KLEVV CRAS V RGB DDR5-9200 CUDIMM 48GB Dual-Channel Memory Kit Review

Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

Over the years, we have seen KLEVV build a name for itself in the game through exotic ICs and performance that used to beat others in their class. However, as of late, things seem to have changed. While we get the idea behind this product, we feel as if we are having a flashback to when we reviewed the Narvic Black mixed in with a bit of what we found in the Trident Z Royal. What does it all have in common? Specifications that draw in customers, manufacturing names we have come to love, all making products for the wrong reasons, in our blunt opinion.

With everything going on in the RAM segment, we can see a need to come out with a kit boasting amazing speeds. We love to get our hands on more CUDIMM so we can get a better feel for how that is all developing. We also love it when companies can do amazing things with a set of memory without needing to jack the voltages so high that they need special cooling just to run XMP. However, if you miss a step, with pricing so outrageous, you are likely to get left behind, while other, more affordable options are already out there.

While we have a deep appreciation for KLEVV and all they have done for us and the market with their top-tier offerings, we must put feelings aside and deliver the details without bias. We do not mean to scare you away from the rest of the review, as the newest KLEVV CRAS V RGB DDR5-9200 CUDIMM is something to behold and admire, but is it enough to deliver what the mainstream, higher-end crowd expects of this type of purchase, or does it have amazing feats left for the overclocker in us all? Stick around and see, as KLEVV is on the right path, and with the right parts and an iron will, you just might want to try your hand with a set.

KLEVV has not updated the product page to reflect the inclusion of this speed, nor has it mentioned CUDIMM in the CRAS V RGB lineup. However, with some common sense and the right tools, we were able to come up with a decent set of specifications.

Our KLEVV CRAS V RGB sports the KD5KGCD80-92G420G, which doesn't spell out much other than this being D5 (DDR5), the 92 denotes the speed, and the 42 after the G is the CAS timing. Beyond that, you need to know that this is CUDIMM and that KLEVV is making these kits in Obsidian Black and Brilliant White to ensure full market compatibility for theming.

Under hefty hunks of aluminum, you will find a set of SK Hynix M-die, configured to give us 48GB in total. With no help from the BIOS, this kit has its JEDEC set at 4800 MT/s with 40-40-40-77 2T timings, sipping on 1.10V. The XMP 3.0 and EXPO profile is what interests us the most, as KLEVV has delivered the fastest kit we have ever tested, even faster than we have overclocked with any stability. At 9200 MT/s with 42-56-56-148 2T timings at just 1.45V, it's more than impressive on paper, but you must admit the timings seem a bit off.

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The last bit we know for sure is that the KLEVV CRAS V RGB is 133.3mm long, 44.1mm tall, and 8.4mm thick, and each weighs 74.2 grams.

What nobody knows is when they will hit the market, where they might be sold, or how much they plan to sell for. Hypothetically, we did some math with a kit from the CRAS V RGB lineup. On Amazon, we found another 48GB kit, but it's only 6000 MT/s and sells for just over $600. That's simple math, leading us to assume that what we have in hand could easily be in the $900 range, which made us shiver while typing that sentence. With no information from KLEVV, this is still open for discussion, but let's just say they cost $750, which still leaves the bar sky high to overcome that sort of sticker shock, long before we even get to see how they perform.

Lastly, they are backed by a limited lifetime warranty, should your unicorns ever need to return to the stable.

Packaging and KLEVV CRAS V RGB CUDIMM

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While these are obviously marketing samples, the retail packaging will stay the same with the neon glow behind the sleek Obsidian Black version of KLEVVs CRAS V RGB. In this instance, we get 9200 MT/s and 48GB, but there's no mention of its CUDIMM status, though we do see a warranty icon and EXPO and XMP icons to the right.

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On the back, KLEVV lists features inherent with their CRAS V RGB memory. Scanning further down, we see RGB sync compatibility before running into legal info and Essencore information.

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Inside the cardboard is a pair of plastic trays that stack to ensure the CRAS V RGB arrives in as good a condition as possible. Protecting surfaces and finishes is cool and all, but static deterrence is the main feature of the inner packaging.

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We love the aesthetic of the Obsidian Black version of these CRAS V RGB kits. The matte-black aluminum spreader features an understated glossy KLEVV logo on the left. The dark gray band at the top, which offers a place to put the DDR5 and a cap over the chrome CRAS V RGB, is a great addition. Unlike others, KLEVV also added notches to allow the LEDs to shine toward the motherboard and through the top.

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The reverse is identical except for one detail: the sticker placement at the bottom-right corner. It covers the maker, part number, speed, timing, voltage, serial number, and where they were made.

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Light plays a huge part in how this kit appears in a build. With no lighting, they are dark and menacing, but with the slightest cast of light, they bling from the chrome, with flashes on the DDR5 and KLEVV shiny painted letters. The gray still stands out, but our eyes keep going back to the chrome.

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The diffusers are quite white and have a mold line that runs down the center of the top portion. While staying flat, the diffuser dips in the center to fit the spreader design, leaving room on the right to paint the KLEVV name.

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Popping the hood took heating first, but then they let go gently, allowing us to see the row of eight SK Hynix H5CGD8MHB0 ICs spread across the black PCB. Under the spreader are two runs of thermal tape for each half of the module's ICs, with a large thermal pad over the voltage regulation center.

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The 5118Y1 is the SPD chip from Renesas. The 0P=CD chip is the unlocked PMIC from Richtek, with the long chip at the bottom being the RAMBUS CKD chip.

