Corsair Dominator GTX modules are individually hand-screened and tested to ensure unmatched performance. They are designed specifically for enthusiasts and overclockers who want to achieve the highest performance possible, and to break benchmark world records.

Intel’s engineers awarded the XMP-Ready certification to 2 x 2GB Corsair CMGTX1 modules running at the incredible frequency of 2333MHz using low timings of 9-11-9-27 at a voltage of just 1.65V. The test platform was a Gigabyte™ GA-P55A-UD4P motherboard. The successful XMP certification is a testament to the performance capabilities as well as the stability of both the memory and the target platform.

“Building the fastest memory for extreme overclockers and enthusiasts requires considerable engineering expertise, combined with a unique understanding of the complexities of overclocking,” said Kevin Conley, VP of Engineering at Corsair. “Intel is one of the most meticulous and sophisticated technology companies in the world, and so achieving XMP-Ready certification at the astonishing frequency of 2333MHz once again clearly demonstrates Corsair’s performance leadership.”

Corsair Dominator GTX1 modules are individually screened and tested on multiple high-performance Intel P55 chipset platforms. In addition to the XMP-Ready certification at a frequency of 2333MHz, they are guaranteed by Corsair to operate at up to 2400MHz at timings of 9-11-9-27 at 1.65V.

Corsair Dominator GTX modules are available exclusively from Corsair’s Online Store. They utilize Corsair’s patented DHX+ heatsink and are supplied with extra-tall cooling fins to maximize heat dissipation. They are sold as a single module, allowing enthusiasts to simply buy the number of modules they require. Corsair recommends using the GT Airflow fan with tall mounting brackets, also available from the Corsair Online Store (part number CMXAF2 GTL).

As Corsair Dominator GTX1 modules are screened by hand, in multiple passes, at Corsair’s lab in Fremont, California, availability is extremely limited and is on a first come, first served basis only.

More information about Intel XMP-Ready memory, including lists of XMP-certified memory products, can be found at: http://www.intel.com/Consumer/Game/extreme-memory.htm

For more information on Corsair DDR3 Memory for Intel Processors, please visit http://www.corsair.com/products/memory_home.aspx.

About DHX+ Technology

Corsair’s patented DHX+ technology uses specially designed, high-quality heatsinks and a custom-designed PCB that allows both the front and rear of the memory ICs, as well as the printed circuit board itself, to be cooled. DHX+ technology also allows for the cooling fins to be removed, allowing for a range of modular cooling accessories including extended heatsink fins, the Corsair Cooling™ Hydro Series H30 water cooling block and Corsair Cooling™ Ice Series T30 sub-ambient cooling subsystem, which cools the memory up to 20°C below room temperature for maximum overclocking performance. DHX and DHX+ designs are covered by US Patent number 7,606,034.

About Corsair

Founded in 1994, Corsair Memory, Inc., is a worldwide leader in high performance components for personal computers. Specializing in very high performance memory and ultra- efficient power supplies, our flagship products, Including Dominator™ memory modules, are the choice of overclockers, enthusiasts, and gamers everywhere. Our expertise in design and manufacturing is also evident in our complete line of Flash Voyager® and Flash Survivor™ USB storage devices. Corsair offers 24/7 customer support via forums and the Tech Support Express helpdesk. For more information, please visit www.corsair.com

Copyright© 2010 Corsair. All rights reserved. All company and/or product names may be trade names, trademarks, and/or registered trademarks of the respective owners with which they are associated. Features, pricing, availability, and specifications are subject to change without notice.

Mushkin has been a leading name in high-performance memory for some time now and have been putting out products to warm even the pickiest enthusiast’s heart. Their latest release, the Ascent series, is no exception to their running tradition of quality, high-performance products.
We have had the chance to play around with a 4GB XP2-8500 5-5-5 Ascent series RAM.
So let’s find out if you really do get more with Mushkin.

Product: Mushkin Ascent XP2-8500 DDR2 1066 4GB Kit (2x2GB)  
Author: Sean Kalinich
Reviewed on: August 30th 2008
Product cost: $139.99 (at Newegg.com)
Manufacturer: Mushkin
Spelling and Grammatical editor: Planetx64 Staff

{mospagebreak title=Packaging and Accessories}
Packaging and Accessories:
Not since GiEL have I been impressed with the packaging a kit of RAM came in. It seems that most RAM manufacturers are happy with low cost and flimsy packaging. Now you would think that with the reduction in cost on the cheap wrapper we would get a reduction in cost on the RAM itself. That is usually not the case. Mushkin has decided to break from that tradition. The XP2-8500 kit arrived in box about the size of a DVD case. There was a stylish black slip cover that displayed the Mushkin name and the catch phrase “With Mushkin you get More”. 

They are right, slipping off the cover I found that this kit of RAM also ships with 3DMark Vantage Advanced edition. This is the first time I have seen RAM with a bundle.
The RAM itself was also impressive with hefty black heat-spreaders adding to the classy look.

{mospagebreak title=Specification}
Specifications:
According to Mushkin’s website the XP2-8500 has the following specifications:
DDR2 – 1066
Latency 5-5-5-15 (CAS-TRCD-TRP-TRAS)
240 Pin
Unbuffered
Voltage 2.0-2.1v
Dual-bank 256Mx64
Chip Density 128Mx8
Mushkin also uses a different heat spreader on the Ascent series. It is a high density aluminum heat spreader which Mushkin has dubbed eVCI (Enhanced Vapor Chamber Interface) and it adds a bit of weight to the module. This new setup also has extended fins at the top for increased cooling.

{mospagebreak title=Performance}
Performance:
RAM is a picky item to test, There is no real performance boost to be had from faster RAM like there is with a faster GPU. It is more an overall effect. Granted there are a few applications that will show a gain from speeding up your RAM. I selected a few of these and ran the Mushkin XP2-8500 at its stated speed of 1066 with default timings and then at its maximum stable overclock.
Maximum stable OC for this evaluation was the fastest I could run the XP2-8500 and complete all tests in a single run. CPU multiplier was adjusted to keep the overall CPU speed as close to the original as possible.
My Max OC turned out to be 1333 this was at 6-7-7-18 Voltage was a at 2.12 Now this was with a Quad Core CPU not overclocked, With my QX9770 OC’d to 490×8 the memory topped out at 1176MHz(5-5-5-16) at 2.12v Still neither is anything to sneeze at.

