMP 2.0 certified and is currently available in 16/32GB dual-channel and 32/64/128GB quad-channel kits with frequencies all the way up to 4800MHZ and timings as low as CL14 (3000MHZ CL15, 3200MHZ CL14/CL16, 3600MHZ CL16/CL18, 4266MHZ CL19 and 4800MHZ CL18). These high frequencies coupled with the low timings are achieved largely thanks to the 8GB B-Die Samsung memory chips CORSAIR chose to use and of course the innovative design of the modules themselves (10-layer PCB / anodized aluminum heat spreader with Dual-Path DHX cooling technology). The 12 individually addressable CAPELLIX RGB LEDs (first unveiled in this year's CES according to CORSAIR these are not only 60% brighter compared to regular SMD LEDs but they also use 40% less power) located at the top of the anodized aluminum housing can be controlled via CORSAIR's iCUE software (17 lighting effects / lighting speed and direction). Last but certainly not least the Dominator Platinum RGB DDR4 RAM kits are covered by a limited lifetime warranty (for complete peace of mind as CORSAIR puts it). 

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

The Dominator Platinum RGB DDR4 32GB 3200MHz CL14 Quad-Kit arrived inside a octagonal box that has a product picture at the front along with the number of modules, frequency and the CORSAIR, iCUE and Intel XMP Certified logos.

Turning the box around we find the features list in 6 different languages.

The box contains two pieces of foam inside which are 4 plastic covers that contain the 4 RAM modules.

Just the modules are inside the package and although that's fine with us it would be nice if CORSAIR had included a case badge.

THE DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB 32GB 3200MHZ CL14

The CORSAIR Dominator Platinum RGB modules feature 48mm tall anodized aluminum heat spreaders (each module measures 56mm top to bottom) that have the CORSAIR logo at the front and the product name on top.

There are 5 CAPELLIX RGB LED's on each side of the heat spreader and 2 underneath the model name (center).

CORSAIR has placed their logo on both the front and rear of the anodized aluminum heat spreaders but at the rear we also find a small sticker with the serial number, frequency, timings, number of modules in the kit and amount of RAM.

We were surprised that CORSAIR didn't choose to mount more CAPELLIX RGB LEDs on the Dominator Platinum RGB (considering that they use 40% less power compared to regular LEDs) but even though we think that they look great (and right at home in our brand new test bench).

Thanks to the popular Thaiphoon Burner program you can see detailed information about the Dominator Platinum RGB kit we’re testing today.

ICUE SOFTWARE

As mentioned earlier you can download CORSAIR's iCUE software to monitor the modules and adjust their 12 CAPELLIX LEDs.

Just like with other products by CORSAIR the moment you launch their iCUE software it will detect all compatible devices, list them on the left side and check for available firmware updates (as you can see it did have one for our kit).

The first tab you will come across once you click on the module picture shows the current temperature of all installed modules.

There's also a layout tab which allows you modify the spots where you have installed the modules (if not detected properly, in our case it was however).

From the lighting effects tab, you can use one of the 17 available lighting effects and change the speed and direction of those effects.

You can also check the current timings from the timings tab (we had the RAM set at 3400MHZ during these screenshots).

The graphing tab basically logs the temperature of the modules over set periods of time.

From within the notifications tab you can set various alarms as seen from the above picture.

Once again from the dashboard drop-down menu you can monitor your entire system, RAM included.

You can enable individual LED control from the settings down-down menu (only downside is that unlike the 17 available effects it can't be saved on the modules).

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY

   Thanks to XMP profiles the only thing one needs to do in order to run this RAM kit at its advertised frequency, timings and voltages is to choose/enable that XMP profile from within the BIOS and reboot. That being said if you're into overclocking you may not wish to use the main XMP profile but instead to choose your very own frequency, timings and voltages to achieve even higher performance numbers and that's exactly what we'll also be doing during our DDR4 tests. To be more specific aside testing each kit with its XMP profile we will also be upping the voltages (up to 1.4V max) and frequencies (200MHZ increments) until we find the maximum achievable stable frequency. We also thought about upping voltages and reducing timings instead of increasing the frequency of the modules as high as it can go (always stable and without going over 1.4V) but the end results are pretty much identical. However, do take into account that all mainboards and memory kits are not identical so although in all likelihood you should be able to hit the frequencies, we do you may also be able to go even higher or not quite as high.