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For those of you who do not wish to open the hood to verify the ICs, you can use the latest HWiNFO, which clearly shows CUDIMM, SK Hynix, and M-die.

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Before we tore them open, we installed them into the test build and applied some power. While the colors blend well and are bright when the room is dark, with any room lighting, the shiny diffusers reflect that light, making it much harder to appreciate.

Looking at the full range of timings, we start to see a chink in the armor. The speed is amazing, and CAS42 isn't that bad either, but 56 and 148 feel like lazy binning. The tREFi is wide open, yet the tRFC is still under 800. There are some other things in tabs two and three we would love to be a touch lower, but we will give it a fair shot and see what shakes.

Test System Details

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To obtain the Intel CPU-Z screenshots, you will see directly following this image; this is the system we used to do it, as well as to get the results seen in the following pages. Thanks to ASRock, our wallet, HYTE, Patriot, GIGABYTE, and be quiet! for supporting us with this venture. Detailed specifications of the system can be found below.

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With nothing more than an extra trip to the BIOS after a CMOS reset, enabling the only XMP on file, we get exactly what KLEVV promised. Our CRAS V RGB is running at 9200 MT/s, a first for us with any RAM, and the timings are what they should be. One thing to note, these are running gear 4.

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We were able to mess with the timings a touch, and while quite a few stability tests showed this is stable, you will see at the end where it isn't, yet 9200 MT/s with 38-54-54-148 sounds much better, but let's see how it plays out.

We did try for more speed, and oddly, we got to 9600 MT/s with 1.45V into windows and were benching just fine. However, we tried 9733 MT/s, and it broke the kits' ability to increase speed at all beyond XMP. We tried higher voltages and different timings, but nothing fixed this glitch.

Chad's Intel DDR5 Dual-Channel Test System Specifications

Intel Performance

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AIDA read results are decent for KLEVV at 127,819 MB/s, but we did expect the CRAS V RGB to take top honors, not get bested by a set of 8400 MT/s sticks. We did get a fair amount of added love with lower timings, but if you look at what the Aurum did, it shows that KLEVV is wasting a lot of performance on this metric.

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AIDA's write results are a different story with KLEVV at XMP performing at a level we would expect, clearing all competition on its way to the top with 103,641 MB/s. Changing timings didn't get us more love, but KLEVV stays ahead of those Aurum sticks this time, as they should.

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Then we look at the copy results from KLEVV and are blown away with 122,718 MB/s, well ahead of the Aurum, and take top honors with quite a jump in performance. A hefty boost can be gained from some tinkering with the timings, but it may not be worth the effort in the end.

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There really isn't a nice way to put this, so we will just say the latency of the CRAS V RGB 9200 is poor. At 89.1ns, you can get much better results with much more affordable options. CAS 38 lands where we expected XMP to put it, and looking at what we did with the Aurum just drives the point home that much harder.

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While crunching numbers shouldn't be that hard, it appears that calculating pi a few times is tough for these CRAS V RGB sticks. With many much better results from much slower kits and knowing how the Aurum does at this sort of speed, the results KLEVV delivered here are sad.

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PCMark 10 didn't seem to appreciate the XMP profile much, placing KLEVV third from the bottom. A bit of tuning went a long way toward improving that score, and compared to the Aurum, our OC run should have been the default result for what this DDR5 is capable of.

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File compression seems easy enough, but for some reason, the CRAS V RGB doesn't seem to want to do that well either. With 8000, 8200, 8400, and 9000 MT/s kits performing better at this simple task, why settle for mediocre results from something supposed to be top of the line?

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A few things showed up in Handbrake transcoding. The red bar for XMP is well below what we expected, especially given the Aurum time so fresh in our heads. This is also where ECC kicked in for the CAS38 run, which is why the score falls off and lands it at the bottom of the chart.

Final Thoughts

We do not mean to outright say anything too harsh, but we will get straight to the point. Presentation, aesthetics, and a shape unique to KLEVV grabbed our attention as we glanced at the CRAS V RGB lineup. When asked to review this RAM, we needed to meet a few requirements using the components used for testing to ensure stability with XMP and eliminate any oddities. As such, this is not a kit for the mainstream masses, as if the 9200 MT/s on the box didn't already make that clear. Bearing that in mind, those who shop for the upper end of the market tend to be very discerning, which could be the crux of this CRAS V RGB, as we see it.

Performance showed up in spurts. When it was good, they were great, but when they weren't at the top of the chart, they were more commonly found nearer the bottom. It was a shame, really, as we had lofty hopes for this set of CUDIMM. While it did raise the bar for our IMC capabilities, and 9200 MT/s at 1.45V is nice and all, with what was shown at CES, even that feat has lost its luster when there are 10,000 MT/s screenshots at that VDIMM.

We know we are likely to catch hell for this opinion; we want to bring it to you like it is, not from a marketing perspective, but an opinion from a writer who feels like a typical buyer and user. Certain things need to fall into place for a product like this to be more than a novelty, and KLEVV showed its hand. On paper, things look amazing, and even with open timings, we had hope, but it appears the binning needs a bit more work to drive performance up and make this 9200 MT/s set of CRAS V RGB worthy of much hype.

Considering what the current market demands of such a high-status product, it is daunting to have to shell out this level of funds for RAM in general, and with people holding onto cash a bit tighter now, you need to shine as brightly as possible to make people want to venture into the next thing in tech. Using gear 4 shows its performance hit, and KLEVV would have been much better, tweaking some 48GB UDIMM rather than pushing these CUDIMM to their limits. The only ray of sunshine we can hope for is that they take what we said to heart, and when these unicorns do make it to retail channels, they are better than what we saw in our charts.