Overall and Final Verdict
Like I said at the start, this was a kit I was excited to get in. I haven’t had any of the Dominator memory kits in the office, just the Vengeance lineup so I was curious about checking them out. Getting to check out Corsairs new CAPELLIX RGB LEDs as also a nice bonus as well. So did they live up to my expectations? Well, this is without a doubt the best-looking memory kit I’ve seen. The all blacked out look itself is great, I would be happy with that alone without any lighting. The heatspreader design is simple and clean though you do have to remember this is a taller kit if you are running air cooling, not every heatsink is going to fit over that top bar. But then again why would you want to cover up the top where the lighting is most visible. The CAPELLIX lighting is bright if not too bright and it hit the colors I wanted it to do easily.
It wasn’t my first time using the iCue software but I was impressed again with it after seeing how Corsair integrated memory into it. Lighting controls are simple and easy to use and if you use any other Corsair products you can control those using the same program which is great to not have 10 programs open all of the time pulling CPU cycles and memory. But I also loved the dashboard where you can see all of your PCs temperatures, fan speeds, and other information depending on what products you are using. Some people are downloading temperature programs that are hard to use and here is Corsair making it all easy to see, read, and use.
Now the Dominator Platinum RGB kit that Corsair sent over wasn’t one of their flagship kits with crazy high clock speeds or a 128GB 8 stick kit. But you have those options, the Dominator Platinum RGB is available in just about any configuration that you might want which is great. A lot of nicer memory kits don’t even bother to do mid-range speeds like this 3000MHz kit. Pricing on the kits ranges a lot depending on what model you are looking at. That 128GB kit running at 3800MHz has a $1794.99 MSRP for example. But for this case, I only compared this kit with other kits that at 2x8GB running at 3000MHz. I took a look at kits without RGB and kits with RGB lighting. I wanted to get an idea of what kind of premium you are paying for with the lighting. Lucky for us Corsair sells a Dominator Platinum kit without the lighting. The premium between the kits didn’t end up being too bad. The MSRP of the RGB kit is $159.99 but it is available for sale on Newegg and Amazon at around $139.99 right now where the non-RGB kit sells for $129.99, for $10 more you get the lighting and the all blacked out look. That is worth it to me.
I didn’t leave things alone at that though, there are a lot of 3000MHz kits that sell for a lot less so I was curious if any had similar timings to the Dominator kits. Oddly enough Corsair sells a Vengeance kit with the same timings, capacity, and speed. The CMK16GX4M2B3000C15 kit is at least right now selling for $79.99 on Newegg. This complicated things a little. Honestly, the Dominator Platinum RGB kit is priced right in line with other RGB kits with similar timings. But I put the price down only because if you want the same performance you can spend over $50 less and get it. Corsair also has a Vengeance RGB Pro kit that is a good deal as well with the same configuration. In other words, this Dominator Platinum RGB kit is at a bit of a premium because you get good timings, a higher end heatspreader design, as well as the lighting. Is it worth it? Well if you are like me and love the styling and the unique side profile lighting then yes. If not though Corsair has a few other really good options that don’t compromise speed in this configuration.
Live Pricing: HERE
