# Corsair Dominator Platinum CL10 2666 MHz 4x 4GB DDR3



## cadaveca (Sep 1, 2012)

Once again Corsair refreshes their Dominator line-up, and this time, they've got some big changes! Today I've got the Dominator Platinum modules for testing, and none other than the high-end 2666 MHz CL10 kit. Made for overclocking, while having a sleek and very sophisiticated look, the Dominator Platinum brings a lot to the table.

*Show full review*


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## erixx (Sep 11, 2012)

I did some AIDA64 RAM tests and my values are sames as the Samsung sticks in your reviews. I am at 1600, 1.65v and 8-8-8-8-24. 

Am I wrong are is there not much to gain from upgrading mine be it this kit you reviewed or another higher speed kit...


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## cadaveca (Sep 11, 2012)

Clockspeed can help with some workloads in a big way.

Whether those gains are worth the cost to you or not, I cannot say, but to me it is.

Those Samsung sticks are a grea tbudget buy, for sure, but at the same time, they don't ahve the LOOK that these or other sticks do. It's more than just about performance.


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## Delta6326 (Sep 11, 2012)

Great review, those sticks look amazing!

My only complaint and its not big or anything, but I'm not a fan of having speeds with 1.75v I think the max should be 1.65v. Still a great review and if these where cheaper I would buy them in a heartbeat.


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## cadaveca (Sep 11, 2012)

Delta6326 said:


> Great review, those sticks look amazing!
> 
> My only complaint and its not big or anything, but I'm not a fan of having speeds with 1.75v I think the max should be 1.65v. Still a great review and if these where cheaper I would buy them in a heartbeat.



*The stock voltage IS 1.65 V.*


I'm sorry if I gave the wrong impression with that.

But these are sticks meant to OC, so I checked that max during the CAS and Clock scaling testing with 1.75 V. Normal voltage for benching, IMHO, and actually, when it comes to pushing for the top scores, 1.75 V is low. Intel states 1.85 V max for hte platform, I think? I'd have to verify by checking the whitepapers.


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## bpgt64 (Sep 11, 2012)

How is price not a drawback, 750 dollars for ~5-15% gain in latency, minor gains in speed? vs a 100 dollar DDR3-1600 cas 9 kit?


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## cadaveca (Sep 11, 2012)

bpgt64 said:


> How is price not a drawback, 750 dollars for ~5-15% gain in latency, minor gains in speed? vs a 100 dollar DDR3-1600 cas 9 kit?



250 MHz over the G.Skill(just an example) kit isn't minor gains.

I see this as no different than any high-end motherboard, like the ASRock Extreme11 I reviewed a couple of weeks ago. That motherboard was $600, and the vlaue for that cost was there, and easily explained by the LSI RAID controller. Here, the added cost is covered by overclocknig headroom, esthetics, and additional functionality, like the Corsair Link connector, which allows the memory to report vital stats via software.

Hopefully I'll get a Link kit for a review soon. 

I've seen the price as low as $535, and as high as $885.

That $535, I paid that for 8 GB of CAS 8 Dominator GTs. 


That $100 kit isn't going to offer all that this kit does, and it's just that simple. Let me put it this way...for me, this kit allowed me to push my CPU's memory controller, and the motherboard, to the limit. I am pretty sure my CPU was what prevented me from pushing further with relaxed timings. 

The only way I can confirm for sure is to get a 2800 MHz kit, and see what happens.


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## mlee49 (Sep 11, 2012)

Hey Dave, doesn't the "Platinum" heat bar across the top completely negate the airflow from the Airflow?

Seems like it wouldn't do a very good job of cooling, just running a fan into a flat wall like that.


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## Widjaja (Sep 11, 2012)

Nice bling kit.


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## cadaveca (Sep 11, 2012)

mlee49 said:


> Hey Dave, doesn't the "Platinum" heat bar across the top completely negate the airflow from the Airflow?
> 
> Seems like it wouldn't do a very good job of cooling, just running a fan into a flat wall like that.



The Airflow fans are small, but have large, deep blades that give fairly decent pressure, thanks to the 35mm fan thickness, so yeah, it's not the most ideal, but the air definitely does flow between the sticks at least a little bit.


