V-Color Manta XPrism DDR5-6200 C36 Review: Ordinary Swimmer

Have you ever gone shopping and stumbled onto a brand you didn’t know existed? That may be the first feeling consumers have when they hear of V-Color. However, v-Color isn’t a business that's run out of a garage. On the contrary, V-Color has been around since 2006 and has a strong presence in the Asian market. It wasn’t until 2014 that V-Color decided to venture into North America, and nowadays, you can find its memory products at major retailers, including Newegg and Amazon. In addition to making its own products, V-Color is also the ODM for many other brands, such as Gigabyte. The company has more than enough experience under its belt.

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While other brands like to borrow inspiration from Greek gods and whatnot for their products, V-Color's DDR5 memory draws its inspiration from the manta ray. It's evident since a small manta ray logo accompanies the Manta XPrism memory modules. Aesthetically, the memory modules look very clean and have little marketing. There's a single sticker that you can peel off. The memory features a low-profile design that measures 42.25mm (1.66 inches) and relies on a copper alloy heat spreader for passive cooling.

V-Color currently offers the Manta VPrism in black and white colors. The memory has a dual-sided light bar that consists of 16 bright addressable LEDs. The brand doesn't provide software for the RGB lighting, which is a plus since you can control it with your motherboard's included software. The Manta VPrism is compatible with Asus Aura Sync, Gigabyte RGB Fusion 2.0, Biostar RGB Sync, MSI Mystic Light Sync, and ASRock Polychrome Sync.

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V-Color commercializes the Manta VPrism as a standard dual-channel memory kit or an SCC kit. The latter is nothing more than a fancy name where V-Color includes two dummy modules to fill the empty slots on a four-slot motherboard. The memory kit in this review comprises two 16GB memory modules that conform to a single-rank format. In addition, C-Color incorporates SK hynix's H5CG48MEBDX014 (M-die) integrated circuits (ICs) and Richtek's 0D=8M F3Y power management IC (PMIC) into this specific DDR5-6200 memory kit.

The Manta VPrism defaults to DDR5-4800 with 40-40-40-76 timings like any other overclocked memory kit. In addition, there's one XMP 3.0 profile for users to quickly get the memory up to DDR5-6200 at 36-39-39-76 and 1.3V. See our PC Memory 101 feature and our How to Shop for RAM story for more on timings and frequency considerations.

Comparison Hardware

Our DDR5 test system leverages Intel's Core i9-12900K processor with Corsair's CUE H100i Elite LCD liquid cooler taking care of the cooling. The flagship Alder Lake chip resides on the MSI MEG Z690 Unify-X motherboard, running the 7D28vA8 firmware. Meanwhile, the MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Gaming Trio is responsible for our gaming RAM benchmarks.

Our Windows 11 installation, benchmarking software, and games are stored on Crucial's MX500 SSDs, whereas the RM650x feeds our entire system with the necessary juice. Lastly, the Streacom BC1 open bench table houses all of our hardware.

Intel Performance

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The Manta VPrism wasn't the fastest memory in any workload. However, the memory had its strongest performances in the Microsoft Office, 7-Zip, and y-cruncher workloads, which came in second place. Cumulatively, V-Color's memory kit was in the middle of the pack in both application and gaming performance.

Overclocking and Latency Tuning

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Despite having SK hynix M-die ICs under its hood, the Manta VPrism could only reach DDR5-6400. So to get to our goal, we had to bump the DRAM voltage from 1.3V up to 1.4V. We didn't have to compromise with the timings, though. Instead, we tightened the tRCD and tRP by one clock cycle.

Lowest Stable Timings

The best result we got from DDR5-6200 was 36-37-37-76. Unfortunately, even though we increased the DRAM voltage to 1.4V, the CAS Latency and tRAS wouldn't budge. However, we could get the remaining timings down by two clock cycles.

Bottom Line

The V-Color Manta XPrism DDR5-6200 C36 has an acceptable level of performance, which is fine for most consumers. However, it won't knock you off your chair, so serious performance seekers will have to look elsewhere. The memory kit has a balanced design with the right amount of flashiness without going overboard. In particular, owners of big CPU coolers and SFF builders will appreciate the Manta VPrism's compact design.

V-Color prices the Manta XPrism DDR5-6200 C36 memory kit at $399.99. It's not a bad price by DDR5 standards. DDR5-6200 memory kits generally start at this price range. However, G.Skill's Trident Z5 RGB DDR5-6000 C36, which is a bit faster, retails at the same price tag, putting V-Color's memory kit in disfavor. If you're a perfectionist and hate seeing unused memory slots, the Manta XPrism DDR5-6200 C36 is also available in a four-DIMM configuration with two dummy modules. The drawback is that the SCC package will set you back another $60, a hefty premium for two hollow memory modules that only bring the bling.