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We always like to use the latest memory when testing a new series of motherboards. With this in mind Corsair very kindly offered to send us 16GB of their latest Vengeance Pro Series 2,400mhz memory. We will be looking closer at this memory in a dedicated review shortly.
The Corsair Vengeance Pro ships in a colourful package featuring an artistic photograph of the heatspreader, as shown above.
The heatsinks are nicely designed with curved edges and company branding on the sides.
This memory has an XMP profile set at 2,400mhz with 10-12-12-31 timings.
Corsair also sent us one of their HX750 power supplies which is 100% compatible with Haswell. We recently published a little article on these compatibility concerns over here, with a short excerpt below:
“Intel’s Haswell C6/C7 power states require a minimum load of 0.05A on the 12V2 rail and many current power supplies will fail to provide that low a current. Many older power supply designs comply with ATX 12V V2.3 design guidelines meaning they only call for load of 0.5A on the CPU power rail. This will mean C6 and C7 power states will be disabled in the bios.
Although we have yet to test, there may be cases that the supplies will become unstable when the processors try to enter into these states. Additionally the problems get worse when we factor in that many power supply units do not report minimum currents supported by the 12V2 rail.
From what we hear, the problem may kick in when the CPU enters sleep mode but with a load on the power supply non primary +3.3V and +5V rails. If the load on these rails hits a certain point (different from PSU to PSU) the +12V can go out of spec – voltages greater than 12.6V. If the +12V is out of spec when the system steps out of sleep state the power supply protection may kick in and stop the power supply from running normally. This situation may involve the end user turning the power supply switch off and back on again.
A power supply that uses a DC to DC design for the non primary +3.3V and +5V rails will not have a problem with the new low power sleep states. The reason is based around the DC to DC converter, used to convert +12V to +3.3V and +5V. This design ensures that there will always be load on the +12V regards of the load the CPU places on the power supply.”
Corsair also sent over one of their H100i coolers which we reviewed back in November last year, it is one of the best mainstream ‘all in one’ coolers money can buy. You can read our full review over here. Special thanks to Corsair for outfitting us with much of our partnering equipment for this review today.
Good price, and well built. great review, very honest. The bios is quite ugly looking, not like some of their past efforts. maybe this was rushed.
Im still in love with the MSI board you reviewed last week. want it badly
the layout is good and the SATA config is best yet, shame about the bios. Gigabyte are miles ahead now IMO. hard for the others to follow. they really stepeed it up this time around
I don’t see why people care so much about how the BIOS looks. As long as it does what you need it to do, who cares? I can’t remember the last time I went into my BIOS since I got my 2500K OC stable at 4.8Ghz. Set it and forget it!
Can’t wait to get my Extreme6 Z87 board on Wednesday!
what brings a red flag to my mind is your review..
you say the board wont post with 2933mhz memory but there are two SPECIFIC 2933mhz g.skill memories listed on the board’s compatible memory… did you even check to make sure it matched? cuz you sure didnt indicate the model in your review. for all we know you just tried something you “thought” would work.
oh and buy the way, this memory: F3-2933C12Q-32GTXDG costs SEVENTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS on newegg.
thats right, enough to buy your college bound kid their first used econo car. so even if you are talking about that memory, are you fricking HIGH? what are you testing a low/mid model motherboard and putting ram that expensive for in it and crying?
the 16gb version, F3-2933C12Q-16GTXDG, is a STEAL at eight hundred dollars.
the motherboard memory list is here, on that place called the internet. i hear it has useful information. you may want to check it some time, because either you didn’t, and slammed the mobo for no reason, or wanted to put some fricking ferarri ram in a dodge challenger… derp derp?
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z87%20Extreme6/?cat=Memory
Fallboat. Clearly you haven’t read the review, or can’t read properly. Not sure which. The memory worked with ASUS, MSI and GIGABYTE Z87 boards we previously tested in the last week – some of which aren’t actually much more expensive than this one. These other boards booted with the motherboard set at a lower speed setting and would overclock via BLCK to allow for the 2900mhz+ speeds. This board was the only one that wouldn’t post at all with it in the slots, regardless of the speeds, settings or timings.
Would people buying this board want 2933mhz memory? Who knows, people are selling it right now and it boots in other Z87 boards we tested. Should we ignore the fact it doesn’t or mention it doesn’t? One is lazy, the other isn’t. Some motherboard manuals list supported memory speeds up to 2,133mhz but work perfectly with 2,600mhz memory+. This is common knowledge, except to very inexperienced users.
The board was not ‘slammed’ either, we just mentioned the negative point compared to other Z87 boards we tested in previous weeks, seems logical to mention the fact.
I enjoyed your colourful message but it would help if you read the content properly before exploding in a fit of rage.
So to be clear, you tried the F3-2933C12Q-32GTXDG listed on the ‘supported list’ and it didn’t work?
Or you tried a variant not specifically supported, to see what would happen?
I’d like to know because the board looks interesting, but if it can’t post with ram it’s supposed to support, I think I’ll skip it.
That said about Ram modules it seems like 1600MHZ is the sweet spot for Haswell and works well. Also must PC geeks run about 1600 or 1866 for there set ups now days as its relatively cheap to buy and works. But my overall concern in this whole review would be the amount of Bios that was tested!! I want to buy this board, but i need to confident that the Bios will work properly and not cause me huge problems etc.
trawling through, I found the RAM tried in the MSI z87 Mpower Max review was:
F3-2933C12D-8GTXDG (12-14-14-35 1.65v)
which isn’t on the supported list, in case anyone is interested.
I think the issue is both the XMP profile, and the board’s treatment of BLCK adjustments
Like ajay57, I too would like to be confident of the BIOS – I think I’ll hold off for a couple of months and see what eventuates.
Just finished a build with this motherboard and I guess I got lucky as no problems with the GSkill F312800cl10d-16gbxl or the bios
CraigO…
Just curious as Im thinking of getting this board… how has it worked for you so far since July?? Thanks