14 DAY TRIAL // DDR4 memory is almost ready to become mainstream, or at least available on the high-end market, so it's not such a shock to learn that Corsair has brought some modules to Computex 2014.
Computex is a trade show that takes place once every year, much like the Consumer Electronics Show, CeBIT, Mobile World Congress, etc. The event occurs in June. This year, is will go from June 3 to June 7.
Already the majority of product and technology announcements have been made, as is usual during the first day of a trade show like this. Some even came out before the event actually started.
AMD's and Intel's product announcements have attracted most of the attention, but attention can't easily be held captive for long, even by 12-core APUs.
That's why it was inevitable for the ones visiting the show to eventually stumble upon even those things that didn't get shouted about in press releases.
Like the Dominator Platinum and Value Select DDR4 memory modules that are found at Corsair's booth in Taipei, Taiwan.
The Dominator Platinum DDR4 memory module is part of a 16 GB kit, but that doesn't mean it has 8 GB of its own.
Instead, it's a 4 GB module that is supposed to be installed in quad-channel mode. Not something possible on some normal and small motherboards (they have two DIMM slots, usually), but good for server mainboards, especially dual-socket ones.
2400 MHz might not seem like that much, since there are DDR3 modules faster than that. But you have to take into account that, without overclocking, DDR3 comes in 1066 MHz, 1333 MHz or 1600 MHz, and needs 1.35V or 1.5V, even 1.65V sometimes.
DDR4 works at 2400 MHz without any overclocking, and consumes a lot less energy too (works on 1.2V or so).
Moreover, Corsair has a second module on display, called Value Select, which will be cheaper but wasn't detailed, so we don't have the clock speed or anything else to share about it. The timings (latency) will probably be poorer, but that's to be expected from something “cheap.”
We don't know for certain when sales will start. Probably next year, although some DDR4 memory could come out sooner, when X99 motherboards start to trickle in (Intel HEDT platform).
Corsair's main DDR4 competitors will be ADATA (Airplane-Shaped XPG Gaming DDR4 Memory), Crucial, Virtium, and Samsung. Not sure where the 128 GB SanDisk module comes into play.
