Josh Collins drools over Corsair’s latest DDR3 kit.
Not content with being a market leader in the 2x 1GB DDR3 race, Corsair has pushed forward with a very aggressive 2x 2GB kit. Instead of going soft and releasing a high density 4GB kit with low frequency and high latency, Corsair’s done the opposite.Hitting the market in the proverbial gonads, Corsair has released a kit rated for DDR3-1600 at latencies of 7-7-7-20 featuring Intel’s Extreme Memory profiles – we were quite impressed when we first heard the news. The modules use 128MB ICs with 8 ICs attached to each side of the modules’ PCB. With an operating voltage of 1.9v compared to the 2.0v commonly found on the Dominator series, the modules still cruise along at the comparatively high frequency of DDR3-1600. Now, we’ve seen the Dominator series do these speeds at the same volts and we’ve even seen higher frequencies at the same voltages. Therefore, we wanted to know what these modules could do if pushed.The first test, naturally, was to see if we could tighten up the timings to a more preferable 6-6-6-18 and with a 1T command rate while retaining the DDR3-1600 frequency. With a smile on our faces, we watched as this kit merrily went on its way with ease. The next test was to see if it could go up a step to DDR3-1800 while maintaining latencies of 7-7-7-20 1T. And guess what? The kit did so and again with similar grace. No BSODs here, just pure win.As these modules utilise Micron D9 ICs, with a bit more tweaking and some voltage lovin’ these modules have the potential to achieve some even more amazing performance heights. But for now, for the large majority of us, the concept of 4GB of DDR3 memory is still a dream we’re left to drool over while cursing those fortunate to have the money to spend - $900 is a lot to spend on RAM – on such performance.
Issue: 133 | February, 2012