Test System:
Intel QX9770 3.2GHz (Stepping C0)
Asus P5Q Deluxe (BIOS 0803)
4GB (2GBx2)Mushkin Ascent XP2- 8500 DDR2 1066
GIGABYTE GV-R485-512H-B ATi 4850 512MB (2x for Crossfire testing)
Western Digital RaptorX 150GB 10k RPM HDD
Plextor PATA BluRay drive.
CoolerMaster 850Watt PSU (RS-850-EMBA)
Corsair Nautilus 500
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate x64

The Tests:

FutureMark Fun:
What evaluation would be complete without a FutureMark test in it?
We threw both of the current Vantage flavors at the XP2-8500.
3DMark:

No these are not the same screenshot. Something odd has happened, the GPU score when up slightly while the CPU score dropped while the XP2-8500 was at 1333. This allowed the system to produce the exact same score.

FutureMark:
Now this is more like what we are looking for, the increase to 1333MHz shows an improvement in both 32 and 64 bit test suites.

HyperPi 0.99b
HyperPi is a good test of memory performance and stability.

It looks like the increase to 1333 has really affected memory performance.  We show a slowdown in HyperPi from 1066 to 1333.

Everest Ultimate:
Here we see the increase in bandwidth potential from the bump up to 1333MHz

Sisoft Sandra:
Again in Sandra we see the same trend of performance gained while running the XP2-8500 at a higher speed.

Lightwave 3D –x64
Our overclock of the XP2-8500 yielded a performance decrease of two seconds.

Cinebench R10 x64
Cinebench shows a slight improvement over the stock memory.

AutoGK:
Here at last we see a large improvement with the 1333MHz overclock knocking roughly 6 minutes off of the encode time.

Photoshop:
Photoshop showed better performance with the faster RAM speed but again nothing to write home about.

Gaming:
Gaming is not something that you will usually see any performance improvement with faster RAM unless you are talking about the jump from 800 to 1333 or 1600MHz when used with CPUs that have those FSBs.  However I did want to run a couple of games and see if getting closer to the 9770s 400MHz FSB would show any improvement.

Assassin’s Creed:
Here I did not see much in the way of frame rate improvement, but there was a noticeable “feel” to the game with the XP2-8500 clocked to 1333. Level load times also seems quicker.

BioShock:
Interestingly Bioshock shows a decent performance improvement in terms of frame rate.
Levels seemed to load faster as well and the AI seemed to respond faster.

{mospagebreak title=Value}
Pricing and Warranty:
You can find the Ascent XP2-8500 kit around the Internet for about $140.00 ($139.99 at Newegg.com)
If you add up what you get in this package you can see that it is a pretty impressive price.
Mushkin offers a lifetime warranty on their products, for RMA and support assistance you can visit Mushkin’s support page

{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}
Conclusion:
So do you really “Get more with Mushkin”? The simple answer is yes you do. The Ascent XP2 8500 modules from Mushkin are probably the best 4GB kit I have worked with. Other 4GB kits can be very picky about voltage, heat clock, pretty much everything that the Mushkin XP2 8500 wasn’t. It is great stuff and with the extra cooling provided by the eVCI it is not going to dump a ton of extra heat into your system.
Overclocking was a mixed bag as not every application saw a performance gain from the extra speed and I could not match the memories max clock when the CPU/FSB was pushed up. Still even at just under 1200MZ the Mushkin was rock solid and performed very well. I would have no problems shelling out the $140 for this kit and can recommend it without reservation.  

The world of RAM is an interesting one. A world that seems to recreate itself over and over again with each new version. Companies fight and struggle to keep the performance edge. Who has the best speed? Who has the flashiest heat spreaders? Who can take more voltage? But you know, in the end the question most often asked (by the consumer)”which brand will work in my board?” As mainboards are tweaked by the manufacturers to give them a better performance edge we end up with compatibility issues with RAM. One company that seems to consistently dodge the compatibility bullet is Kingston. For some reason Kingston has been able to regularly provide RAM that performs well and just plain works. We have had many of their products her on Planetx64 in the past and now are taking a look at another one. A pair of PC3-13000 2GB kits (KHX13000D3LLK2/2GX), will they just work and provide us with the power and performance we want? Follow along and find out.

Product: Kingston KHX13000D3LLK2/2GX      
Author: Sean Kalinich
Reviewed on: May 1st 2008
Product cost: $335.00 (per kit)
Manufacturer: Kingston
Spelling and Grammatical editor: Jason Hambly, Paul Mercer

{mospagebreak title=Packaging and Construction}
Packaging:
RAM packaging is usually never flashy, it does not need to be. After all, its only purpose is to get you the product in one piece. The only reason we cover this is that there are still manufacturers that have very shoddy packaging even here. Kingston’s is not flashy, it is study and functional the only ornamentation (other than a utilitarian label) is a small sticker proclaiming support for the Core 2 Extreme. But we are not interested in the box, we are eager to find out more about what is inside partially visible under the clear plastic lid.

Construction:
The Kingston HyperX kits that I received were much flashier than I am used to. They still had the Neon Blue heat spreaders but these had the upper portion and one corner cut with diagonal grooves that gave it more visual appeal. The same cut had been used on the HyperX logo. This cut gave the look of transparency to this section of the heat spreader. I do not know if it will help with cooling or not, but it is still a nice touch. As to what chips Kingston is using under these attractive heat spreaders I do not know.
I was not going to run the risk of damaging them by removing the heat spreaders to look either.

