Verdict: The world's first RAM with proper heatsinks

Most memory manufacturers are happy to slap heatspreaders on their high-end DIMMs despite growing evidence that heatspreaders don't help to cool memory.

At long last, however, a manufacturer has decided to buck this trend and design a proper DIMM heatsink. This memory's heatsink, called the Dominator, is connected to the grounding pins of the DRAMs, rather than the casing of the chips. As the pins are metal and the casing is plastic, the pins are much better at conducting heat, so the Dominator can more efficiently shift heat away from the DRAM chips. This means that the DRAMs run much cooler than they would if they were covered by a traditional heatspreader.

The first kit to have the Dominator heatsink is rated as PC2-8500, so it's guaranteed to run at up to 1,066MHz at 5 - 5 - 5 - 15 latency timings. The Dominator kit also supports EPP (aka SLI memory), so it allows for automatic overclocking when installed in an nForce 590 SLI motherboard. We overclocked the Dominator to 1.13GHz at 2.45V, and to 1.16GHz with the timings at 6 - 6 - 6 - 18.

Corsair deserves recognition for designing the world's first proper RAM heatsink, but we'd like to see the Dominator fitted to a faster and more overclockable set of DIMMs before we can thoroughly recommend it.

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