Corsair 2GB PC2-6400 C3 DDR2 Memory Review

Overclocking The XMS2 PC2-6400C3 Memory

In a previous PC2-6400 roundup we reviewed seven kits of memory and during overclocking found a number of great overclockers. For overclocking the voltage was set at 2.2V, the max voltage on the Intel D975XBX motherboard, and we ran C3, C4 and C5 timings to find the max of each common set of timings.

CAS Latency 3:

We started off by overclocking the modules at their default timings of 3-4-3-9 and found that the module had just over 10% headroom on them.

Starting off at 400MHz we made it to 444MHz on the memory, which is an increase of 11%. Not bad considering no other kit of DDR2 memory that we have tested was even able to post at such tight timings.

CAS Latency 4:

After relaxing the timings from CL3 to CL4 we knew the memory would go higher, but we were not expecting much higher than the 888MHz we hit at CL3.

Starting off where the CL3 timings maxed out I was shocked to reach a frequency of 560.2MHz on the memory at 4-4-4-12 timings. Getting 1120.4MHz on memory rated at 800MHz is nearly unheard of at 4-4-4-12 timings with only 2.2 Volts running to the modules.

CAS Latency 5:

Pushing a little bit more we releaxed the timings from CL4 to CL5 and managed to get a few more MHz out of these amazing little modules.

With super relaxed 5-5-5-15 timings we were able to reach 567.7MHz meaning that the max of our modules at 2.2V was 1135.4MHz. By being able to hit 1.1GHz at CL4 and CL5 timings on memory rated at 800MHz is astounding. At loose timings our modules were able to overclock 167.7MHz, which is the highest overclock we have seen from any 800MHz modules that we have ever tested.

Let’s wrap this all up!