Specifications:
The Kingston KHX13000D3LLK2/2GX kits have the following specs:
1.5V
533MHz fCK for 1066MB/Sec/pin
8 independent internal banks
Programmable CAS Latency: 5,6,7,8,9,10
Posted CAS
Programmable Additive Latency: 0, CL – 2, or CL – 1 clock
Programmable CAS Write Latency(CWL) = 7(DDR3-1066)
8-bit pre-fetch
Burst Length: 8 (Interleave without any limit, sequential with starting address “000” only), 4 with tCCD = 4 which does not allow seamless read or write [either on the fly using A12 or MRS]
Bi-directional Differential Data Strobe
Internal(self) calibration : Internal self calibration through ZQ pin (RZQ : 240 ohm ± 1%)
On Die Termination using ODT pin
Average Refresh Period 7.8us at lower then TCASE 85°C, 3.9us at 85°C < TCASE . 95°C
Asynchronous Reset
1066Mbps CL7 doesn’t have backward compatibility with 800Mbps CL5
PCB : Height 1.180” (30.00mm), single sided component

Performance Specs:
CL(IDD) 7 cycles
Row Cycle Time (tRCmin) 50.63ns (min.)
Refresh to Active/Refresh Command Time (tRFCmin) 110ns
Row Active Time (tRASmin) 37.5ns (min.)
Power TBD W (operating per module)
UL Rating 94 V – 0
Operating Temperature 0o C to 85o C
Storage Temperature -55o C to +100o C

These kits also support Intel’s XMP (Extreme Memory Profiles) and are certified to run at 1625MHz with timings of 7-7-7 all of this at 1.9v

{mospagebreak title=Performance}
Performance:
Test system
Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme 9770
Intel X48BT2 mainboard
Kingston KHX13000D3LLK2/2GX (2 Kits) 4GB RAM
2x Western Digital 74GB 10k RPM raptors (Stand Alone Drives)
Foxconn 8800GTX 768MB
16x Sony DVD-ROM
Generic 1.44 Floppy
Mushkin 1.1KW PSU
Corsair Nautilus 500 external water cooler
HSPC TechStation
Microsoft Windows Vista x64
nVidia 175.12 drivers

I will be following up this review with a full one on the X48BT2.
My testing was run using the XMP profile that is embedded in the KHX13000D3LLK2 modules.
This brought the RAM up to 1600MHz 1.9 vDIMM, 7-7-7-20.

Overclocking:
Overclocking was an interesting project with the Kingston KHX13000D3LLK2/2GX, not due to any failure of the memory, but due to issues with my choice of mainboard. The Intel X48BT2 did not like to overclock the memory and wanted to use dividers when I would push it beyond 410MHz. The really sticky part was that even under 460MHz it would show dividers but was not using them as the system BIOS and performance showed. I did not notice this until I saw that CPUz and Everest were reporting incorrect timings on the RAM. I started looking further into this and found that once the board thought it was using a divider it would keep displaying that divider. I contacted Intel and they sent me a new BIOS for the X48BT2 that corrected this issue. Also on this board you have to leave the RAM core speed set to “Default” this allows the memory to keep pace with the FSB. Otherwise it is going to try and keep it close to the speed you select using dividers.
Once I found the “sweet spot” I was able to get the KHX13000D3LLK2 running happily at 450 (1800) with timings of 8-8-8-22 and a voltage of 1.98, not a great OC for this RAM but since the majority of my crashes about this speed were related to the ICHR9 I think that with a more overclocking oriented board you will get better results

I backed the multiplier on the CPU to seven; this approximated the normal speed of the CPU.

Everest:
Everest is a good tool for basic benchmarking and for seeing what your system is doing.
For this I ran the Memory and Cache benchmark to get the potential read and write as well as latency for the Kingston memory. This was run with two and four memory modules to see what, if any, performance impact this would have.

My testing with Everest was not an overly exciting thing. The bandwidth was marginally better than what you would expect top end DDR2. With latency being an issue here, granted I am running a quad core CPU and 4 1GB sticks of memory and these two factors may account for the latency issues. With the increase to 1800MHz the bandwidth jumped quite a bit we saw and almost 30% increase with only a 12% overclock.

Sisoft Sandra:
Sandra from Sisoft is another catalog/benchmark application that allows you to get a good idea of what your system has in it and its potential.

Sandra confirms what we saw with Everest again the bandwidth is not much more than top end DDR2. Sandra also shows the large increase in bandwidth we get from the small 200MHz overclock.

PCMark Vantage:
FutureMark’s PCMark Vantage is another in our synthetic tests for memory. It is a series of tests that are designed to cover most of the things an average system would need to be able to do in today’s computer environment.

For the 32-bit suite I saw a little less than a 2% increase, although this still equals a 100 point difference and nothing to sneeze at. For the 64bit suite the performance gap was more pronounced with a difference of over 200 points this is a good indication of how much more you can get from running 64-bit optimized applications

3DMarkVantage:
Another synthetic from FutureMark 3DMark Vantage moves graphical testing into the DX10 realm.
By adding DX10 this test now increases the demand on a system including the memory in the system, so it makes for a good test of how efficient your memory sub-system is.

3DMark Vantage did not show much of an increase at all the 12% overclock here yielded a 3% increase in CPU score.
 
CineBench 10:
As a CPU ad GPU based rendering benchmark CineBench R10 also can show us performance of the memory sub-system.

With Cinebench R10 x64 we see very small gains in CPU rendering performance with only a 20 point difference in single CPU mode and 153 point in Multi CPU mode The place we see the memory performance difference is in the OpenGL rendering. Here we see a difference of 732 points this is a 15% performance increase. Not too bad for only a 12% OC.

HyperPi 0.99b
As I have mentioned in just about all of my evaluations, I like SuperPi and now this new version HyperPi. It is a very good test for stability of a system and isolates system performance between the RAM, CPU and HDD.  SuperPi seems to do this like no other application I have used. For my testing I ran the 16M run of HyperPi.

HyperPi is very memory dependent and a little extra bandwidth goes a long way. With our 12% overclock we managed to shave a full minute off of the 16M HyperPi run.

