* I'm not affiliated to any hardware review sites nor being sponsored, results are based on my personal tests*
DISCLAIMER : I'm not responsible for any damages(burnt) sticks which may happen, should you not exercise precautions & had significant knowledge in memory OCing. The results are merely based on my sticks & should not be taken as the absolute results *



Introduction

There's no doubt on the branding name power of Corsair, especially since the DDR days when they were one of the earlier manufacturers to empower their foot into value & performance based memories. I will not divulge into the history of Corsair, but to emphasize right into overclocking. You can read more @ their website.



Packaging, Built Quality

The pair of 2GB Twin2x PC6400 (2x1gb) comes in a blister pack, easy & repackageable. The sticks felt 'heavy' & solid giving the impression of promising performance to come. They are rated @ 5-5-5-18 @ 1.8V @ PC6400 speeds. There are variety of revisions, and the one i have are 5.1. According to Ramlist, rev 5.1 are Promos. I would well assume they are, as obviously peeping through the heatspreader will void the warranty. The aluminum heatspreader has a nice smooth touch, with the XMS2 sticker stating the timings, rev & part number.

The sticks were bought from retails, no cherry picking & they are representative of samples you get from shops. Mileage may vary depending on REVs, Chips WW(work week), PC setup, stress tests method etc.

Test Setup


Test Bed
- Pentium Dual Core E2140 MO
- Gigabyte P35 S3L
- 512mb X1950Pro Xpertvision

They are several methods used by reviewers to verify the overclocked results. I'll be using Super PI 32M & Prime (multi core) as stress tests to validate the results. The data represents the value which passes both sets of tests. Tests are evaluated @ CL4 & 5,varying voltage and the maximum Stable Mhz is recorded. I'll be skipping the default volts and jump right into 2.0v-2.2v.

Memory Cooling

There are plenty discussions on the effectiveness of heatspreader, some do believed they do actually worked & vice versa. The design of the heatsink is the crucial point. Extruded fins, heatpipes, watercooling will definitely help in cooling & stabilizing the chips to a certain extent under extreme volts. Thermal interface in between the chips & heatsink is equally important, thermal paste, tape. However, in my opinion the casual Heatspreader on thisCorsair (like many others) are junks. They are merely for cosmetic & aesthetic wise. Therefore a mode of cooling is highly recommended, or rather a MUST on every rams should you decide to whack >2.0v. Fans are cheap & they do great job in cooling the iron burning rams.

In these tests, a 120mm is placed on top of the memory to cool it.

Results



Max @ CL4-4-4-15 @ 2.2v


Max @ CL5-5-5-18 @ 2.2v


Conclusion

- The sticks took me back by suprise especially @ CL5 speeds, closing up to 600mhz (DDR2 1200) speed. I did managed to boot them to Win XP @ 600mhz @ 2.3v, however, Prime would fail instantly.
- The CL4 results are nothing to shout about, but they are relatively good coming close to DDR2 1000 speeds
- Given a particular family chip, I believed Corsair has better quality (binned) chips on their memory.
- For sure, they are not meant to challenge or performed to Microns( D9GMH, GCT, GKX) which are proven superior
- They overclock relatively well, considering they are the lowest line of Corsair's Performance line, & with rm170 tagged, there are nothing much to complain about

This post has been edited by kucingfight: Apr 26 2008, 09:59 AM

better ensure to have active cooling. Even stressing on stock volts is burning