Not just a visual eye-catcher – Corsair Vengeance RGB RT 2x 16 GB 3600 CL18 Kit Review with Overclocking and Teardown

1 - Introduction and specifications 2 - Unboxing and first impression 3 - Dimenstions and lighting 4 - SPD and heatsink performance 5 - Teardown and PCB analysis 6 - Test systems and methodology 7 - XMP behavior and overclocking 8 - Synthetic benchmarks – AIDA64 and Geekbench 3 9 - Gaming – Cyberpunk 2077 in UHD, QHD, FHD 10 - Final thoughts and conclusion

As usual in our tests, RAM modules do not stay in one piece for long after the benchmarks, because especially the construction of the heatsink and the layout of the PCB are usually exactly the decisive differences between different RAM products. After a short heating with a hair dryer to dissolve the glue, the two heatsink halves can be levered off the board without any problems.

The light guide made of milky acrylic sits only on the PCB with a groove and is held in position by the two halves. Interestingly, Corsair uses a reflective tape up here and also the light guide above the LEDs has grooves and an arrow-shaped embossing. So Corsair really put some thought into this to better ensure the distribution of light along the module and thus avoid halos of light by the individual LEDs.

Speaking of which, the 10 LEDs in white housing are all located on one side of the board along the upper edge, which additionally speaks for the function of the light guide, since no differences in brightness between the two module sides can be noticed when the lighting is in operation, as we could already see.

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The two heatsink halves each consist of two combined aluminum layers. And although they are relatively thin and might look like plastic at first, they are actually completely made of metal and provide surprisingly good heat distribution and dissipation with their anodized surface, as we could see in the heat test on the previous page.

Both the gold branding on the edge of the PCB with the words “50-0002502 CORSAIR” and the custom packaging of the memory ICs suggest a heavy modification of the “B0” reference design. If it really is the latter, I don’t like to judge with certainty at this point, but various differences to previously tested kits with “B1” PCB are definitely present. Another eye catcher is the white label “BP 4M-1 E186014 94V-0”, where the abbreviation in the first part points to the Taiwanese PCB manufacturer “Brain Power” as OEM (thanks for the tip, Mick 😉).

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Beside the already via SPD discovered EEPROM package with inscription “GT824104” there is also a second package worth mentioning on the board, whereby it concerns the RGB controller in form of a NXP 824J. Since this is a rather uncommon specimen, it could also explain the limited compatibility with only Asus and MSI RGB software.