DiVX Encode (AutoGK)
Video Encoding is also a memory dependant function, buffering quite a bit of data for execution by the CPU then buffering it for writing to the HDD.
For my testing I use AutoGK 2.4 and a source DVD of my own personal footage that is roughly the length of a standard movie. The footage was edited in FinalCut HD and encoded to DVD using DVDStudio Pro HD.

{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}
Conclusion:
I was fairly impressed with the performance of the Kingston KHX13000D3LLK2/2GX kits that I tested. While they are not heart stopping by any means they do show a performance increase over the fastest stock DDR2 and also seem to improve overall system performance. The heatspreaders did a excellent job and even with over 2 volts pushed into them they were never hot nor burned my fingers. Unlike some of the FB-DIMMs I have used. Overclocking was a little of a letdown but I feel like the lackluster overclocking was more the fault of the Intel X48BT2 than the Kingston RAM. Price is a small issue but one that I feel will come down (as has all other memory in the past) with time.

Acknowledgments:
I would like to thank Peggy Kelly at Kingston for her help in putting this review together.

I’ve always been a bit of a fan of Crucial memory, so when the opportunity came to test out the latest addition to their Ballistix line, I jumped at the chance.
Crucial Technologies is a division of Micron and use Micron chips exclusively on their Ballistix, high performance line of memory. As some of you may or may not know, Micron memory IC’s are highly regarded by many people as the best overclocking DDR2 chips available. They can be found on most, if not all, of the higher end (higher binned) 2GB memory kits from all the top manufacturers such as Corsair, OCZ, G.Skill, Kingston, Cellshock and TeamGroup. With such a reputation for high performance, I was certainly looking forward to seeing if Micron and Crucial could continue this trend with DDR3. Let’s begin with a closer look at the specifications and the modules themselves…

Product: Crucial Ballistix DDR3 PC3-12800
Author: Paul Mercer
Category: Enthusiast/Overclocker
Date: November 2007
Product cost: MSRP $569.99 US
Manufacturer: Crucial
Spelling and Grammatical Editor: PlanetX64 Staff

{mospagebreak title=Features and Packaging}

FEATURES

• 240-pin, unbuffered dual in-line memory module (UDIMM)
• Physical dimensions are compliant to JEDEC MO-269B
• Fast data transfer rates: PC3-12800
• 1GB (128 Meg x 64)
• Exclusively designed for high-performance systems
• Critical performance parameters tested for functionality
• Speed verification performed in-system
• VDD = VDDQ = +1.8V ±0.075V
• VDDSPD = +3.0V to +3.6V
• Reset pin for improved system stability
• Nominal and dynamic on-die termination (ODT) for data, strobe, and mask signals
• 8 internal device banks for concurrent operation
• Fixed burst length of 8 (BL8) and burst chop of 4 (BC4) via the mode register
• Adjustable data-output drive strength
• Serial Presence-Detect (SPD) EEPROM
• Gold edge contacts
• RoHS compliant
• Fly-by topology
• Terminated command, address, and control bus
• Aluminium heat spreader
• 1.18” (30.00mm) PCB Height

TIMING PARAMETERS

* Performance is verified during testing 

PART NUMBERS

Crucial® Ballistix™ products are warranted to meet the datasheet specifications as found on its web page www.crucial.com/ballistix.
Some system configurations may not be designed to operate or may not operate at the published Crucial Ballistix memory speed and timing settings. Overclocking, running your system faster than the speed for which it was designed or the published speed, or otherwise modifying your system timing may result in damage to computer components and Crucial disclaims any and all liability for such damage.

©2007 Micron Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. Information is subject to change without notice. Micron, Crucial, the Crucial logo, Ballistix, and the Ballistix logo are trademarks of Micron Technology, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

As you can see, the Crucial Ballistix DDR3 arrived in the usual fancy memory packaging  from Crucial. This consists of a cardboard box, a simple piece of cardboard used as a separator and antistatic bags (one per module). This method of shipping may look a little bland, but it is quite eco-friendly and incredibly secure as I’ve never received any damaged modules from Crucial and I’m glad to see its continued use.

The included leaflet is rather simplistic but it details instructions on how to install your memory modules correctly, some minor troubleshooting tips, contact details for technical support & customer service and a copy of the “Terms and Conditions of Sale” including warranty details.

Opening up the anti-static bags released that familiar smell of new memory again (mmmm…) and also reveals the new snazzy heatspreader

Ain’t they purdy?

The PCBs used on the DDR3 ballistix are still made by Levin.

Density: 1Gb
Part Status: Sampling
RohS: Yes
Depth: 128Mb
Width: x8
Voltage: 1.5V
Package: FBGA
Pin Count: 86-ball
Clock Rate: 533 MHz
Cycle Time: 1.875ns
Op. Temp.: 0C to +85C
CL: CL = 7
Data Rate: DDR3-1066

These chips, despite having a manufacturer rating of DDR3-1066MHz, CAS7, can be found on higher specced memory such as the CAS 7, DDR3-1800 kits from Corsair. Because of this, even though at DDR3-1600, they’re already overclocked way over the stock speed, I’m still expecting a little extra room to play with.

More details on XMP can be found here:
http://www.intel.com/personal/gaming/extremememory.htm 

{mospagebreak title=Performance}

As per usual, a clean installation of Windows was performed before benchmarking began, the latest drivers installed and no tweaks applied. As well as the benchmarking software, a number of applications were also installed to simulate a new system owned by an average user and then drives were defragmented.
Benchmark tests were run multiple times and the average or middle score recorded.

Software installed included the following:
NOD32 Antivirus
Microsoft Office 2007
Diskeeper 2008 (Trial)
Adobe Acrobat Reader
Cyberlink PowerDVD
Firefox

I dislike seeing memory reviews, claiming that because the memory doesn’t crash the PC when running  benchmarks or a couple of games, that the kit is stable.
I came across a review recently in which, despite the memory’s inability to complete a simple benchmark such as Everest or Sandra, it was still called stable because it passed an undisclosed number of hours of Orthos and Super PI. The reviewer also tried telling the readers that it was not the memory and somehow the fault of the benchmarking software used not being able to cope with the extended speeds of DDR3 above DDR3-1900.

