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Performance
Abit KX733 Mainboard BIOS Rev. 1009
Radeon 8500 128 MB DDR
AthlonMP 1800+
1 x XtremeDDR DDR400 True
ThermalRight SK6 Heatsink with 60mm Delta Fan
Sandra 2002
Quake 3
We will include our benchmarking results from before and during overclocking.
Test 1: SiSoft Sandra 2002
Each test was started immediately following a reboot. Windows themes were disabled, as were other background tasks.
333 MHz Cas 2 1T command
The XtremeDDR trailed the Corsair by a fairly slim margin in the Ram Int. Buffered, but trailed nonetheless under this specific test. Once again the Corsair leads the XtremeDDR by an unremarkable amount in the Ram Float. Buffered..
400 MHz Cas 2 2T command
Now we find out what this memory is really made of. As before the benchmarks were done individually after a reboot with all background services turned off.
Once again we have the XtremeDDR trailing the Corsair by a thin margin in the Ram Int. Buffered. XtremeDDR just can't seem to pull ahead. Throughout our Sandra testing the XtremeDDR failed to pull ahead of the Corsair, although it kept up just fine. Next let's see how the two compare under Quake 3.
Quake 3 Timedemo 1 1024x768
There is hardly any difference between both modules at 333 MHZ. At 400MHz, the increase in memory speed barely made any difference in the scores, only allowing for a 10 FPS gain on either stick. The Corsair is still ahead of the XtremeDDR in the tests, however.
Final Words
I find it extremely hard to come to a conclusion, no pun intended, for this product. On one hand it worked great in the Abit KX7333, allowing for excellent overclocking and perfectly stable operation.
On the other hand, it still had problems with the MSI KT3 Ultra and Asus A7V333, refusing to boot in either board. XtremeDDR hasn't approved the KT3 Ultra for use with their memory, so if you go by their approved mainboard list you shouldn't have any problems. The company has shown signs of maturing as their tech support was great, and their packaging was above average.
While the memory failed to beat the Corsair in any tests, it did manage to keep up throughout testing. You can forgive the fact that the Corsair performs better when you factor in that the XtremeDDR is a bit cheaper. I can recommend this product for those of you that own XtremeDDR approved boards, but please check with XtremeDDR first in order to find out of your board is indeed approved.
PROS
Great Overclocking results with the KX7333
Custom heat spreader looks great
Uses real 5ns 400 MHZ rated Samsung C4 chips (TCC4 Modules)
Good packaging
Great tech support
Inexpensive when compared to other performance memory.
CONS
As all XtremeDDR products, DDR400 True will not work in MSI mainboards.
Bottom Line
Buy XtremeDDR if you own an Abit mainboard and want the best overclocking memory available. If you own an MSI or Asus board you would be much better off buying memory from Corsair.
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XtremeDDR DDR400 True: If you have a KT400 motherboard, you'll want some DDR400 ram. There's a lot of fancy overclocking ram out there, and we test if XtremeDDR should be one to consider.
