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Intro:
It has been almost five years since I reviewed a Corsair product. In that time, ASE Labs and the industry have evolved. Five years ago it was DDR that was the memory of choice and DDR2 wasn't even on enthusiast's tongues. Fast forward to 2008 and we've got DDR3 just coming on the market. DDR2 is still alive and is the king of value right now. Corsair's 4GB XMS2 PC2-6400 kit is the subject for review.
Packaging:
You'll notice a price sticker on this package. This is a retail sample that was purchased by the photography editor, Steven Susman. We strive to provide honest reviews to the readers at ASE Labs and will purchase products to accomplish this. The retail packaging was protective enough for this RAM. This package was purchase from Microcenter which is really an incredible store. It's like shopping at an online store in person. There are things there that you never would see at any other retail store. They should open one closer to where I live, though.
Modules:
Not all RAM is the same. I think the picture above shows that this kit is severely different than other kits from companies such as Crucial or Kingston. These modules have a specialized heat dissipation feature in the form of a super-sized heatsink. This heatsink is actually a four layered kit and two of the layers are actually bonded with the PCB to cool the board itself as well as the individual modules. This type of cooling system should keep the RAM from heating up much past ambient temperature.
The module timing and voltage information are clearly labeled on each stick. You can clearly see that these modules are rated for use at 1.8V running at 800MHz (PC2-6400) with timings of 5-5-5-18. All manufactures should put this important information on the stick itself especially if it is performance RAM. Since the specification of the RAM uses 1.8V (which is the proper JEDEC voltage) the SPD contains the proper speed and timings so there is no need for adjustment past installation to get the rated specs. RAM that uses higher voltage than default should always default to relax settings for SPD values. Corsair doesn't suffer from this problem and can offer the rated values.
These modules are huge. The metal heatspreaders do not add considerable weight to the package as a whole, so there is no worry of the sticks falling out of the socket in use. Corsair uses a standard brushed metallic look for the XMS2 DHX with a orange and black label for extra accents. The PCB is black for the extra accent.
The cooling system is nicely bonded to the modules themselves and if you purchase this RAM, you are buying the cooling system. There is no need to bother trying to rip it off. Don't ruin good modules by doing drastic things.
Did I mention that these modules are huge with that heatsink attached? They really are big. There is an extra add-on that can be purchased to give the modules their own fans. I think that is a useless option considering that most cases have fans that do a fine enough job as it is. Perhaps people that water cool their computer would find this interesting.
Intro:
It has been almost five years since I reviewed a Corsair product. In that time, ASE Labs and the industry have evolved. Five years ago it was DDR that was the memory of choice and DDR2 wasn't even on enthusiast's tongues. Fast forward to 2008 and we've got DDR3 just coming on the market. DDR2 is still alive and is the king of value right now. Corsair's 4GB XMS2 PC2-6400 kit is the subject for review.
Packaging:
You'll notice a price sticker on this package. This is a retail sample that was purchased by the photography editor, Steven Susman. We strive to provide honest reviews to the readers at ASE Labs and will purchase products to accomplish this. The retail packaging was protective enough for this RAM. This package was purchase from Microcenter which is really an incredible store. It's like shopping at an online store in person. There are things there that you never would see at any other retail store. They should open one closer to where I live, though.
Modules:
Not all RAM is the same. I think the picture above shows that this kit is severely different than other kits from companies such as Crucial or Kingston. These modules have a specialized heat dissipation feature in the form of a super-sized heatsink. This heatsink is actually a four layered kit and two of the layers are actually bonded with the PCB to cool the board itself as well as the individual modules. This type of cooling system should keep the RAM from heating up much past ambient temperature.
The module timing and voltage information are clearly labeled on each stick. You can clearly see that these modules are rated for use at 1.8V running at 800MHz (PC2-6400) with timings of 5-5-5-18. All manufactures should put this important information on the stick itself especially if it is performance RAM. Since the specification of the RAM uses 1.8V (which is the proper JEDEC voltage) the SPD contains the proper speed and timings so there is no need for adjustment past installation to get the rated specs. RAM that uses higher voltage than default should always default to relax settings for SPD values. Corsair doesn't suffer from this problem and can offer the rated values.
These modules are huge. The metal heatspreaders do not add considerable weight to the package as a whole, so there is no worry of the sticks falling out of the socket in use. Corsair uses a standard brushed metallic look for the XMS2 DHX with a orange and black label for extra accents. The PCB is black for the extra accent.
The cooling system is nicely bonded to the modules themselves and if you purchase this RAM, you are buying the cooling system. There is no need to bother trying to rip it off. Don't ruin good modules by doing drastic things.
Did I mention that these modules are huge with that heatsink attached? They really are big. There is an extra add-on that can be purchased to give the modules their own fans. I think that is a useless option considering that most cases have fans that do a fine enough job as it is. Perhaps people that water cool their computer would find this interesting.
Page 2
Stability:
Let me reiterate again how ASE Labs determines stability. Yes, I do this on every RAM review. At ASE Labs, RAM is only stable if it passes Memtest86+ and a plethora of memory intensive applications for a few hours like mprime and doing continuous compiling of specific programs. Just because the memory POSTs and runs doesn't mean that it is stable. Linux users may find memory errors by having errors in compiling (very common) to errors in tar as well as segfaults. Windows users can expect program faults and BSODs. Memory stability is very important. When we say that a specific specification of RAM is stable, we mean it!