I could do the same thing and throw up all kinds of screenshots and benchmarks. But for the purposes of a product review, I think that it is misleading to you the readers and gives unfair expectations to potential customers who will be disappointed when they do not reach similar levels of performance. I would rather show slightly slower, more stable and untweaked results to give a more realistic picture that can very likely be improved upon.

To show at least a small modicum of stability, final speeds were checked for 5hrs with HCI Memtest as well as having to successfully complete the ALL of the review benchmarks. If any tests fail, the setting is considered unstable and different settings are found/tested. I still would not call my results fully stable though as I personally run HCI Memtest for 24-48hrs on my own systems before use as well as running various other stress tests. Complete stability testing would take much longer, but due to time constraints, this obviously had to be cut short.

In another bid to reduce the time spent testing, the secondary latency timings of the Crucial Ballistix DDR3 were set to “Auto” for the duration of the review, only the primary timings and performance levels (Transaction Booster) were manually configured (Performance Level was configured to PL7 for all tests). Write to Precharge Delay and Write to Read Delay were set to disabled, and the BIOS option for Command Rate was set to 1T.

Because of the way current DDR3 motherboards work, the highest memory ratio currently available is 1:2. This means that in order to run the Crucial Ballistix at their rated speed of DDR3-1600, the Front Side Bus (FSB) will have to be overclocked to at least 400MHz.

I began testing by checking the memory for the lowest Voltage useable while maintaining stability at stock speeds and timings. Despite the specifications of DDR3-1600 with 1.8V, this kit was perfectly happy to run at stock speeds and timings with just 1.65V set in the BIOS.

You may notice in a couple of the memtest screenshots, that the performance level is set to level 6. This was a small mistake and in all recorded benchmarks this was set to level 7.

Stock Speed Tests – DDR3-1600

Everest:
 

Sandra: 

Memory Bandwidth:

Everest: 

Sandra: 

Memory Bandwidth:

 
Dual:

DivX Encode:

{mospagebreak title=Overclock}

Keeping the CPU speed constant at the various memory speeds proved impossible with the E6750 processor used in the review, as the x8 multiplier was the limiting factor. With a x9 multiplier, it would have been possible to test at 9×400 and 9×450, keeping the CPU at 3600MHz. Even this would not strictly be comparable though, because as the FSB is increased so is the available bandwidth… Which, although unavoidable with the standard memory dividers, also affects the test results.

Unfortunately, there has to be some kind of limit to the amount of voltage you can safely pump into memory (or any chip) before it starts to error or degrade quickly. The absolute maximum voltage allowable for Micron DDR3 is a relative unknown at this stage, as people have not been running these chips for any significant length of time to gather conclusive data yet. Although I have seen people using more than 2.0V for benchmarks and claiming stability with a single or dual Super PI 32M, I decided from the outset that I would not use more than 2.0V at this time. Mainly because I didn’t want to run the risk of killing the kit before the review was finished, but also because I would not feel comfortable running any more than that 24/7.

Raising the FSB to 450MHz while still keeping the 1:2 Memory ratio pushes the kit to 1800MHz, far beyond the capabilities of DDR2. With 1.80V set in the BIOS for memory and 8-7-6-18 timings, the kit happily passed an HCI Memtest session and all review benchmarks.

450×7(3150MHz), DDR3-1800, 8-7-6-18, 1.80Vmem, 1.55VNB, 266 Strap, PL7

Everest: 

Memory Bandwidth:

 
Dual:

DivX Encode:

As one of the largest memory manufacturers around, Kingston is usually one of the first companies to produce products based on the latest technologies and with the arrival of the P35 chipset based motherboards bringing DDR3 support, it wasn’t long before Kingston announced both ValueRAM and premium HyperX parts running at 1066MHz and 1375MHz respectively.

PlanetX64 have been fortunate enough that Kingston decided to send us one of their HyperX KHX11000D3LLK2/2G kits for testing, so let’s get on with it.

Product: Kingston HyperX KHX11000D3LLK2/2G
Author: Paul Mercer
Category: Enthusiast/Overclocker
Date: September 2007
Product cost: MSRP $ 518.00 US
Manufacturer: Kingston
Spelling and Grammatical Editor: PlanetX64 Staff

{mospagebreak title=Features}

KHX11000D3LLK2/2G 2GB (1GB 128M x 64-Bit x 2 pcs.) PC3-11000 CL7 240-Pin DIMM Kit

DESCRIPTION:

(shamelessly copied from the Kingston website) 

Kingston’s KHX11000D3LLK2/2G is a kit of two 128M x 64-bit 1GB (1024MB) DDR3-1375 CL7 SDRAM (Synchronous DRAM) memory modules, based on sixteen 64M x 8-bit DDR3 FBGA components per module. Each module pair has been tested to run at DDR3-1375MHz at a low latency timing of 7-7-7 at 1.7V. The SPDs are programmed to JEDEC standard latency DDR3-1066Mhz timing of 7-7-7 at 1.5V. Each 240-pin DIMM uses gold contact fingers and requires +1.5V.

The JEDEC standard electrical and mechanical specifications are as follows:

FEATURES:

JEDEC standard 1.5V ± 0.075V Power Supply

VDDQ = 1.5V ± 0.075V

533MHz fCK for 1066Mb/sec/pin

8 independent internal bank

Programmable CAS Latency: 5,6,7,8,9,10

Posted CAS

Programmable Additive Latency: 0, CL – 2, or CL – 1 clock

Programmable CAS Write Latency(CWL) = 7(DDR3-1066)

8-bit pre-fetch

Burst Length: 8 (Interleave without any limit, sequential with starting address “000” only), 4 with tCCD = 4 which does not allow seamless read or write [either on the fly using A12 or MRS]

Bi-directional Differential Data Strobe

Internal(self) calibration : Internal self calibration through ZQ pin (RZQ : 240 ohm ± 1%)

On Die Termination using ODT pin

Average Refresh Period 7.8us at lower then TCASE 85°C, 3.9us at 85°C < TCASE . 95°C

Asynchronous Reset

1066Mbps CL7 doesn’t have backward compatibility with 800Mbps CL5

PCB : Height 1.180” (30.00mm), double sided component

PERFORMANCE:

CL(IDD) 7 cycles

Row Cycle Time (tRCmin) 50.63ns (min.)