The LEDs in the middle of the Airflow Pro denote temperature, and the sticks remained pretty cool, as the temp LEDs stayed light blue, even with 1.75 V. The last sticks I used the display with were green at desktop with the fan, and yellow under load, so definitely much hotter.



Widjaja said:


> Nice bling kit.



Sure is. They really do not give the same impression in pictures as they do in person. Talk to Fullinfusion..he got a set after I recommended them, he's super-happy with his kit.


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## EarthDog (Sep 11, 2012)

$750 dollars? Jesus. Will they sell these in a more monetarily appetizing 2x4Gb config?

Nice IMC you have on that CPU... bet it clocks to the moon cold (if you try!).



			
				cadaveca= said:
			
		

> That $100 kit isn't going to offer all that this kit does, and it's just that simple. Let me put it this way...for me, this kit allowed me to push my CPU's memory controller, and the motherboard, to the limit. I am pretty sure my CPU was what prevented me from pushing further with relaxed timings.*
> 
> The only way I can confirm for sure is to get a 2800 MHz kit, and see what happens.


Id take the 2666 hyper X's over these in a heartbeat only b/c of price. The software stuff is neat.. thats it though.



> but I have found that performance suffers with any motherboard when doing so. I can't honestly tell you why, but the very best performance possible, quite specifically when it comes to memory, is achieved when you stay locked to a 100.0 MHz BCLK. This has affected memory overclocking and memory purchases in a big way.


More than interested to see these details...


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## cadaveca (Sep 11, 2012)

EarthDog said:


> More than interested to see these details...



Check the G.SKill TridentX review I posted last week, and the CAS and Clock testing there. 2500 MHz was slower than 2400 MHz.

I'm not sure why, but Copy and latency are impacted by BCLK increases on basically every board when using IVB. It's almost like some sort of divider for the controller is enabled, or something, I'm not 100% sure.


So, take your best kit of mem, one with a bit of headroom for BCLK. Bench it at XMP. bench it again @ 101 MHz. Pay attention to COPY performance first.


I've done this on every board, with many sets of memory, and each and every time, although memory speed has increased, performance in quite a few benchmarks decreases. Checking with AIDA64's memory benchmark shows drops. I'll toss up a couple of screenshots here:

Stock:





Max:





stock with max timings, plus 100 MHz CPU:


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## damric (Sep 11, 2012)

Dave, did you happen to see what ICs are underneath?

A lot of the expensive high frequency kits are Samsung 30nm


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## cadaveca (Sep 11, 2012)

damric said:


> Dave, did you happen to see what ICs are underneath?
> 
> A lot of the expensive high frequency kits are Samsung 30nm



Couldn't tell ya, and I think most OEMs prefer that it is not mentioned if I do discover it.

I could guess, based onteh version number, which usually indicates which ICs are used, one of the major reasons I like Corsair ram so much.


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## D007 (Sep 11, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> *The stock voltage IS 1.65 V.*
> 
> 
> I'm sorry if I gave the wrong impression with that.
> ...



Yea, I use to run 2.0 v easy on my older, ddr2 ram.. 1.65-1.75 is nothing..


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## yogurt_21 (Sep 11, 2012)

not to nit pick, but why is high price not listed as a con? Otherwise good review of a nice kit.


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## leeghoofd (Sep 11, 2012)

tWWSR value changes maybe Dave ? That's the one that cripples copy big time normally... Too bad you can't push these to the max... 2900Mhz was pretty straightforwarded with two dimms here.. 2800mhz with 4 was hard to stabilise...

I had a similar outcome with just upping the dividers... 2400 tWWSR at 5 > 2666 XMP with tWWSR at 7

Check here


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## Sabishii Hito (Sep 11, 2012)

On X79 those sticks should do 2400 9-11-11 at 1.65v or less.


