Corsair Dominator Platinum 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 2666MHz C15 Desktop Memory review

Corsair Dominator Platinum 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 2666MHz C15 Desktop Memory review

Corsair Dominator Platinum 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 2666MHz C15 Desktop Memory review

About this product

Product Identifiers
GTIN
4056572724802, 0843591069571
BRAND
Corsair
MPN
CMD16GX4M2A2666C15
UPC
0843591069571
eBay Product ID (ePID)
2254349696

Product Key Features
Model
CMD16GX4M2A2666C15
Capacity per Module
8 GB
Number of Modules
2
Bus Speed
PC4-21300 (DDR4-2666)
Form Factor
DIMM
Total Capacity
16 GB
Type
DDR4 SDRAM
Number of Pins
288

Dimensions
Weight
0.49 pounds

The world’s most advanced DDR4 memory modules
Dominator Platinum high-performance DDR4 memory is designed for world-class Intel X99 and 100 Series system builds. It's built with hand-screened ICs and incorporates patented DHX cooling for reliable performance in demanding environments. And, extracting maximum performance is easy -- built-in XMP 2.0 support gives you trouble-free, automatic overclocking. Dominator Platinum modules work with the Corsair Link system for temperature monitoring, and you can even enhance the subtle white LED lighting by adding a light bar kit to match or contrast it with your system.

Media

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Designed for Intel X99 and 100 Series systemsDominator Platinum DDR4 modules are designed to take advantage of the improved clock speeds, bandwidth, and capacity of the DDR4 platform. Our modules are tested across multiple X99 and 100 Series motherboards for reliably fast performance.

XMP 2.0 support for trouble-free, automatic overclockingDominator Platinum is fully compatible with the XMP 2.0 standard supported by Intel X99 and 100 Series-based motherboards. Turn it on, and it will automatically adjust to the fastest safe speed for your Dominator Platinum kit. You’ll get amazing, reliable performance while maintaining full data integrity.

Get more performance and Corsair Link control with a Dominator Airflow Platinum LED fan
Dominator Platinum DDR4 modules already have generous overclocking headroom, but to push them to extreme performance levels, you need active cooling. The Dominator Airflow Platinum is designed for quiet operation and optimal cooling efficiency, and it works with Corsair Link for customization and control. It’s included with some Dominator Platinum kits and optional with others.

With Corsair Link, you can control PWM fan speed directly from your Windows desktop, and change the built-in LEDs from their default red to any of 16.8 million colors to indicate fan speed, ambient system temperature, or GPU temperature. Or, just set the LED lighting color to match your system or your style.

Compatibility tested across X99 and 100 Series motherboards for reliably fast performance
Part of our exhaustive testing process includes performance and compatibility testing on most every X99 and 100 Series motherboard on the market – and a few that aren’t.

Designed for Enthusiasts. Backed by Corsair.World-famous reliability and performance
There's a reason why world-champion overclockers, extreme gaming enthusiasts and high-end system builders all trust Corsair for high-performance memory that they can install with confidence and pride. Whether you're breaking your own records or you're simply building a dream gaming rig, you can count on Corsair memory.

Lifetime limited warranty
Your performance investment is protected. All of our memory products are backed by a limited lifetime warranty.

The Corsair Advantage
With a long history of building enthusiast-grade memory and components, we've earned a reputation for quality, compatibility, and performance. Need help? We're available by phone call, email or web forum.

- Corsair's Dominator memory has always been their top of the line stuff. It's always focused on aesthetics and also performance. Here today, we've got their Dominator Platinum RGB. Now, I recently came into the H115i RGB Platinum cooler, and I absolutely loved it. Yes, it was expensive, but it wasn't just the best cooler in Corsair's lineup, it was pretty much, I felt, the best all-in-one out there at the moment bar none. As we've seen the Platinum RGB logo on the

new Dominator memory, it definitely has a lot to live up to. Now, I'm not gonna beat around the bush or beat you guys around the bush, this stuff is more expensive than typical DDR4 memory. It comes in many different flavors and sizes, I'll put a price list up here for you guys, so you can check it out yourself. So, what we've got here, first of all the build quality, forged, anodized aluminum. It's got also black on black PCB, and that PCB itself is 10-layered PCB.