Refresh to Active/Refresh Command Time (tRFCmin) 90ns

Row Active Time (tRASmin) 37.5ns (min.)

Power TBD W (operating per module)

UL Rating 94 V – 0

Operating Temperature 0o C to 85o C

Storage Temperature -55o C to +100o C

{mospagebreak title= Packaging}

The packaging of the new HyperX DDR3 modules is what I’ve come to expect from Kingston, a no-nonsense plastic package, easy to open, but strong enough to survive most shipping companies.

I have been informed that these kits use Elpida chips, but the heatspreaders on this kit were firmly attached, so I decided to leave them on there. (For now…)

The introduction of DDR3 has meant a redesign of IC’s and PCB to maintain the signal integrity at higher frequencies.This redesign also has its drawbacks though with increased cycle latencies.

Because of these increased internal latencies, we can safely assume that if we were to run DDR3 and DDR2 at the same speed and latencies, DDR3 should always be slower, and it’s only when the DDR3 frequencies are increased (counteracting the slower latencies and increasing the theoretical bandwidth) that the benefits can be seen. 

There’s a very good article on the tech repository by freecableguy, with additions from Tony, who can explain the relationship between timings and frequency a lot better than myself:

How memory frequency affects latency – Tighter timings vs. Higher speeds?

http://www.thetechrepository.com/showthread.php?t=160

and another good post on the OCZ forums by Tony:

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=30816

{mospagebreak title= Performance}

Test System: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750
Asus P5K3 Deluxe WiFi – BIOS:0604
2GB Kingston HyperX PC3-11000 (2x1024MB)
Foxconn 7950GT 512MB
2x Hitachi Deskstar 80GB 7200RPM SATA2 HDD (RAID 0)
Generic DVD Rom Drive
Tagan 900W TurboJet PSU
Windows XP Professional x86 & x64

As per usual with these reviews, a clean installation of Windows was performed before benchmarking began, all updates were applied and the latest official drivers used. A number of software applications were also installed to simulate a new system owned by an average user and then drives were defragmented.

Software installed included the following:
Avast Antivirus
Microsoft Office 2007
Diskeeper 10.0
Adobe Acrobat Reader
CyberLink Power DVD
Firefox

For standard, stock speed testing, I ran the Kingston DDR3 at 1333MHz, although this is slightly below the manufacturer specified rating, testing was done in this manor because the 1375MHz/PC3-11000 rating for the memory is not an official JEDEC standard and would require the FSB to be increased slightly and the CPU overclocked.

1333MHz, 7-7-7-20, 1.70V 

Lavalys Everest:

SiSoftware Sandra XII:

Memory Latency 

Memory Bandwidth 

Windows XP x86	Windows XP x64

Cinebench 10:

Super PI:

Single 32M 

Dual 32M

PCMark05:

3DMark06:

The performance at stock speeds appears to be similar to mid range DDR2. But without a DDR2 P35 board available to me at this time, I was unable to give a direct comparison with some high-speed DDR2.

{mospagebreak title= Overclocking}

I decided to begin the overclocking tests on the Kingston DDR3 by seeing if they would run at a lower CAS latency. I started by trying to get a range of overclocks before running benchmarks, and after having to reinstall the OS a couple of times after pushing too hard, I ended up with the following ranges:

All testing was done with the BIOS setting for “DRAM Command Rate” set to 1T
(although it’s debatable whether it is truly 1T).

During the time I spent testing this memory I quickly realised that (with this kit) RAS to CAS Delay was more important for stability than the CAS latency.  At lower speeds, more voltage did not really help very much and usually increasing would only produce errors sooner. This left me without much choice other than to increase tRCD (RAS to CAS Delay) and/or tRP (RAS Precharge)

I do have screenshots for all of the 12H HCI Memtest sessions, but rather than bore everyone and fill a page with over 20 screenshots of pretty much the same thing, I’ll leave them off. If for whatever reason you would like to see any 12hour HCI Memtest screenshots or you have any other tests you would like to see, please feel free to make requests on the forums and I’ll do my best to fill them. 

Unfortunately, without a truly unlinked memory controller to allow the overclocking of memory frequency without touching the FSB, it is difficult to separate the performance increases due to memory from any performance increase due to overclocking the CPU, so please bear this in mind when viewing the overclocked results. 

1333MHz, 5-7-5-15, 1.70V

Lavalys Everest:

SiSoftware Sandra XII:

Memory Latency 

Memory Bandwidth 

Windows XP x86	Windows XP x64

Cinebench 10:

Super PI:

Single 32M 

Dual 32M

PCMark05:

3DMark06:

1375MHz, 7-7-7-20, 1.70V

Lavalys Everest:

SiSoftware Sandra XII:

Memory Latency 

Memory Bandwidth 

Windows XP x86	Windows XP x64

Cinebench 10:

Super PI:

Single 32M 

Dual 32M

PCMark05:

3DMark06:

1375MHz, 5-7-5-15, 1.80V

Lavalys Everest:

SiSoftware Sandra XII:

Memory Latency 

Memory Bandwidth 

Windows XP x86	Windows XP x64

Cinebench 10:

Super PI:

Single 32M 

Dual 32M

PCMark05:

3DMark06:

As you can see from the results, these particular sticks would have probably gone into the higher binned 1375MHz 5-7-5-15 HyperX kits from Kingston, but failed the voltage binning. They easily surpassed the manufacturer specified speeds and timings, but as always YMMV.