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## cadaveca (Sep 11, 2012)

leeghoofd said:


> tWWSR value changes maybe Dave ? That's the one that cripples copy big time normally... Too bad you can't push these to the max... 2900Mhz was pretty straightforwarded with two dimms here.. 2800mhz with 4 was hard to stabilise...
> 
> I had a similar outcome with just upping the dividers... 2400 tWWSR at 5 > 2666 XMP with tWWSR at 7
> 
> Check here




Yeah, I did not play too much with tertiary timings. I know they are critical to lcocking with many DIMMs, but I do have a time budget to follow as well.

I'm not done with these sticks yet, using them for reviews now too, since they are so flexible.


I did mention that with some tweaking you can get further...it was a drop in stability that jsut could not be hcanged with primary changes or votlage, so it's definitely a timing, or my CPU that's the cause, for sure. Probably NOT the CPU. I'll have to check that out.



Sabishii Hito said:


> On X79 those sticks should do 2400 9-11-11 at 1.65v or less.



For sure!!


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## leeghoofd (Sep 11, 2012)

X79 tests done: 2400C9-11-11 at 1.62Vdimm... 2450Mhz at 1.65Vdimm ( end of my IMC  ) Gnideol even did 2400C9-11-10... impressive sticks...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/i7xcq195k378fz1/2450c9X79HP.jpg


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## cadaveca (Sep 11, 2012)

leeghoofd said:


> 2400C9-11-11 at 1.62Vdimm... 2450 at 1.65Vdimm
> 
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/i7xcq195k378fz1/2450c9X79HP.jpg



13m for 32m? WTF?




OH.

HyperPi.


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## Sabishii Hito (Sep 12, 2012)

leeghoofd said:


> X79 tests done: 2400C9-11-11 at 1.62Vdimm... 2450Mhz at 1.65Vdimm ( end of my IMC  ) Gnideol even did 2400C9-11-10... impressive sticks...
> 
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/i7xcq195k378fz1/2450c9X79HP.jpg



I have a kit of the Vengeance 2400 C9 sticks on the way, I wonder if they will be able to do 2666 C10 with 1.65v.  I imagine the binning of the chips for each is about the same....


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## tacosRcool (Sep 12, 2012)

Too expensive!


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## nothappy (Sep 12, 2012)

Nice review dave, been looking at these badboys yesterday at my local retailer, Drooling.

The height is troublesome, I use Hyper 212 on a botom pull top push config, and my Corsair Vengeance LPs are okay(the closest dimm has a roof over it now, LOL). But with these I gotta stick with the usual horizontal Push-Pull. That will suck my airflow, and I dont have AC in my rent.

But more importantly, whats with all the miss types man? the hell is a gigabute?


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## damric (Sep 12, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> Couldn't tell ya, and I think most OEMs prefer that it is not mentioned if I do discover it.
> 
> I could guess, based onteh version number, which usually indicates which ICs are used, one of the major reasons I like Corsair ram so much.



Of course they don't want you to know if you overpaid $700 for the same ICs found in budget RAM. Need looking heat spreaders though


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## cadaveca (Sep 12, 2012)

damric said:


> Of course they don't want you to know if you overpaid $700 for the same ICs found in budget RAM. Need looking heat spreaders though



meh. I have tried many times over the years to match what high-end kits can do, from any OEM, by buying "value" kits with the same ICs, and I have always had to buy many sets before actually finding a decent pair.


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## H82LUZ73 (Sep 12, 2012)

those Ics are handpicked,The value ram is just what a bad 7950 gpu would be if it does not match up to a good one downgrade it to value 7850.Great review Dave, I bet you had a blast with them playing Bf3 AK .


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## OneCool (Sep 13, 2012)

tacosRcool said:


> Too expensive!



Way too


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## douglatins (Sep 13, 2012)

I was gonna say hey this will be on my next build, then 800usd...


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## Hayder_Master (Sep 13, 2012)

great review dave as always, but isn't high price put as weak point.


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## LeviathanPT (Sep 13, 2012)

If you look at the quality material used and the overclocking achievements they have acquired i think they are well worth the money.

Great review!


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## fullinfusion (Sep 14, 2012)

love the review Dave and about time 

I know my Platinum stomp the Redlines I was using!
Plus the flexibility of ram timings blow me away...

Im just using the 2133 8GB kit but the numbers have been to say the least quite desirable.

