Corsair
has a reputation among enthusiasts as makers of some of the best
ram in the business. Over the years, as ram technologies change,
as well as getting faster, Corsair was always out there, putting
out products to meet the demands of power users.
Things
are no different now with the release of the D915 and D925X chipsets
from Intel this past Summer. Among the many changes to the Pentium
4 platform, DDR2 is one of the major changes Intel is now pushing.
Officially, the new chipsets support PC3200 DDR2, but as is always
the case, many enthusiasts are pushing the new platform harder
than Intel would probably like. Among the many factors in successful
overclocks, the ram plays a major role.
Today
we'll be checking out Corsair's latest DDR2 kit, the TWIN2X1024-5400C4PRO.
These modules are based on the XMS2 line, and feature a different
heat spreader and the same activity LEDs that we're familiar with
in their Pro Series modules.
Specifications
|
Part
Number
|
Speed
|
Size
|
Package
|
CAS
Latency
|
|
|
XMS2-5400
|
1GB
|
2x240
DIMM
|
4-4-4-12
|
You can view the full specifications in this PDF,
but what you need to know is the modules are validated with an
Intel based motherboard at 675MHz. Since the memory controller
operates at 400MHz stock, the ram has a lot of headroom for future
growth.
The
ram modules arrived in a hard plastic case, with each ram module
fitted in the clear plastic shell. The only reason I'm pointing
this out is because there should be no confusion in what you're
getting. You have a clear view of the ram, and the labels (indicating
the type of modules), and the packaging is snap sealed. The seal
changes to a slightly translucent white when opened, so it should
be pretty obvious to the buyer if the package has been tampered
with.
The
XMS2 Pro Series modules have platinum coloured heat spreaders,
rather than the black ones as was used with their XMS Pro Series.
Platinum ones were available in the past, but now it looks like
standard issue for the XMS2. Heat spreaders have yet to convince
me that they effectively cool ram to the point where it will make
a difference in overclocking, but I guess any cooling included
won't hurt. What I was told by a marketing rep was that heat spreaders
will reduce EMI since it shields the ram, but I don't have any
quantitative proof of that.
JEDEC
specifications call for DDR2 667 timings of 5-5-5. The TWIN2X
exceed specifications, with the modules rated at 675MHz, and ram
timings of 4-4-4-12. As many enthusiasts know, tighter timings
normally result in better performance, but as memory speeds increase,
it is extremely difficult to maintain stability with such low
timings. To be honest, timings seem to be having a lesser effect
on performance as memory speeds increase as this was something
we've observed with our past reviews.
All
of the TWINX kits are tested in pairs and in a Dual Channel
environment, which both of Intel's new chipsets support. You
can buy the XMS2 modules separately if you choose, though I
wouldn't be sure why anybody would do that. All the Pro Series
XMS2 modules feature the same activity LEDs that makes this
line of ram so popular. There are 24 LEDs present, and they
light up as the ram is being used. They do look nice, and it's
interesting to see how hard the ram is being pushed in a particular
application, but they don't offer any actual troubleshooting
use. I suppose if you turn on your PC, and they don't light
up at all, you'll know you have a problem somewhere.
Overclocking
A RAM
Stress Test Professional (R.S.T.) Pro2 card will be used
to test for reliability as well as stability during our overclocking
tests. The card is quite expensive, but if you're testing a
lot of ram, or you're a technician troubleshooting systems,
this card is well worth the money.
How it works is that the R.S.T. Pro2 goes into
a free PCI slot and after POST, it bypasses the OS completely,
loading a proprietary OS and software package (embedded on the
card itself). The card allows you to perform stress and performance
benchmarks without the Operating System's memory footprint,
memory resident programs, or drivers interfering with the memory
installed. We'll provide a full review in the future, but that
is the gist of it.
We proceeded with overclocking, and tested the
ram via the memory tests on the R.S.T. Pro2 until we got a failure.
At DDR-2 533 and 600 (200MHz, 225MHz memory respectively), the
Waterchill Antarctica cooled ASUS P5AD2 handled the TWIN2X1024
without any problems, so we're off to a good start. In order
to hit the higher FSBs, we lowered the multiplier on our P4
560 ES to 14x200 (2.8GHz) and retested the stock speeds, which
were again met with success.
Setting the ram speed at Auto, we then proceeded
to crank up the FSB until we failed to POST. This occured at
252FSB, though we were not able to get into Windows until we
dropped down to 248FSB. We reinstalled the R.S.T. Pro2 card,
and had some problems passing the memory tests at this speed.
After bumping the memory voltage to 2.0v, the memory passed
the test.
We should point out that at 248FSB, we were not
able to reach the ram's maximum rated speed of 675MHz (253FSB),
but from the research we've done on the ASUS board, it seems
that 248-250FSB is the current ceiling of this motherboard.
We'll certainly follow this up if we come across a higher overclocking
board in the future.
In terms of memory timings, the ram was pretty
much dead set on 4-4-4-12, except at DDR-2 533. At that speed,
we were able to tweak the timings to 3-3-3-10, and pass the
R.S.T. Pro2 tests.
Test
Setup
ASUS
P5AD2 Premium: Intel P4 560, 2 x 512MB Corsair TWIN2X PC5400
Pro, ASUS AX800XT, 120GB Seagate SATA 7200rpm, Windows XP SP1,
ATI Catalyst 4.9.
The testing configurations will be as follows: DDR-2 533, DDR-2
600, and DDR-2 662.
DDR-2 533 is the highest stock speed setting of all 915/925
motherboards. DDR-2 600 is the highest "stock" allowable
by the ASUS board. DDR-2 662 is the highest, stable DDR2 overclock
we were able to manage. Except for the DDR-2 533 timings of
3-3-3-10, at the other speeds, 4-4-4-12 will be used. All motherboard
timings were optimized for performance, while maintaining stability.
Testing software will consist of the following:
SiSoft Sandra 2004 Memory - Our standard synthetic test to
establish a baseline.
Aida 32 Memory Tests - New to our test suite, this is another
synthetic test to support (or discredit) our SiSoft results.
PiFast - A
good indicator of CPU/Motherboard performance is PiFast
version 4.2, by Xavier Gourdon. We used a computation of 10000000
digits of Pi, Chudnovsky method, 1024 K FFT, and no disk memory.
Note that lower scores are better, and times are in seconds.
Quake 3 - While it's old and moldy, it still has some value
as a system level benchmark.
SiSoft Sandra 2004 Memory
|
Int
Buff
|
Float
Buff
|
| 533MHz |
4723
|
4737
|
| 600MHz |
5894
|
5872
|
| 662MHz |
6149
|
6138
|
If your motherboard supports the speed, you're
much better off choosing 600MHz over the stock 533MHz.