{mospagebreak title=Maximum Overclock}

Although these sticks were quite stable at 1500MHz, the memory refused to run any higher even with timings relaxed to 8-8-8. The kit would pass a few benchmarks, but displayed errors quickly in Memtest. Maybe with more tweaking a few more MHz may be attained, there may have even been a little more scaling left in the voltage. But personally, I would feel a little uncomfortable running more than 1.9-1.95V through this DDR3 for 24/7 operation, so I believe this to be pretty much the limit for the kit I have here.

1500MHz, 6-8-8-18, 1.95V

Lavalys Everest:

Memory Bandwidth 

Cinebench 10:

Super PI:

Single 32M 

Dual 32M

PCMark05:

3DMark06:

{mospagebreak title= Price and Warranty}

As with all DDR3 at the moment, this kit is rather expensive for 2GB. But comparing to the prices and speed ratings from some of the other vendors first DDR3 kits, the Kingston HyperX actually seems fairly reasonable. Available for $478.49 from Newegg.com in the US. or at around the £300 mark in the UK (although finding some in stock is another question),

As always Kingston offers a lifetime guarantee for their HyperX memory modules, full details of which can be found here:

http://www.kingston.com/company/warranty.asp

{mospagebreak title= Conclusion}

There’s no doubt that at this time, DDR3 is still rather expensive and as such, the pricing puts it out of the reach of a lot of people. It’s ideal for the enthusiasts and overclockers out there though, as it allows you to use some of the latest and best boards out there like the Asus P5K3 Deluxe or the Asus Blitz Extreme.

This kit was quite tweakable and ideal for those people who love to spend time adjusting latencies and voltages to gain those last few points in benchmarks or increase memory overclocks. But the extra bandwidth offered by DDR3 may not be of much benefit to the Core2Duo systems as these Intel chips are not exactly bandwidth limited to begin with. Quad core chips on the other hand may see larger benefits with the extra cores needing constant feeding.

I personally enjoyed working with this kit and although it seemed to take a little time to get the full range of stable overclocked settings down, it was a nice intro to DDR3. With such a wide range of speeds and timings available to you, this memory shouldn’t hold back those CPU and FSB overclocks.

Although the results for DDR3 are nothing spectacular at the moment, things can only improve. As manufacturing processes are refined, faster latencies and higher frequencies are achieved and prices lower, DDR3 will become a mainstream part; and when this happens, it will become the better choice for users, not only because of higher speeds than DDR2 could ever dream of, but also the lower power consumption.

 Pros:
New technology
Low voltage
High frequency
Extra bandwidth
Overclockable

Cons:
Very expensive
Limited motherboard support

This is uber fast memory designed for the most heavily over-clocked systems. We put it through it’s paces to see how it performs. 

{mospagebreak title= Packaging and looks}

Review: Crucial Ballistix 2GB PC2-8500 memory
Reviewer: Jon “Bob The Junkie” Aubrey
Reviewed on: 8th June2007
Product cost: $289.99 (€251.44, £171.50)
Product provided by: Crucial UK (http://www.crucial.com/uk)
Edited by: Jason Hambly
 

Packaging and looks (4.5 / 5.0):

As with all Crucial memory, the Ballistix PC2-8500 came packaged in Crucial’s generic cardboard box, complete with blue sticker to keep it sealed (which we promptly ripped to bits before the photo session to see what the memory looked like). Inside the box are two memory modules individually packaged in static proof bags, separated by a cardboard divider. This is not the prettiest packaging in the world to look at, but the box itself is fairly sturdy so should withstand a few knocks in shipping. Our only gripe with it is that you have no idea what is inside the box until you open it, so you can’t tell at a glance if you’ve bought the right modules or not. The flip side of this though is that Crucial can keep costs down by using the same packaging for all of their modules, thus saving the end user (you or me) a few extra pennies where it counts.

Each memory module in the box comes wrapped in it’s own static proof bag. On one side of this bag is a printed set of specifications for the module, and a warning that they are static sensitive. Nothing is printed on the other side of the bag, and as the bag itself is semi-transparent, you can see what the module is going to look like before you take it out.

The memory modules themselves are encased in gold coloured heatspreaders with the Ballistix logo on each side. Unlike their Tracer brethren, the Ballistix line of memory does not have flashing LEDs built into the memory, but that’s not to say that these modules don’t look good, and certainly wouldn’t look out of place in a gaming rig.

{mospagebreak title=Specifications}

Specifications:
 

    * Module Type: DDR2
    * Module Size: 2GB kit (2 x 1GB)
    * Package: 240-pin DIMM
    * Speed: DDR2 PC2-8500 1066MHz
    * Memory Timings: 5-5-5-15
    * Specifications: Non-ECC, Unbuffered, 2.2V, 128MB x 64

{mospagebreak title=Over-clocking} 

Over-clocking (4.4 / 5.0):

As these modules are rated at faster speeds than most processors can currently handle, our over-clocking tests on this memory consisted of two parts.

The first part was to see how fast we could push the modules, without them getting finger-burning hot.

The second part was to see how low we could get the memory timings, using stock voltage.

Over-clocking:

Initally we had some problems over-clocking these modules as our test motherboard just couldn’t cope with the speeds that these modules could be pushed to. In order to get a decent over-clock we had to ramp the MCH voltage all the way to it’s maxium of 1.7v before the modules started failing.

We managed to push the PC2-8500 to 555MHz (1110MHz DDR) on 5 – 5 – 5 – 15 timings without any problems, but after that we started seeing random lock-ups and memtest86 errors.

To solve this we tried upping the voltage to 2.3v but the memory became ‘finger burning’ hot and we started getting more errors, most likely due to heat issues.  If you want to push these modules past 2.2v  you’ll need decent active cooling on them.

Lowering timings:

The SPD rating on the memory says that at 400MHz, the memory can be ran at CAS 4 – 4 -4 – 12 timings. At 533MHz, it can be ran at CAS 5 – 5 – 5 – 15 timings.

But what about at stock 266MHz speeds?

To test this, we dropped the timings down to the lowest they would go on our test motherboard, and attempted to boot the system. If it booted, we ran memtest86 for 3 hours to see if it was stable. If it was, we then ran the tests for a further ten hours. If it wasn’t, we upped the timings slightly and tried again.