Im thinking of grabbing another kit just to have as a spare kit


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## cadaveca (Sep 14, 2012)

douglatins said:


> I was gonna say hey this will be on my next build, then 800usd...





Hayder_Master said:


> great review dave as always, but isn't high price put as weak point.



Price is dependant on availability. The high price is becuase Corsair would have to bin many ICs for just your one set. These sticks sold for much less, when they were more available. Supply and Demand!


That would make the con, not hte price itself, but a lack of availability of such hand-sorted ICs.


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## fullinfusion (Sep 15, 2012)

Yeah thats a shame we cant push the bus speed up on out SB and IB proc's like Amd.

Thats one thing I miss big time about Amd's ability to clock the shit out of the bus speed.

You have an Amd system you could give a quick go around with Dave?

Just for curiosity?


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## cadaveca (Sep 15, 2012)

fullinfusion said:


> Yeah thats a shame we cant push the bus speed up on out SB and IB proc's like Amd.
> 
> Thats one thing I miss big time about Amd's ability to clock the shit out of the bus speed.
> 
> ...



I do have one, but not the time to, really. At least, not right now...but maybe soon. You'd think you'd almost be able to max out any AMD controller almost...

Crap. Now you got me curious. I got another board on the test bench right now, argh!!.


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## fullinfusion (Sep 15, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> I do have one, but not the time to, really. At least, not right now...but maybe soon. You'd think you'd almost be able to max out any AMD controller almost...


I know And hear that! I've been sitting here playing with these 2133 kit @ 9-9-9-24 1T but it's taking 1.65v to be 100% stable at those timings. Sure snappy though. Going to run some benches @ 4.8GHz for a comparison...


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## cadaveca (Sep 15, 2012)

That almost seems better than my kit...lulz.


Have you tried 2666 MHz? You can reference my MemTweakIt shot...


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## fullinfusion (Sep 15, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> That almost seems better than my kit...lulz.
> 
> 
> Have you tried 2666 MHz? You can reference my MemTweakIt shot...


I actually read your entire review, most of the time I skim over it to find what Im looking for and boy you had me glued to the screen with this one.

Na, these sticks wont boot at the 2400MHz jump setting in the bios and the board doesn't have a higher option.. Id be happy to try a timing to see if I can get them to boot if you'd be kind to post a setting...


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## cadaveca (Sep 15, 2012)

fullinfusion said:


> I actually read your entire review, most of the time I skim over it to find what Im looking for and boy you had me glued to the screen with this one.
> 
> Na, these sticks wont boot at the 2400MHz jump setting in the bios and the board doesn't have a higher option.. Id be happy to try a timing to see if I can get them to boot if you'd be kind to post a setting...



You don't have Z77, do you? That'd be why, perhaps.


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## fullinfusion (Sep 15, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> You don't have Z77, do you? That'd be why, perhaps.


Nope my hardware is in my system spec's... Z77 will be the next buy but deciding is going to be the hard part..

Prob the Maximus V Extreme


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## cadaveca (Sep 15, 2012)

fullinfusion said:


> Nope my hardware is in my system spec's... Z77 will be the next buy but deciding is going to be the hard part..
> 
> Prob the Maximus V Extreme



I think I might get one of those at some point...or maybe not.  I'd love to try these sticks in one, since I've heard from a few peopel that it clocks ram better tha nthe Formula does, although, my formula did pretty good too!


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## fullinfusion (Sep 15, 2012)

Too bad Asus didn't send you an Extreme board to also test. 

I was game for the Formula board but after the reviews I backed away... but hey! One never knows what board I'll be blessed with. Hasselwell is that Intels next cpu? thats going to be interesting.


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## cadaveca (Sep 20, 2012)

Price on these kits directly from Corsair has now dropped to *$434.99*

Get 'em before they sell out again, and the price goes back up!!!


http://www.corsair.com/us/memory-by...annel-ddr3-memory-kit-cmd16gx3m4a2666c10.html


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## fullinfusion (Sep 21, 2012)

Still to pricey for me but my 2133 plats work very nicely.

Hey Dave, memory express have 2 sets of the 2133MHz 2x4GB/ 8GB kits.

They have different prices... 