The more layers you have on the PCB, the better it is for reducing noise, and hence better for over-clocking. Coupled with that, the top part is then made of die-cast zinc alloy, and the fins are stamped aluminum. So you can really start to see that a lot is going into the design of this, not just to make it look pretty, but also to perform better where Corsair's emulating their DHX dual-channel cooling technology, which apparently has the metal closer-integrated to the

DIMMs themselves, which then initially draws away the heat and then helps to draw away the heat further compared to other DDR4 memory. I will be putting this to the test later in this video. But also, another point about this Dominator memory is it features new Capellix RGB lighting system, with 12 individually back-lit zones, that don't need any extra cables, they just fit into your DIMM slots and run off the DIMM slots' power itself. I'm told this lighting system

is pretty much exclusive to Corsair at the moment, and of course, as you can see in some of the B-roll already, it allows the light to come through more evenly, brighter, and also doing so using less power. So, basically, in a nutshell, this is where technology's going, and as it stands, this RAM is going straight onto my test system. We're gonna start over-clocking! (calm techno music) So now, just finished the temperature test and I decided to test the Dominator Platinum here, versus the only other four sticks that I had on hand that would accept the exact same

XMP profiles as the Dominator, and that was the G.SKILL Flare X memory. And so, four sticks versus four sticks, the Corsair came in with 49 degrees, 50 degrees, 49 degrees and 46 degrees after 15 minutes of testing, and then on the surface with my IR camera, got 47 degrees. This is in a 29 degree ambient environment, so it is the Aussie summer, but think of it as the worst-case scenario, which in this case, for stress testing, is actually a really good thing. Moving

on to the G.SKILL memory, came in with 57 degrees, 59 degrees, 58 degrees, 55 from software readouts, then with the temperature sensor, it read 61 degrees on the surface, that was the max temperature reported, so the Corsair memory is coming in a lot better when it comes to keeping the temperatures down. This is probably due to the heat sinks themselves weighing 98 grams versus 45 grams in total for the memory on the Corsair Dominator versus the G.SKILL Flare

X. Now, in terms of other memory that G.SKILL have, I'm pretty sure that the Flare X isn't their best memory that they have for sale, I think their Trident Z Royal stuff is currently the best memory they have, but I don't know how that will perform. They said they were gonna send some over a while ago, never got any in here to test. But regardless, if you guys know another memory set that you'd like to see the Dominator go up against, let us know in the

comments section below. But, as it stands, this is really good news for the Dominator Platinum RGB, because it means that it's not just aesthetics and bling. They actually do put a lot of time into making the performance top-notch. But that aside, let's check out the over-clocking on this stuff. (calm techno music) So, after over-clocking with DDR4 memory, it can get finicky, it can get a little bit crazy, and that's what happened this time around. We did get two of the sticks to

4 gigahertz at CL 19, at 1.4 volts. That was really impressive. Then, the other pair got to 3.9 gigahertz at the same CL 19, 1.4 volt. But when I tried to put all four sticks in together, it would only go to 3.6 gigahertz effective, so maybe it's the board in this case, I mean DDR4 memory can get really finicky when it comes to over-clocking and setting in certain things, but in the

case of this Dominator memory here, at least if you get it in a pair on most motherboards, this stuff here goes to 3.9 gigahertz. So it's really impressive speeds, especially at CL 19. So, this stuff for the test bench is definitely looking like it's going to be really good when it comes to testing out, not just the CPU, which can get to 5 gigahertz, the 1900K, but also this Dominator stuff, which can theoretically should get to 3.9 gigahertz across all four sticks. But in this case, it's just not, because it's just been released, maybe ASRock have to update the BIOS on the

