Corsair officially announced the launch of their new Dominator GT line of ultra high-performance DDR3 memory modules for Intel's Core i7-based systems yesterday.
The Dominator GT series features a new red and black color scheme that is actually attractive. The GT modules feature Corsair's next-generation Dual-path Heat eXchange (DHX) technology. The revised DHX technology includes a single-piece heat-sink and removable cooling fins. The removable fins allow multiple cooling options for the Dominator GT modules, including water cooling, as well as a custom-designed thermoelectric cooling system to actively cool the modules to as low as 20C below ambient temperature for maximum overclockability. Corsair ships the kits with their Airflow fan systems at this time.
The new Dominator GT is available in three different configurations,3x1GB DDR3-2000, 3x2GB DDR3-1866, and 3x2GB DDR3-2000. . Each kit offers latencies of 7-8-7-20 with DIMM voltages around 1.65V at the specified memory speeds. Current pricing has the 3GB 2000 kit at $299.99, 6GB 1866 at $479.99, and the 6GB 2000 kit at $579.99. The DDR3-2000 kits will be offered in very limited quantities that are hand-screened and hand-tuned. The DDR3-1866 kit follows the same screening and tuning process but will be available in additional quantities.
These kits are obviously designed for the hardcore overclocking community and those with deep pockets. However, if you want to really push memory speeds and get that last little bit of performance out of your system, you will want to use this type of memory on the i7 platform. "Because of the complexity in screening, manufacturing and testing, the Dominator GT family will be available only through the exclusive online GT Performance Shop." Corsair will also offer the full range of cooling options for the Dominator GT family shortly.
The Corsair Dominator GT family is available immediately (the 2000 kits are sold out currently) and is backed by a lifetime warranty and comprehensive customer support via telephone, email, forum and the Tech Support Express help desk.
Now that we have walked through the press release information. The first question that comes to mind is if the Dominator GT modules actually work at the advertised speeds and voltages. The answer to that question, is a resounding yes. We recently received our 6GB DDR3-2000 retail kit and have been putting it through just about every test we can imagine at a variety of speeds and voltages on several X58 boards.
Our first results are very positive with speeds reaching DDR3-2052 at 7-8-7-20 1T timings on 1.65V. We utilized the DFI LP UT X58-T3eH8 motherboard, retail Core i7 920, MSI 4870X2, CoolIT Systems Freezone Elite, and Corsair HX1000 power supply. We set VCore to 1.4375V in the BIOS (BIOS read is 1.45V, real is 1.44V), VDimm to 1.65V (BIOS read is 1.64V, real is 1.652V), and VTT to 1.51V (BIOS read is 1.50V, real is 1.52). We decided to push the IMC so we set our CPU multiplier to 20x and Bclk to 206. These settings passed our full test suite along with several loops of the same benchmarks for 24 hours.
The key to getting this memory to operate at its intended settings is properly setting VTT based upon your processor and board's capabilities. We do not like running VTT higher than 1.475V or so, but had to go to 1.51V in the BIOS for absolute stability. Simply relaxing the CPU multiplier to 19 and using the same Bclk at 206 (3.89GHz core speed) allowed us to drop VCore to 1.385V, VTT to 1.46V, and VDimm to 1.63V to reach the same memory speed and timings with full stability.
Our initial results are shown below. Please make note that we are using the new Version 5.00 of Everest and the latency numbers are correct now for i7 systems. Our results with version 4.60.1631 had overall latency at 21.3ns, which is incorrect. We will be back shortly with actual application results at various memory speeds and timings (CAS6 at DDR3-1600 is the goal). In the meantime, if you need to spend that tax rebate on a set of ultra high performance DDR3, we might suggest you head over to the Corsair Shop.
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mm2587 - Saturday, February 7, 2009 - link
I really read that as "since this is such a top end limited quantity product we are going to build a brand out of it and sell it in house to maximizes profits"v12v12 - Saturday, February 7, 2009 - link
Aka following the bottom-line. If consumers weren't stupid minded sheep, and stopped buying this overpriced nonsense... the manufacturers wouldn't have reason to attempt this kind of bullocks. If there's a "market" of idiots willing to pay through the nose, there will be someone willing to sell it to them.Dumb sheep constantly ruining it for the smarter minority of us. Baaaa AAAAAH!