Whats the difference between the two kits?

this and that


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## cadaveca (Sep 21, 2012)

They are most likely hte same, but hte power of the Canadian dollar allows them ot sell the newer set, with the newer SKU, for $5 cheaper.

They might be differnet IC's...you can tell by looking in the window of the box which version the sticks are. I am not sure which version is which at this time.


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## fullinfusion (Sep 21, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> They are most likely hte same, but hte power of the Canadian dollar allows them ot sell the newer set, with the newer SKU, for $5 cheaper.
> 
> They might be differnet IC's...you can tell by looking in the window of the box which version the sticks are. I am not sure which version is which at this time.


Good to know and thanks! 

Hey did you ever visit the shop in Edmonton? and if so what did you think?

You know where Im at, and the only local shop we have want your wallet, and the kids right arm for anything decent..


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## cadaveca (Sep 21, 2012)

fullinfusion said:


> Good to know and thanks!
> 
> Hey did you ever visit the shop in Edmonton? and if so what did you think?
> 
> You know where Im at, and the only local shop we have want your wallet, and the kids right arm for anything decent..



Yeah, the Edmonton store was the first of it's kind here, having lots of high-end part stock, when other places didn't really. I do have several other shopping options when it comes to PC parts, but Memory Express is my go-to store, and in fact I'll be visiting them tomorrow, for sure, since i have some stuff I need to get.


I still shop at those other options, but all the Corsair stuff I buy from Memory Express( I use a lot of Corsair stuff), since the other places don't even stock it. :shadedshu The store here is like Best Buy, with lots of brand options in every part category, and they match any competitor pricing, too, so yeah, I visit there often. They'll custom-order stuff they don't stock, too, although you might pay a bit for that added convienience.


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## fullinfusion (Sep 21, 2012)

Happy shopping tomorrow Dave!

Yeah the only thing we have here is Future shop  
I wish we had a best buy. What do you think of the Corsair link adapter?

I used to have a few set's of Crucial Ballistx tracers ram back in the DDR2 days and loved the look.

You had a chance to play around with the link part of these sticks?


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## cadaveca (Sep 21, 2012)

I did ask for the Link adapter, since i have the Airflow Pro and a Hydro cooler too, but wasn't able to get one, unfortunately. Maybe I'll pick one up tomorrow.


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## fullinfusion (Sep 21, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> I did ask for the Link adapter, since i have the Airflow Pro and a Hydro cooler too, but wasn't able to get one, unfortunately. Maybe I'll pick one up tomorrow.


They pay you to well Dave :shadedshu


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## radrok (Sep 24, 2012)

I'm so tempted to get one of these quad kits and paint the platinum part


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## cadaveca (Sep 24, 2012)

To what?


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## EarthDog (Sep 24, 2012)

I think he is trying to bring sexy back...


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## radrok (Sep 24, 2012)

Red or white, I am going to make a build with a soon to be released Dimastech Bench, it's called EasyXL 

Sorry for not mentioning the color in the former post 

I already have a set of classic Dominator GTs though :|


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## nodata (Sep 22, 2013)

Just got 4x4 2666 CL11, was shootong for CL10, but they were out of stock in EU.. 
Playing with these sticks for a while, was able to boot @ 2800 1.65v, default timings, fully stable. Really good stuff! 
AIDA 64 - 



how to do a screen shot
Sandra memory bandwidth - 



screenshot software for windows



image hosting software


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## Sabishii Hito (Sep 22, 2013)

nodata said:


> Just got 4x4 2666 CL11, was shootong for CL10, but they were out of stock in EU..



Don't feel too bad, I think they're out of stock *everywhere*.


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## nodata (Sep 22, 2013)

Sabishii Hito said:


> Don't feel too bad, I think they're out of stock *everywhere*.



That eases my pain a bit


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## cadaveca (Sep 22, 2013)

Sabishii Hito said:


> Don't feel too bad, I think they're out of stock *everywhere*.



Except my livingroom......I still have an un-opened kit.


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## nodata (Sep 22, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> Except my livingroom......I still have an un-opened kit.
> 
> 
> http://img.techpowerup.org/130823/ram_a.jpg


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