Introduction & Specs
We take a look at two DDR2 offerings from Corsair. The overclocking results are surprising which bodes well for Corsair’s current DDR2 line-up.
As the AMD AM2 comes closer to release, we are finally going to see true wide adoption of DDR2. No longer will DDR2 RAM be isolated to the Intel camp who have been enjoying the new parts for over a year and a half now.
When DDR2 was initially introduced, not many consumers saw the benefit of having these more expensive components since the performance gain was minimal compared to standard DDR modules which were cheaper.
Today we’re taking a different look at two 1GB dual-channel DDR2 kits from Corsair – the XMS 5400UL and 8000UL packages.
Specs
The Corsair XMS2 5400UL and XMS2 8000UL 2x512MB packages have been on the market since September 2005 and at the time were the top-end of the DDR2 market (2x1GB sticks weren’t even out yet).
The Kingston memory we are using for comparison are Engineering Samples sent to us back in the early days of DDR2 and spec’d at 4-4-4-10.
| Manufacturer | Part Number | SPD Timings | Tested Timings |
| Corsair | XMS2 5400UL | 4-4-4-15 @ 667 MHz | 3-3-2-8 @ 675 MHz, 2.1V |
| Corsair | XMS2 8000UL | 5-4-4-9 @ 800 MHz | 5-4-4-9 @ 1000 MHz, 2.2V |
| Kingston | PC2-4300U-44410-B0 | 4-4-4-10 |
Page 2 – Bandwidth Testing – 5400UL
