Unreal Tournament 2003: Antalus, Min Detail @ 640

	Time in Seconds (lower is better)
TWINX PC3200XL Pro	411.32
TWINX PC4000 Pro (2.5-3-3-5)	406.12
TWINX PC4000 Pro (3-4-4-7)	404.13

Quake 3: Arena, Min Detail @ 640

	Time in Seconds (lower is better)
TWINX PC3200XL Pro	508.5
TWINX PC4000 Pro (2.5-3-3-5)	508.3
TWINX PC4000 Pro (3-4-4-7)	506.7

The TWINX XL leads the pack in gaming performance, though it is more obvious in UT2003. In our Quake 3 benchmark, the numbers are pretty close, and the finger seems to be pointing at our CPU not being able to feed the video card enough information.

Quake 3: Arena, Max Detail @ 1024

	Time in Seconds (lower is better)
TWINX PC3200XL Pro	423.5
TWINX PC4000 Pro (2.5-3-3-5)	418.5
TWINX PC4000 Pro (3-4-4-7)	414.3

At a higher resolution and detail level, things become more clear as some of the work gets off loaded to the video card. Quake 3 does require a fast subsystem, and the XL does its part to help.

Final Words

From what we've seen here today, it's obvious that tighter timings can certainly make a big difference when it comes to performance. This isn't new news to most enthusiasts, but something easily forgotten in the era of PC4000 ram. Truth be told, PC4000 ram isn't really that useful if you're looking into building a high performance system, but you're limited by the CPU and motherboard you've chosen.

Although many Pentium 4 CPUs and overclocker friendly motherboards are fully capable of 250FSB overclocks, most Athlon XP/64 setups are not. The same goes for Pentium 4 processors over 3GHz... 250FSB overclocks aren't something that is guaranteed. It is these users that the TWINX-XL is geared towards.

Retailing at about , it isn't cheap, but it is less expensive than many high quality PC4000+ ram modules. If you're running a system that ranges from 200FSB to 240FSB (overclocked), you're really wasting your money picking up PC4000 ram. Even with our high-end TWINX PC4000, the best timings we were able to attain was 2.5-3-3-5, and as our results have shown, it isn't enough to beat the XL.

Overclocking the XL is not something you're going to have an easy time doing. Even on our P4 setup, which we've brought up to 285FSB in the past, wasn't really able to do much better than 215FSB stable with the low timings. If you're looking into relaxing the XL timings, again, you're going to be wasting your money as you're better off picking up faster ram modules.

Pros: Excellent performance, even at stock speeds. Has the looks to go with the performance.

Cons: Tough to overclock.

Bottom Line: In our opinion, this is a required purchase if you're sitting on the 200MHz bus. Spending your money on faster ram is pointless if your setup can't handle the high clock speeds. Buying faster ram, while tweaking the timings is also pointless as well, as they still can't match what we've seen of the TWINX-3200XL Pro today.

If you have any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.

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