2GB for the Masses – Corsair’s 4000PT and 3500LL

Introduction

Over the last year, there has not been a whole lot of changes in the memory industry when it comes to DDR1 memory modules. There have been some releases of memory that are guaranteed to run at higher frequencies, but these 600MHz are often reserved to a small niche community and never will become mainstream. In recent months some manufacturers have shifted their focus to 2GB memory kits and have been able to develop higher frequency ram with tighter timings than we have been used to. Those are all good things of course, but they are things that overclockers have been doing without the guarantees for quite some time. You cannot say ?Winbond UTT? if you are an overclocker and not get a fuzzy feeling when you hear it, as you remember running 250 at 2-2-2-5 timings while pumping 3.5v or more through the modules! Now, don?t get me wrong, I am all for any advancements we can still get out of an aging architecture. I am not ready to give up any of my DDR1 modules at all. But we are nearing the end of the road so to say when it comes to advancements that can be made.

With that in mind, there is an area of DDR1 that still has potential to make some waves in the industry, and that is what we are going to look at today. We have a look at two products from Corsair. Now, as soon as you hear the name Corsair, you know that reputation of quality that comes with that name. It is no different with the products we will look at today.

Introducing Corsairs? TwinX 2048-3200LL Pro and their TwinX 2048-4000PT. Both of these kits are comprised of two modules that are 1GB in size. As LR pointed out in the Crucial 2GB Ballistix Review, most 2GB kits are priced at about what a good kit of 2x512MB was costing not too long ago. We also pointed out, that one thing that has plagued DDR kits of this type are the extremely loose timings that are needed to reach high speeds, or the poor overclockability of modules that are able to do tight timings. Will Corsairs? 2GB Kit offerings hold suite to this pattern? That is what we intend to find out. Another question is this: Do you really need 2GB of ram in your box? We will attempt to answer that question as well as we look at the results of our testing. Let?s take a closer look at the products.