Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsDecent RAM, wouldn't buy again though
Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2019
In the past I've had some pretty negative experiences with Corsair products, namely their software and keyboards. But due to the nature of my system upgrade (and my budget at the time) this was the cheapest RAM I could find, it was also highly recommended to me.
Installation of any RAM module is quite easy, especially if you have a AIO water cooler or small air cooler. I run a Noctua NH-D15 (thing is gigantic), so when I added another kit of this RAM (white instead of black, however) I had some difficulty being able to access the memory slots (mainly due to the CPU cooler I run, no fault to Corsair here). But, when I made the move to 32GB of RAM, I purchased another kit of this RAM (as stated earlier, and was a different color). In my previous system I had 32GB of Kingston HyperX DDR3 (a black and a white 2x8 kit) and was able to zebra stripe them (mainly for looks, I had a water cooled CPU at the time). So, to avoid extra pain in installing the second RAM kit I decided to zebra stripe again (main reason I got another kit of this). However, in doing this, my PC would not POST; it would run, restart, run, beep, restart, extremely long time, clear POST, Windows. This happened every time the PC was powered on (excluding sleep mode), and making changes in the BIOS would be reset due to the failure to clear POST on the first boot.
Swapping the kits to "correct" (not zebra striped) dual channel mode solved this problem (but the POST time is still quite long, 20+ seconds). This shouldn't be necessary, seeing as they are identical kits; heat spreader color should not affect compatibility (reference my functional Kingston sticks in their alternated channel configuration). The Kingston kits were purchased over a year apart as well, while these Corsair kits were purchased within 6 months of each other.
For the black kit in particular: I ran the black kit by itself for quite a few months (overclocked to advertised 3000MHz speed) with no perceived issues. Then, out of nowhere, I got a CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT blue screen in Windows. I goggled the stop code and found nothing useful (seemed to be tied to CPU overclocking, which I have not done), so I shrugged it off as a one time thing and moved along. A few weeks later, I got the same BSOD. I dug into it more this time, finding out that the blue screen IS related to overclocking, but isn't limited to just the CPU, it can extend to the RAM as well. Per some advice from people online, I ran memtest86 for multiple passes; which showed that my RAM was fine, no errors. I continued to run the RAM at 3000MHz for a few days more ( I also ordered the white kit around this time), with no issues. I installed the white kit (had the aforementioned issues, and things proceeded), and received the blue screen a few days later. I ran memtest86 again, with no issues detected. Unsure, at this point, whether it was the black kit or the white kit (and not wanting to waste time troubleshooting it), I dialed the OC back to 2933MHz. Since then I have had no BSODs or other issues. I'm fairly certain it was this black kit that was at fault (considering I had BSODs before installing the white kit), but who knows. Considering that the RAM is supposed to be rated for 3000MHz its quite sad that I could not run stable at that speed, but it does work regardless.
Overall I would not recommend this RAM to anyone, mostly due to my experiences (possibly just lost the silicon lottery this time around) and due to my previous experiences with Corsair products. People seem to like this RAM, and if I hadn't gotten a dud, I might be in favor of it as well. I have been recommending G.Skill Aegis (also 3000MHz) to my friends, and they have had no issues with those.
You can get this RAM if you like, it does look nice; no RGB and has a nice minimalistic heat spreader. It is also low standing, so it can easily be cleared by massive coolers like the NH-D15 that I run.
It should probably go without saying, but only overclock at your own risk; had I not known that OC was necessary for the rated speeds (or only overclocked minimally) I may never have encountered my blue screen problems. Just keep that in mind...
