We grabbed this from the GeIL webpage : 

Corsa, the Italian word for “race”, hence the name for the 3rd generation of GeIL’s DDR3 Gaming Series Memory - EVO CORSA .Which symbolize extreme speed as a race car on the track. The Metallic-Amazon-Green finish of the EVO CORSA heatspreader is derived from the famous German race track - the Nurburgring a.k.a. “the Green Hell”. The CORSA Heat-spreader is designed with MTCD - Maximum Thermal Conduction & Dissipation for superior cooling performance. Ranging from DDR3 1866MHz and up, the EVO CORSA is designed for the latest Intel & AMD chipsets for maximum performance and compatiblity. EVO CORSA is the new DDR3 performance benchmark.

Pretty bold statements there, making my enthousiast heart pound a little bit faster. Our test kit was one of the two high end versions running at 2133CL9-11-9-28. Combining the best out of both worlds for socket 1155 : high speeds with pretty solid timings. Even though timings aren't that worthwile for a gaming setup, it's always nice to have them on your side for extra tweaking headroom. The packaging is a nicely looking box with both the dimms protected in a tough blister package. No ram fan is included, but what do you expect from a sub 100 euro kit.

 

   

 

When popping the heatspreader of the dimms and thus removing the Evo Corsa Edition Heat Sink System with MTCD technology ( what's in a name lol ) we spot own (re)branded IC's. GeIl selects these IC's for their lineup via the DBT technology. DBT is the abbreviation of Die-Hard Burn Technology. What it all boils down to is that the IC's are pretested for speed and then 100% certified to run at them speeds, by testing them in a hot 100°C stress test machine. We saw a dummy of such a torture machine at the CeBIT GeIL booth ( for a piccie plz turn the page )

 

 

 

 

The Evo Corsa line is available in the mentioned below versions. Not as elaborate as some other manufacturers, but the main speeds/timings and price groups are covered. Only one colour scheme is available for the heatspreaders, baptised : Metallic amazon green finish.

 

 

 

Those that strictly want to adhere to the Intel Dram Voltage specifications for Sandy Bridge CPUs have to pick out of the various 1.5Vdimm versions. For the enthousiasts the 1.65Vdimm versions offer tighter timings and at my knowledge zero risk for your SB CPU's Integrated Memory controller. I have been running 1.67-1.72 Vdimm since the launch of the socket 1155 line and had no issues on any of my CPU's.

 

As usual we test the dimms at the different ram speed dividers available for their targeted platform. But when lowering the speeds, we try to find the tightest main timings possible too. This usually takes some hours of   Memtesting to see if the dimms are holding up with the selected timings. Our main test program to test solely the rams is MemTest Deluxe. It can be run from within Windows and with multiple instances to cover all the free ram you got. For 8Gbs I usually test up to 6GB to leave 2GB free for Windows 7 to play with.

 

The test setup comprises of the following hardware :

 

Asus P8P67 Deluxe motherboard 1850 bios

Intel 2600K CPU at 4.5Ghz (45 x 100)

Asus Nvidia GTX480 VGA

Western Digital 1Tb Caviar Green HDD

Windows 7 64bit Professional SP1 & fully patched

Corsair 1200W AX series PSU.

 

The results of the Belgian jury at 1.65Vdimm max are :

 

1600Mhz : CL7-8-7-21 1T TRFC 100

1866Mhz : CL8-9-8-24 1T TRFC 120

2133Mhz : CL9-11-9-28 1T TRFC 140

 

 

Here's a shot of a dummy of that infamous DBT testing machine. On the right the goal of this machine : prevent early failure, warrant operating speeds and voltages and binning of ICs.

 

  

 

 

 

 

As mentioned on the previous page we tested these dimms at the following speeds as they were the ones that were Memtest stable for at least 200%. Also due to the lower ram dividers you can briefly compare them with maybe your current ram set.

 

• 1600Mhz : CL7-8-7-21 1T TRFC 100

• 1866Mhz : CL8-9-8-24 1T TRFC 120

• 2133Mhz : CL9-11-9-28 1T TRFC 140

 

 

 

 

No surprise really as the highest ram speed is the fastest in the single threaded Superpi 32M application. The Sandy Bridge architecture scales with tighter timings, but above all loves raw ram speeds as we discovered in the launch review.

 

 

 

 

Ram bandwith scales nicely with higher clocking rams. Especially the Write result goes bananas when comparing 1600Mhz versus 2133Mhz. Latency result following a similar pattern. Faster ram speeds reflecting in lower latency.

 

 

 

 

People that use a lot of encoding applications, usually love high ram speeds as it allows them to gain precious time. Rendering over 3 frames per second faster than the 1600Mhz setup is a nice boost.

 

 

 

 

In our two synthetic Futuremark tests, we see a light improvement if we increase the ram clocks. Nothing mind blowing for a normal end user. An overclocker will cash out for a few free extra points :)

 

 

 

 

While testing games at medium detail setting and at 1280 x 1024 resolution we see a negligable gain in frames per second. Nothing unexpected as this is proven time after time again. There's usually hardly any gain in game performance with added extra ram speed.

