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Real World Benchmarks, Value And Recommendations
Bandwidth shouldn’t be a major concern on any quad-channel kit, but Grid 2 also loves reduced latency, and that reduction can be had by decreasing cycle time as well as cycle count. Decreased cycle time is accomplished by increasing clock speed. This method for optimizing timings has the added benefit of even more bandwidth, in case that still matters.
While the Dominator Platinum’s DDR4-2800 CAS 16 rated settings appear to offer sub-par performance (by high-end memory standards) in Grid 2, Corsair and G.Skill are roughly tied at latency-optimized settings.
Relatively slow timings at DDR4-2800 bump Corsair’s “Rated Data Rate” results downward a little in Battlefield 4, a game that represents closer-to-average memory performance scaling compared to memory-punishing Grid 2.
Due to rounding that can be in the thousandths of a second, a one-second difference doesn't mean much. That’s why I group 3ds Max and WinRAR together, and will use them primarily as buffers in my average performance analysis.
Corsair’s Dominator Platinum DDR4-2800 is so close to G.Skill’s Ripjaws 4 DDR4-3000 in overclocking capability that price is the overwhelming differentiator. I wouldn’t even be surprised to see these two competing products exactly tied in the performance of real-world samples, since hand-picked “golden samples” occasionally show up in my lab.
The price difference is significant though, at $500 for the Dominator Platinum and $450 for the Ripjaws 4. Corsair can justify its extra cost to some of the most extreme enthusiasts by providing better-fitting heat spreaders to tolerate more voltage, plus extra features like the Corsair Link connector. If you really want to use your Corsair Link Dashboard to control the temperature of your modules using a Corsair Dominator Airflow Platinum LED Fan, you have a perfect excuse to drop the extra $50 before you even consider whether or not you need the Dominator Platinum DDR4-2800’s superior heat spreader.
Meanwhile, I’ll stick with my old G.Skill Ripjaws 4 simply because I can operate a little faster. I might have a better sample than most of the kits the firm sells, or it might just be typical. But either way, it represents a better collection of hardware for my motherboard reviews.
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