Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB 1.35v Review

Conclusion

There is a lot to like about the Corsair Vengeance LP.

Aesthetically the revamped heat-spreader looks nicer, if anything, than the original Vengeance design. We’re always fans of companies who remember that their product doesn’t exist in a vacuum and by switching to the lower profile design it frees up your choice of CPU cooler.

In fact because the heat-spreader is very much a case of form over function due to the 1.35v design, we think there is plenty of potential to release the Vengeance in a range of colours to suit all the modders needs. Although many of us just like to own whatever is the best hardware for our budget, there are a raft of people who limit their choices to the hardware that fits their colour scheme. Although blue and grey variants are available the 1.35v kit we have here is only available in white, which does stand out unless the rest of your internals are similarly bright.

The 1.35v DDR3L JEDEC standard has an array of benefits. If the 1600MHz CAS9 timings are plenty for you then you gain all the power consumption and heat benefits of the low voltage the Corsair Vengeance LP has. For our uses though it means we have plenty of headroom for overclocking. Indeed the Vengeance LP is one of the few Sandy Bridge kits we’ve come across that can overclock to a noticeable degree. Rather than the tiny timing change here or there, running this kit at 1.65v we could get the timings all the way down to a stunning CAS7. To get more bandwidth in speed terms requires a huge slackening of the timings, but that’s more a side-effect of the auto-divider in the Sandy Bridge design meaning that the next rung on the overclocking ladder is a whopping 16% increase. Stick with the reduction in timings.

As if that wasn’t enough, the pricing for the 8GB Vengeance LP 1.35v kit is an eye-opening £50. 8GB of good performing, good overclocking, low voltage RAM for a measly £50. Even if white isn’t your colour that’s a bargain it’s hard to pass up.

All in all the Corsair Vengeance LP 1.35v 8GB kit is an easy winner of our OC3D Gold Award. We like it very much indeed.

    

Thanks to Corsair for supplying the Vengeance LP for review. Discuss in our forums.