The XMS2 DHX handles itself very well. At the rated speed of 800MHz with timings of 5-5-5-18 with the given JEDEC voltage of 1.8V, the modules were perfectly stable and performed as expected. The SPD contains the values for running the modules at the rated speed, but I always manually set my timings.
Overclocking:
These modules provided very interesting results in regards to overclocking. I expected some results to the tune of the »Crucial Tracer Red being a 4GB kit with similar timings and such. I started with lower the timings to 4-4-4-12 to see if it was stable. It wasn't, not until the voltage was upped to 1.9V. At that point, the RAM was running perfectly stable with enhanced timings. I decided to see how far the RAM could go in terms of speed. Starting at the default 1.8V and timings of 5-5-5-18, anything higher than 890MHz would cause some errors. What is really interesting is that past 1.95V, these modules started erroring at speeds that were stable at lower voltages.
It turns out that these modules hate high voltages. I know of some people that volt-mod their motherboards so you need to make sure that you can deliver 1.95V or less to make these modules stable. Very interesting to say the least.
Testing:
I want to preface this section by saying how ASE Labs will be doing benchmarks from now on. There will be no synthetic benchmarks at ASE Labs. This means that for fair comparisons, an apples to apples system will need to be made. We will be using tools that anyone will be able to get so anybody can reproduce our results. Current memory tests include compilation of LAME and FFMPEG, encoding in each of those programs, and a round of mprime to round everything out. We will be adding testing as we see fit during future reviews. If you would like to see specific (real world stuff) programs, please send me an email.
By using real world testing, a deduction can be made about memory at the same specs; Unless a major problem occurs in a set of modules, there is no statistical difference between one set and another set of modules. It is more important to look at the stability and overclockability of the modules as well as the price.
The results of this section are actually the same as the previous »Crucial Tracer Red review so you can refer to that for the results. Needless to say that modules running at the same timings perform the same. Corsair's rated timings are slower, but the resulting speed decrease is less than the statistical error so it isn't something to generally get excited about.
Conclusion:
These modules run for about $125 at the time of this review. This is a very good price for a 4GB of DDR2 that has some overclockability in it. Corsair is well known for their RAM and their business is built on it. It may not be as fancy as »other kits, but it gets the job done at a great price.
Stability:
Let me reiterate again how ASE Labs determines stability. Yes, I do this on every RAM review. At ASE Labs, RAM is only stable if it passes Memtest86+ and a plethora of memory intensive applications for a few hours like mprime and doing continuous compiling of specific programs. Just because the memory POSTs and runs doesn't mean that it is stable. Linux users may find memory errors by having errors in compiling (very common) to errors in tar as well as segfaults. Windows users can expect program faults and BSODs. Memory stability is very important. When we say that a specific specification of RAM is stable, we mean it!
The XMS2 DHX handles itself very well. At the rated speed of 800MHz with timings of 5-5-5-18 with the given JEDEC voltage of 1.8V, the modules were perfectly stable and performed as expected. The SPD contains the values for running the modules at the rated speed, but I always manually set my timings.
Overclocking:
These modules provided very interesting results in regards to overclocking. I expected some results to the tune of the »Crucial Tracer Red being a 4GB kit with similar timings and such. I started with lower the timings to 4-4-4-12 to see if it was stable. It wasn't, not until the voltage was upped to 1.9V. At that point, the RAM was running perfectly stable with enhanced timings. I decided to see how far the RAM could go in terms of speed. Starting at the default 1.8V and timings of 5-5-5-18, anything higher than 890MHz would cause some errors. What is really interesting is that past 1.95V, these modules started erroring at speeds that were stable at lower voltages.
It turns out that these modules hate high voltages. I know of some people that volt-mod their motherboards so you need to make sure that you can deliver 1.95V or less to make these modules stable. Very interesting to say the least.
Testing:
I want to preface this section by saying how ASE Labs will be doing benchmarks from now on. There will be no synthetic benchmarks at ASE Labs. This means that for fair comparisons, an apples to apples system will need to be made. We will be using tools that anyone will be able to get so anybody can reproduce our results. Current memory tests include compilation of LAME and FFMPEG, encoding in each of those programs, and a round of mprime to round everything out. We will be adding testing as we see fit during future reviews. If you would like to see specific (real world stuff) programs, please send me an email.
By using real world testing, a deduction can be made about memory at the same specs; Unless a major problem occurs in a set of modules, there is no statistical difference between one set and another set of modules. It is more important to look at the stability and overclockability of the modules as well as the price.
The results of this section are actually the same as the previous »Crucial Tracer Red review so you can refer to that for the results. Needless to say that modules running at the same timings perform the same. Corsair's rated timings are slower, but the resulting speed decrease is less than the statistical error so it isn't something to generally get excited about.
Conclusion:
These modules run for about $125 at the time of this review. This is a very good price for a 4GB of DDR2 that has some overclockability in it. Corsair is well known for their RAM and their business is built on it. It may not be as fancy as »other kits, but it gets the job done at a great price.