R E V I E W // C O R S A I R D O M I N A T O R P L A T I N U M C O N T R A S T S P E C I A L E D I T I O N
Testing Configuration
Core i7 8086K @ 5.2GHz
ROG MAXIMUS X APEX
NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1080 Ti
INTEL 760P 480GB SSD
Seasonic Prime 850
Windows 10 x64
(BIOS 1301)
EDITOR’S CHOICE
CORSAIR DOMINATOR PLATINUM
CONTRAST SPECIAL EDITION
ERP $479.99 | WEBSITE www.corsair.com
T
ime and time again I find
myself singing high praises
for a set of memory, from
any one vendor or another. More
than any other though, I find this
to be true of CORSAIR memory.
Say what you will about why that
is so, but there’s no denying that
when it comes to the right mix
of performance and aesthetics,
few can match what CORSAIR
has been producing, in particular
when it comes to the Dominator
Platinum Special Edition series.
From the first orange set which
I came across several years ago,
specifically designed to match
the then orange colour scheme
of GIGABYTE XOC motherboards,
to the most recent offering in the
Contrast set.
22 The OverClocker Issue 45 | 2018
One thing has remained the
same and that is, the memory
always offered a particular
aesthetic mixed in with some
of the best performance money
could buy.
With DRAM such as this, it’s
important to note that not every
kit is going to be identical, in fact
not every stick within a set is
going to be identical in scaling.
These may be selected ICs but
that by no means implies you’ll
get exactly the same frequency
right at the edge on every stick.
That is well worth being cognisant
of and was evident in this very
memory kit I was evaluating. The
best DIMM out of the four was
able to do C12 3600MT/s, while the
other three could not at the tested
1.5V. However, all of them as you
can see from the performance
figures were more than able to
operate at 4500MT/s C18 which
is truly impressive especially for a
memory kit rated at 3,466 MHz
with relatively loose timings.
This brings me to another point
about CORSAIR performance
memory, especially their Special
Edition series. The factory stated
frequencies are never amazing
for the price and it's true that
competitors are able to offer
similar timings if not better for
a more attractive price. This has
pretty much always been the
case, yet there was never a time I
found the Special Edition memory
without merit and deserving of
some of the highest praises one