Taichi Ultimate. With that aside, let's go over now and check out the RGB bling on the top of this memory and how you can control it, what patterns they have, and what you can do with the iCUE software. (calm techno music) Now's the time to look at aesthetics and controlling those aesthetics. The iCUE software is pretty much the best in the game for controlling RGB software. You've got layers, but within those layers, you can control different settings and different patterns. In this case, you've got 16 to choose from, there's also the audio which will

react if you've got a Corsair pair of headphones plugged in. My personal favorites in this case were the sequential effect and also the stack, as well as color wave. And you can control the speeds and directions. Also in terms of setting up your DIMMs in order, you can get a visual confirmation of the order and what motherboard and set the direction of the DIMMs themselves. So, you can get exact control in the iCUE software itself. It's very detailed, and

they've even improved it to the point where it's much more responsive than it was when I took a last look at it when I was testing out the previous DDR4 memory with RGB on it. It's come a long way, to the point where it's practically near perfection. I really like what Corsair have done with the iCUE, and also the control on this DDR4 memory. However, one thing with the DDR4 memory itself, this time around I couldn't opaque the layers out, in other words, I

couldn't have multiple layers in use with the DDR4 memory. Perhaps that's a limitation without plugging in additional cabling to the DDR4 memory, which I'm sure nobody wants. Anyway guys, in a nutshell, the Dominator Platinum RGB memory is simply the real deal. It's not just aesthetics as we saw with the over-clocking and temperatures, it's also the performance as well. Yes, it will be some of the most expensive memory out there, but granted, you get what you pay

for. If you pay for this memory, you're gonna simply get the best in the business. That's what I'm slowly starting to realize with the Platinum branding on Corsair's products. It's not just the best product within their own lineup of products, it's pretty much the best in the industry for whatever you're gonna use it for. For instance, the H115i, as I said in the intro, the Platinum RGB, that thing's amazing, this memory here, absolutely amazing.

the corsair dominator platinum 16 gigabytes ddr4 running at 3000 megahertz the capacity is 16 gigabytes ddr4 is a quad channel 4x4 288 pin ddr4 the speed it's 3000 megahertz cache latency it's 15 the time means it's 15 17 17 and 35 the voltage it's 135 1.25 it's unbuffered it's a quad channel kit the HX cooling intel XMP has got the light bar in polished aluminum and it's compatible with intel x 99 MC 170 right now the price it's very cheap at the moment so get it before it's too late why did I choose to get this ramp kit well it has never fell on

me not saying that all the RAM kids have fell on me but to be honest it's a personal preference the design matches almost any team build that you do and to me it looks like serious business like I said it's a personal preference right here what you're looking at me doing it's I'm putting my baby sideways and I'm ready to install my RAM and I also want to show you how it looks take a good look at that that is looks gorgeous then after that I come over to the body settings

and I turn on my overclock my XMP make sure my settings they are the way they're supposed to be at 3000 megahertz check my over clocks and everything else the settings and then I go and do my stress test I run my stress test for about four to five hours I just let the computer I led a 264 ticker business you are seeing right there 1500 megahertz see that right there you're seeing 1500 megahertz which is double data rate which is pretty much at 3,000 you can see right there

tell me 3000 so what I do right here I hit my stress test and I'm good to go I test it and this ROM is performing like it is supposed just amazing 3000 megahertz my first computer build was 1333 so and I didn't know much about it but from 1333 I am now on the 3000 I was going

to get the 3200 but honestly it's pointless to me because pretty much all I do with this computer it's game and I do slide editing so right here .

Corsair Dominator Platinum 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 2666MHz C15 Desktop Memory review

the corsair dominator platinum RGB memory corsair is known for their Dominator series as being you know more high-end well-built memory that you can get this is a 16 gigabytes and it's 32 hundred megahertz it's based on samsung memory die and it has timings of fourteen fourteen fourteen thirty four and since it's based on samsung it should be able to overclock fairly well and you know they've changed the design of their new of this memory from the

previous dominators some people might like it some people might not might not like it i personally like it i like a lot of the customization that you can now do with this memory and the LED lights so what we're gonna do is put in the system boot it up and i'm gonna show you some of the things that can do in the i q-- software so i have the IQ software loaded up here on my computer so here you can see the memory showing up in the devices on the home screen you

can actually see you know there's all your devices and then you can select the memory from here and it actually shows you the temperature of each month of each module and then under the lighting effects section this is where you can actually you know play with the memory and you know change the effect and the colors and things like that so like right now I have it on rain and this is the one that I've been using since I got the memory I quite like the effect it kind of

makes it a you know your build look a little different and from here you can see the timings so as you can see I've actually overclocked the memory so I'm running it at thirty four hundred megahertz with the default timings of fourteen fourteen fourteen thirty four which is pretty good these are very this is a very good overclock considering I have kept timings a pretty low