   As for the how we'll be testing each DDR4 Quad-Kit to arrive in our lab well there aren't that many benchmark programs that only test RAM (or at least RAM and CPU without anything else coming into play) but we got most of them and so you will be seeing results from following benchmarking programs, AIDA64 Engineer Edition, Cinebench Release 20, MaxMemm2 (because we are getting low performance numbers this doesn't seem to play well with our test rig - probably because of the X299 architecture - but we decided to include it regardless), Passmark Performance Test 9, Sisoftware Sandra Titanium and WPrime v1.55 (we may also add a couple of game tests once we finalize the GPU model for this test rig). All tests are repeated a total of 6 times after which the average numbers get recorded into our charts.

TEST RESULTS - XMP PROFILE

TEST RESULTS - OVERCLOCK

As you can see from the above screenshots, we managed to raise the frequency of the Dominator Platinum RGB 32GB 3200MHZ Quad-Channel Kit all the way up to a stable 3800MHz CL17 (3400MHZ 1.37V / 3600MHZ 1.38V / 3800MHZ 1.4V).

CONCLUSION

   Before we follow-up with our conclusion I feel that I need to apologise to CORSAIR and several other manufacturers because it took several months for us to finalize the hardware configuration for our new primary test rig (and the RTX card we were expecting hasn’t even arrived, good thing we didn’t need one for RAM tests) and like if that wasn't enough of a setback we then had some issues with the hard tubes of the M360 Plus water cooling kit by Thermaltake (had to wait for a bend kit and an warm air blower - we also had to wait for a few extension fittings but instead we decided to improvise as you may have noticed from our pictures) and we also couldn't figure out if MaxMemm2 just doesn't like X299 mainboards or if our Gigabyte X299 Aorus Gaming 9 was defective. With that out of the way it's clear from our charts and everything else mentioned in this review that the Dominator Platinum RGB 32GB 3200MHz DDR4 Quad Kit has nothing to fear even from much higher frequency kits since it can easily hit 3800MHZ CL17 (and if upping the frequency a lot is not your thing you can always achieve CL14 at 3400MHz just by going to 1.38-1.39V). Performance aside however the Dominator Platinum RGB is also a very good looking memory kit not only because of the 12 individually controllable CAPELLIX RGB LEDs located on top of each module and their 17 available effects but also because of the large anodized aluminum black heat spreaders. Of course, just like many other models in the market the tall heat spreaders may become a double-edged sword in some PC cases (clearance issues with top radiators and fans) so always keep that in mind.

   Currently the Dominator Platinum RGB 32GB 3200MHZ CL14 Quad-Channel kit (4x8GB) by CORSAIR retails directly from them for USD549.99/534.99Euros so it’s not exactly “cheap”. Still you will have a hard time finding a CL14 Quad-Channel kit running at 3200MHz and with the ability to hit 3800MHZ (CL18) not to mention the looks of the Dominator Platinum RGB. That being said however price is indeed a downside and unless that changes, we don’t expect many people (aside overclockers and enthusiasts) to look at this particular kit (not when the CL16 kit costs almost half). That being said this kit is hard to surpass at everything else and for that it certainly deserves our Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality (Samsung B-Die / 10 Layer PCB)
- Design (Black Anodized Aluminum Heat Spreaders)
- CAPELLIX RGB LEDs (60% Brighter / 40% Less Power)
- iCUE Software (17 Available Lighting Effects / Temperature Monitoring)
- Performance (3200MHZ CL14 / Up To 3800MHz CL17)

CONS

- Price (For Some)
- Tall Heat Spreaders