Holly - Sunday, February 8, 2009 - link
I think quite contrary. These dumb sheeps buying this kind of luxury DO pay for development and testing of same performance parts for much more affordable cost. So let them buy all they can find. Chip maker meanwhile tunes up the engineering process (since he has money to do so), memory module maker tunes up heating, stacking and whatever (since they got money to do so).In 6 months you'll have modules of this performance on open market. Just thank to those dumb sheeps paying the developing process.
v12v12 - Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - link
I highly disagree!. It's the AVG desktop/hardware purchase that provides the profit and capital to push the edge of performance with releases like this. Sounds contradictory, why?(PS sorry for the caps, stupid site's B/I/U functions are not working)
You could counter with; WTF how then is there incentive to release/develop such a product, with high R&D costs, if only a small minority of buyers will purchase = THEY HAVE TO ANYWAY = To stay ahead of competition. B/c someone else will take a risk and release this type of module, thus metering out the technology into a broad line of lower to higher priced modules for the next generation.
These manufactures HAVE to produce this kind of stuff period, or else fall behind. But, they don't have to meter the technology out so much, as to resemble the WORST/MOST OVERPRICED segment of the computer industry = GPU manu's. You'll see a 50mhz faster chip being priced $100 more over the next lowest model. 500Mhz/550/600/625/650, all coming form the same TOP end fab chip being crippled and chopped up to sell to the idiot masses willing to pay near 200% more for a GPU/RAM kit that performs no better than ~10-20% faster than the slowest release of that series. The higher up the series line you pay = lesser the return for your dollar, as in 3-6months your ~$500 GPU/RAM kit will immediately lose 25% (or more) of what you paid in full.
So my bottom line is; paying for the top series kit is a blatant rip off. What would happen if nobody bought these ridiculous kits, would they go out of business? OR would they be forced to release fewer crippled chips and price the top end at a more reasonable rate?
And I dare any idiot to give me that "what the market will bare," crap. That's a farce b/c of stupid shoppers. Smart shoppers NEVER buy the top end for a reason = immediate loss of value upon purchase and near negligible performance gain per dollar spent. The top end kits aren’t very profitable anyhow, and would in no way sustain the corp as a whole. Those Intel 9770 kits/Skulltrail $400 mobos sell very few, it’s the lower end, avg-joe C2Duo’s that provide capital. These high end kits are merely advertising for them, just like some ridiculously chromed out, hydraulic hopping, bass pounding, Neon 30” Rimmed thug-rice-mobile at a SEMA show. Maybe 2 get sold to rich morons.
Haha do the math yourselves and then come to the same conclusion: The "market" what a laugh, fools gold.
thx bye :-)
Maiyr - Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - link
Rich people are morons ? I wish I was a moron. :)v12v12 - Monday, February 16, 2009 - link
LOL I whole heartedly agree! Trust fund babies...Concillian - Friday, February 6, 2009 - link
It's not obvious in the post, but that's a copy / paste of the press release. Gary probably should have made italicized the press release portion or something.So those aren't AT's words, they're Corsair's.
Sunrise089 - Saturday, February 7, 2009 - link
If it's an exact quote of the press release I'm impressed with Corsair - normally marketing types won't write stuff like "These kits are obviously designed for the hardcore overclocking community and those with deep pockets."I suspect the first few paragraphs are a re-written press release getting the facts out of the way while editorializing a bit like with the "deep pockets" line above. If that's true, I think Gary just wasn't careful to run what he was quoting or paraphrasing through his BS detector, but since the language isn't obviously marketing lingo it has an aura of credibility.
v12v12 - Saturday, February 7, 2009 - link
Lol I'm right here with you brother—blowing the whistle of FRAUD and deceptive/jargon laced reviews!I really wish these companies would just start cutting the fat with stupid, gimmicky marketing hype, and appropriate that money towards pure PERFORMANCE. Form follows function in the racing industry, and there's a logical reason why. PERFORMANCE over looks. Imagine the improvements if they cut out all that fanboy packaging and color scheme(s)? Take that and develop better ICs or more efficient cooling packages Vs some Peltier/TEC looking cooling unit: It's RAM, not a processor! Dedicated fans, lol even more crap to wear out and buzz with noise. Smaller fans are so cheap on these Ram/NB type kits etc...
shabby - Saturday, February 7, 2009 - link
Nowadays hardware has to be shiny and pretty, otherwise no one will buy it... pathetic i know.We're basically ricing out out computers just like the import crowd rices out their cars.