Corsair XMS 1GB DDR400 Registered Memory

Memory Performance:

Our Test System:

• AMD Athlon 64 FX-51 @ default
• ASUS SK8N Motherboard
• nVidia Geforce FX 5900 Ultra 256mb
• Thermaltake Venus 12 HSF (Air Cooled)
• Western Digital 36Gb Raptor Serial ATA 150 Hard drive
• Antec TrueControl 550W Power Supply

Memory Used:

• 1GB Corsair XMS Reg (CMX512R-3200C2PT)
• 1GB Kingston HyperX PC3200 Reg (KRX3200K2/1G)
• 1GB Legacy PC3200 Reg (88S6HDAR-1TDG)

Driver Versions:

• NVIDIA Detonator 52.16
• NVIDIA Forceware UDP 3.13
• ASUS SK8N BIOS version 1003

Testing Procedure :

All testing was done on a fresh install of Windows XP Professional build 2600 with Service Pack 1A and DirectX 9.0b. All benchmarks were completed on the desktop with no other software programs running. No overclocking was done on the video card unless noted. Our testing was done at 200×11 = 2.2GHz. Firewire was disabled in the BIOS menu for all the testing competed during this review.

All testing was completed at 2.6Vdimm unless otherwise noted!

Testing Notes:

Starting from the bottom we have Legacy’s module which uses a TSOP designed PCB manufactured by KCA with 5ns IC’s from Infineon. Corsair’s modules uses a TSOP designed PCB with 5ns Winbond CH-5 IC’s. Up top the Kingston HyperX module uses a micro BGA PCB manufactured by Samsung along with 5ns Samsung IC’s.

Sisoft; Sandra 2004:

Sisoft Sandra 2004 is designed to test the theoretical power of a complete system and individual components. The numbers taken though are, again, purely theoretical and may not represent real world performance. Higher numbers represent better performance in memory bandwidth.

Results: The Corsair and Legacy modules use the TSOP form factor and it is fairly obvious that the micro BGA form factor that Kingston is currently using is inferior thus far in our testing. It should also be noted that the Legacy and Kingston HyperX modules will not post at a CAS Latency lower than 2.5 due to the IC selection. Corsair XMS Registered is able to post at a CAS Latency of 2, 2.5, and 3! We didn’t test the Corsair at CL3 because enthusiasts want to see tighter timings so we ran at 2-3-2-5!