Teardown and PCB analysis
If we already have the modules in hand, the teardown is a good idea. Of course, in reality, this was done at the very end, after the cooler tests. As usual, the Dominator modules require loosening the 2 screws on each side that hold the bracket frame in place. Afterwards, the glued-on heat sink halves can simply be removed after a short preheating period.
Nothing has changed with the thermal pads either. In addition to the thin adhesive pad on ICs and PMIC, Corsair uses two more thicker pad strips above the ICs for additional board cooling. All these pads are also present on the back, except that here a foam placeholder is stuck to the board instead of the ICs. The RGB light element sits on the PCB and is electrically connected to a ribbon cable with a clamp down connector.
As usual for a Dominator kit, the pcb makes a very high-quality impression. All components and their position is labeled in bold white on the matte black PCB. If we look at the board in detail, the RAM devices with coding H5CG48AGBD X018 from SK hynix, the already mentioned A-Dies, are relevant first of all. In addition, we still find an indication of the manufacturing date with 238A here, which stands for week 28 of the year 2022.
In the center of the board sits the Power Management Integrated Circuit (PMIC), which draws 5 V from the mainboard via the DIMM slot and then generates the partial voltages such as VDD, VDDQ and VPP for the ICs, as well as 1 V and 1.8 V for the SPD. The PMIC bears the engraving “0D=98 B63” and is also already known to us as a make of Richtek. RGB lighting is provided by an 824J controller from NXP, also common for Dominator kits.
Some peculiarities of the circuit board can be seen on the back. On the one hand, there is a golden imprint “50-002549 CORSAIR” on the vertical edge, which should identify Corsair’s PCB design revision. The board was manufactured by Hsien Jinn, as can be seen from the logo in the opposite corner. Below the usual flammability code 94V-0 and the Underwriter Labs logo for safety certification for the American market, you can find the number sequence “2235”, which should stand for manufacturing week 35 of 2022 of the board. So the board was probably made before the RAM ICs and then sometime later they were married together. In addition to all these markings, there are 5 test points for quality assurance during production.
On the edge of the board there are small numbers “1” and “10” opposite each other, which reveal the 10 layer design of the board.
At 37.5 mm, the board is significantly taller than an A0 reference design of DDR5 and thus severely limited in compatibility with aftermarket coolers. But who also buys such a kit to then replace the Dominator RGB cooler?
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