usually a most ddr4 memory in the 3200 of 3400 megahertz range you're looking at Layton sees of like 15 or 16 sometimes even 17 in fact I think courses older memory was around 16 or 17 so the new memory that they come out with is both faster and you can overclock it you know pretty well considering you don't even have to you know make any adjustments to the late latency so this is all good for performance and like I said I like to design the memory I think it

looks really slick it looks very you know nice if you're just gonna go for like any it can work with any build like whether you go black whether you go white whether you know it's black you know memory and then you can use the colors to you know do whatever you want to make it you know adjustments to your build okay so as you can see that is the memory right there and that's the rain effect and I have it on random colors it's currently set to go down but I can make adjustments to make the memory effects go up so there's a little bit of a delay so as now you'll

see that the memory effect is moving upwards instead of downwards I like having it on down and starting at the top we have rainbow wave and I'm just leaving it on the default colors by default it usually just has random colors this is the next one is spiral rainbow and as you can see I have the car sell Corsair ll fans as well with my build so it all kind of you know matches and then we have just rainbow this is rainbow some effects are more subtle than others , you

know then we have already showed rain so I won't show that one this one's called visor you know this could be kind of distracting this is sequential and again I can adjust the direction right now it's set to go up but if I wanted to I could set it to go down it's almost like rain but you know it it's not like you know there's leaving an empty trail behind next one is Markie so marki it doesn't randomize the colors it you had you slept a solid color and I should say with all these

effects you can adjust the speed as well I'm leaving everything up the default this one's called stack this one's kind of neat actually it's like rain but like it you know each little LED fills up solid and then it starts over inside out this one's called inside out it's almost kind of like a breathing in effect so I should say also the neat thing about all of like Corsairs newer LED products like their fans and them and the memory is that when you choose an effect in Corsair

I linked it saves your choice in the hardware so when you restart your computer or whatever like whenever you're not in Windows the effects stays so it's not like you have to wait for the windows to boot properly in order to get the effect some of the you know other memory brands you know don't have that so even though of course their products tend to be a little bit more expensive they are actually built really well and they have thought things through to make it a

lot more seamless and integrate better and the IQ software is a lot better than their their older link software that they had and they're constantly releasing updates the next effect here is called water this one's on a solid color but so you can choose different colors other than that there's no other real real effects that sort of stand out I mean there's a temperature effect so if you can adjust the color based on your your temperature I don't see the point in doing that

really so oh I like rain I would say my favorite is rain and stack honestly so yeah I think this memory is really awesome it's expensive so be prepared to pay a premium because you're gonna pay more just because it has a core Center name on it you're gonna pay more because it's brand-new it's literally just come out and you're gonna pay more because like the speeds are

pretty darn good and it has really good overclock ability the timings are tight so yeah I think it's pretty awesome memory you can get it online already I bought mine off new egg .

Learn more about the Corsair CMD16GX4M2A2666C15

ModelBrandCORSAIRSeriesDominator PlatinumModelCMD16GX4M2A2666C15
DetailsCapacity16GB (2 x 8GB)Type288-Pin DDR4 SDRAMSpeedDDR4 2666 (PC4 21300)CAS Latency15Timing15-17-17-35Voltage1.2VBuffered/RegisteredUnbufferedColorSilverHeat SpreaderYesFeaturesHand Screened Performance IC's
Using best of the best IC's available leads to highly overclockable memory.

DHX cooling
Unique technology pulls performance-robbing heat away from the modules and allows Dominator memory to run at a cooler temperature.

Customizable light bar
Customize the look and feel of your memory with upgradable light bars and Dominator Airflow LED fan.

Performance and Compatibility
Dominator Platinum DDR4 is optimized and compatibility tested for the latest Intel 100 Series motherboards and offers higher frequencies, greater bandwidth, and lower power consumption.
XMP 2.0 support for trouble-free automatic overclocking.

Corsair Link compatibility
The Corsair Link Digital connector allows you to monitor your memory's temperature for an optimal combination of performance and stability.Recommend UseHigh Performance or Gaming MemoryLED ColorWhiteFan IncludedNo.