The last PC4000 kit from Corsair we've covered was one of the fastest memory kits that passed through our labs. Performance was impressive, as was the overclocking, but at the same time, there wasn't anything "special" about it. In the age of glowing motherboards, UV lighting, and flash neon cables, the TWINX looked just like any other stick of ram, albeit with an aluminum heatspreader. For the true enthusiast, there was no particular feature that made it stick out. Don't get me wrong, the quality of the ram is what really counts, and you're gonna have to pry it from my cold, dead hands to get me to switch.

Well, answered the call with the proverbial smoking gun. Just a little over two months since the initial TWINX PC4000 release comes the . At first glance, it's certainly impressive to look at with it's redone heatspreaders, and activity LEDs.

Since two months have passed, we're hoping there were some refinements made to the ram itself, and we'll be determined to find that out for you.

Specifications

Part Number	Speed	Size	Latency	Package	Specification
TWINX1024-4000 Pro	500 MHz	1GB	3-4-4-8	2x184 DIMM

As the title of the review says, the memory is sold as a kit, but they do sell individual XMS ProSeries modules. Here's a bit from Corsair's site:

We received two 512MB sticks, tested as a pair to insure maximum performance and compatibility, and arrived in a form fitting package. There are a couple of plastic snap areas that secure the ram which will keep the modules from bouncing around during shipping.

Like past Corsair XMS modules, their ram is encased in black heatspreaders. Unlike past modules, many changes have been made to the design. There are three items of note...

The first obvious change is the sheer size of the heatspreaders. Compared to their last TWINX kit, it's about 1/4 taller than before, but shouldn't have any issues fitting on standard motherboard/case setups. Small Form Factor users though, I am not 100% certain. I've seen elsewhere that the ProSeries fits in the Shuttle XPC with no problems, and I know the ram fits in our MSI MEGA651 without issues, but I can't say if this is going to be the case with all SFF setups.

The second improvement over their past heatspreaders are the mini fins throughout. In theory, the fins increases the surface area, and should help dissipate more heat than before. In practice, the ram is still hot to the touch, though not quite as searing as before. I would imagine with "more heatsink", the heat is more evenly absorbed and dispersed.

The third change from the past kit is the integration of activity LEDs to the TWINX. There are nine activity LEDs dedicated to each memory bank (18 total). As the memory activity increases, so do the number of lights as shown below.

On the left, only a few LEDs light up when you're idle, but fire up a game of UT2003 and admire the pretty colours.

From an window modder's standpoint, the lights are going to be a big plus, as extra eyecandy will never hurt. From a reviewer's perspective, the lights are handy when testing various apps to stress memory. If I was using an app for testing memory, and there's no LED activity, I guess that app gets chucked aside. I would say the ram's LEDs would be useful for troubleshooting, as no lights mean no activity, but if that were the case (bad ram), your system speaker would beep anyways.

A closer look at the modules, and we can see the silver sticker letting you know the specs of that stick of ram. We can see that it's a 512MB stick, rated at 500MHz, with ram timings of 3-4-4-8. As many enthusiasts know, tighter timings (say 2-2-2-6) result in better performance, but as memory speeds increase, it is extremely difficult to maintain stability with such low timings. To be honest, 3-4-4-8 isn't bad at all for 500MHz. Sure, it can be better, and if our past experiences have shown us, we can expect them to do much better.