 

 

As some of the reviewers at the Shrimps still love to push things we tried to get TRCD stable at 10 iso 11. Trying to get the same performance as the higher specced 9-10-9-28 kit. That's what most overclockers started off with : pushing your hardware up to at least the specs of that hardware piece you just couldn't afford. At least I did lol.

Our entire test suite was stable with 9-10-9-27 1T at 1.74Vdimm, sadly it failed the memtest torture test. So sadly no inclusion of them results in this review. Below is a SuperPi 32M shot to show you we are not faking.

 

 

What about higher clock frequencies ? At first we only reached 2200Mhz CL9-11-10 with 1.72Vdimm. It all seemed to stop there. Really not bad for a 4gb dimm kit, as even some cheap 2gb dimms don't even manage do that.

Just a while after we received this kit, there was a RAM competition at HWbot. One of the stages was to get the best SuperPi 32M time in, but it had to be done with 4Gb dimms and at a Cas Latency of 6. Initial testing around 1.7ish Vdimm kept us just below 1520Mhz. Far from ideal, as some overclockers were pushing over 1600Mhz. After messing with a lot of sub timings and most importantly pumping more volts we knackered 1677Mhz. We got these GeIls running 32M stable at CL6-8-7-18 at 1.83Vdimm. Bundled that RAM combo with Gamers cherry 5.85Ghz 2600K CPU and we were rocking. Too bad in the end we were just a few hundreds of a second short of grabbing first spot.

 

 

But back to more reasonable voltages now. After the Competition I rechecked the state of our two Evo Corsa sticks. They still seemed in mint condition, passing the multiple instances of Memtest flawlessly at 2133Mhz. Time to explore if they still could go to 2200Mhz with the same timings. Checked, tried a bit more, more, and more till we errorred out at 2252Mhz. Say what 2252Mhz CL9 ? We gained 50mhz lol, completely stable in our memtest suite at just 1.69Vdimm.

 

 

Now I'm really impressed ! Seemed our extreme voltages, somehow burned in the IC's. And these babies just got better. Time to give them a respin in a few tests to see how the extra Mhz impacts the outcome. We just compared them versus the 2133Mhz clocks. Keep in mind the small CPU speed advantage of 35Mhz (4535Mhz vs 4500Mhz) for the 2250Mhz results.

 

 

 

 

 

As you noticed there's a tiny performance gain. Though to be honest, running daily at 105.6Bclock is not a good idea. But that's ofcourse all part of the deal when overclocking and exploring new limits... But the above really show off the potential of these GeIL dimms.

 

 

This is my first ever review GeIL kit and at first I thought ow bummer another 4Gb dimm kit. What potential do such sticks have on the Sandy Bridge platform ? When we went down with the more profound part of the testing I was pleasantly surprised by these green sticks. Offering some extra tweaking potential for those daring to pump a bit more volts.

GeIl didn't go into extended lenghts as eg G.Skill to target a zillion of different users with these Evo Corsa rams. Being available in just 1866 and 2133Mhz variants in either 2 or 4Gb dimm dual channel configurations.  Timing wise it's either loose Cas Latency for 1.5V Official Intel spec operations. For the CL9 versions you are outside Intel specs with 1.65Vdimm requirement. Anyway like I mentioned before, till now no harm found running Sandy Bridge CPUs with 1.7Vdimm for daily operations. But that's entirely up to you what you dare to risk or not...

 

 

 

Performance wise this 2133C9-11-9-28 kit is very strong. In fact it was the only 4Gb kit that I could push to a steady 1866Mhz at 8-9-8 timings on socket 1155. Most 4Gb dimm kits need a TRCD value of 10, no matter what voltages were used. The 2133Mhz speed, combined with the decent timings offered splendid performance on our socket 1156 setup.

Who must buy these ? For gamers these sticks might be slightly overkill as the FPS gain over a decent 1600Mhz kit is negligable. Though overall system performance benefits nicely from the extra bandwith available by running at 2133Mhz. If you want one of the fastest and still affordable 8Gb kits don't overlook this Evo Corsa kit. Only drawback that I can possibly think of is the look/size and colour of the heatspreader. It's all a matter of personal taste, but I kindda got used to the flashy fluo green theme. It's what is underneath that makes it tick.

A few months back finding a GeIL high end kit in the Benelux was not really mission impossible, but a tough job nevertheless. Luckily big online shops like Alternate and marketing companies like Freaks4U are promoting GeIl products to establish solid grounds in our regions. Retaling at just below the sub 100 euro mark might seem much at first glance. As some 8Gb 2133CL9 kits are retailing in the mid 80 euro region. Though when looking at the timings you directly spot where the difference is at. Most cheaper kits are rated for 9-11-10-28, these green babies can do 9-11-9-28 out of the box and even more :)

 

Due to their great overall performance and decent overclocking potential on SB S1155 I award these GeIl Evo Corsa 2133C9 kit the Madshrimps High Performance Award !

 

 

 

I wish to thank Ashley from GeIL for the support to HWbot and the guys from the german promotion office from Freaks4U for the review kit.