Corsair Dominator PC12800C8As mentioned on the previous page our first revisited test candidate comes from
Corsair. Dominators always have been one of my favourite memory types, technically as well as design wise, so I'm happy to present them to you once more in this review.
As always a short word about our manufacturer, Corsair:
Regarded as one of the most prominent memory manufacturers, Corsair has been making memory products since 1994. For the first 5-7 years of their existence, Corsair focused on the business market of servers and workstations. Only in the last couple of years, especially since the introduction of PC-133 SD-Ram, the consumer market really became interesting for RAM development. At that time people became aware that faster ram was a worthy investment, and the overclocking market was born. In the last 7 years, Corsair has put more and more of its eggs into the basket of gamers and overclockers and has become the company all others measure their success by. Today, Corsair still makes server and workstation ram, and the so called "value-select" memory for the budget oriented consumer, but they are especially famous for the XMS memory line, which stands for "Extreme Memory Speed". This lineup has been around for a couple of years now, and has constantly been refreshed by new products... In the middle of 1996 the new Dominator lineup was added, which has since been revamped with the introduction of DDR3 memory...
Contrary to the box that we received in the
first review, this looks to be the real retail box :
(click for larger version)This package is a real departure from the box of the original review, which was the biggest box of the lot at the time, holding the 3 modules with lots of room to spare (the modules were even held in place by an airbag to secure them during shipping). No such thing in the new package : Corsair wasted no space and the packaging is surprisingly small for such large modules. The package is modern in all respects : colorful with some cutouts at the back that show some of the modules' details when packed.
Package and unpacking: more shotsAt the back of the package we get some Corsair PR, and a look at the DHX cooling used in the memory heatsinks. Inside the package are the modules in their individual blisters. The middle blister is actually placed backwards inside the cardboard box to save even more space. The environment thanks you for this nice little touch, Corsair !