The lowest timings we could get at 266MHz speeds without any problems were CAS 3 – 3 – 3 – 12. Of course the modules might be able to run at slightly faster timings than this, we’ve heard of people running these modules as low as 3 – 3 – 3 – 8 timings, but there are only so many variations of the timings we can try for stability in the amount of time we have to test these modules.

{mospagebreak title=Performance} Performance (4.5 / 5.0):

Test System:

Intel E6300 processor running at 1.86GHz / 2.48GHz / 2.59GHz Intel ‘Bad Axe 2’ motherboard
Crucial 2GB PC8500 Ballistix memory (3-3-3-12 / 5-5-5-15)
Leadtek NVIDIA 7800GTX 256MB graphics card
Maxtor SATA 80GB 7200RPM hard drive
Enermax ELT500AWT power supply
 

Microsoft Vista Ultimate edition x64
CPU-Z – version 1.39
SiSoftware Sandra XI – version 2007.4.11.22 x64
ScienceMark – version 2.0 build 171102
Lavalys Everest – version 4.00.976
Memtach – version 0.39 Alpha

Results from running the memory at 3-3-3-12 timings at 266MHz are shown in the left hand pictures.

Results from running the memory at 5-5-5-15 timings at 533MHz are shown in middle pictures.

Results from running the memory at 5-5-5-15 timings at 555MHz are shown in right hand pictures.

CPU-Z 

 

SiSoftware Sandra memory bandwidth

SiSoftware Sandra memory latency

ScienceMark memory test

Lavalys Everest

Memtach

{mospagebreak title=Price and Warranty}

Price and Warranty (4.0 / 5.0):

Considering you can buy other brand PC2-8500 2GB kits from different manufacturers at nearly two thirds of the price of this memory with the same timings and sometimes less required voltage, Crucial are really relying on continued customer support to buy these modules.

As per most memory manufacturers these days, Crucial offer a limited lifetime warranty on their products. This means that the memory will have a lifetime guarantee with Crucial, unless you do something silly like drop it in water, or fry it with voltage.

{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}

Conclusion:

Crucial have produced some seriously fast memory with the Ballistix PC2-8500, which should be able to run even heavily over-clocked systems at a 1:1 memory ratio. Even if your processor can’t handle the front side bus speeds that are required to run this memory at it’s full potential, you can always lower the timings to see a performance boost.

We managed moderate over-clocking with these modules on stock voltage, 22MHz, which is roughly a 4% increase in speed. We also managed to get low timings at 266MHz (533MHz DDR) speeds.

If you’re a loyal Crucial fan then these modules won’t disappoint, but we couldn’t help but feel that they should be priced a little bit cheaper.
 

Packaging and looks: 4.5 / 5.0

Over-clocking: 4.4 / 5.0

Performance: 4.5 / 5.0

Price and warranty: 4.0 / 5.0

Overall:  17.4 / 20

Pros:

• Timings can be lowered significantly if you don’t need the full speed
  

Cons:

• Expensive
  

We’d like to thank Crucial

UK for supplying us with this memory to review.

How much memory does a modern day computer system need?
Microsoft would lead you to believe that
Vista runs
happily one 1GB of memory, but anyone that’s actually used it will tell you
that you need double that.

What about a power user though? After you’ve loaded in the
OS, Firewall, Anti-virus, email, IM, and the rest of the applications, you’re
not left with a huge amount for the application you do want to run, especially
if it is a memory hungry one like photo or video editing.

For those memory-hungry users, memory manufacturers have
started releasing 4GB Non-ECC memory kits. We’re looking at one of these today,
the Crucial CT2KIT25664AA53E.

{mospagebreak title= Packaging, looks and specs}

Review: Crucial 4GB CT2KIT25664AA53E memory review
Reviewer: Jon “Bob The Junkie” Aubrey
Reviewed on: 18th April 2007

Product cost: $467.99 (€414.07, £281.99)
Product provided by: Crucial

UK
(http://www.crucial.com/uk)
Edited by: Jason Hambly
 

Packaging and looks (4.3 / 5.0):

The CT2KIT25664AA53E came in Crucial’s standard cardboard
box. The memory itself is encased inside static proof bags. Although it’s not
the prettiest packaging it should withstand fairly rough treatment in shipping.

Crucial have decided not to add heat spreaders to the
CT2KIT25664AA53E (more about this later) so they look just like any other type
of memory. On each stick of memory there are several stickers with information
about the module on them.

Specifications:

• Module
  Type: DD2
• Module
  Size: 4GB kit (2 x 2GB)
• Package:
  240-pin DIMM
• Speed:
  DDR2 PC2-4200 533MHz
• CAS
  Latencies: 4-4-4-12
• Specifications:
  Non-ECC, Unbuffered, 1.8V, 256MB x 64

{mospagebreak title=Overclocking}

Over-clocking ( 4.8 / 5.0):

As the CT2KIT25664AA53E kit is designed to run at the same
speed as a stock 1066 FSB processor and does not feature heat spreaders, we
were not expecting a huge amount of over-clocking potential with this kit.

Oh how wrong we were.

We started off by raising the FSB on the processor, keeping
the memory on a 1:1 ratio, using stock 1.8 voltage on the memory. We managed to
get an over-clock of 580MHz (from the stock 533MHz) before getting memory
errors in Memtestx86. As the modules were still cool to the touch, we upped the
memory voltage to 1.92 volts, which stabilised the modules. Using 1.92 volts,
we then managed to push the modules to 660MHz before getting memory errors. At
this point the modules were getting quite hot to the touch, so we didn’t try
upping the voltage anymore. With some after market heat spreaders and some more
voltage, we’re sure these modules could be pushed even higher.

We did not adjust the latencies on the memory to try to get
a higher over-clock. There are plenty of higher-latency modules that will allow
a high over-clock at their default speeds out on the market. We were simply
interested in how far we could push these modules at their default latencies.

To test if the memory was stable after an over-clock, we ran
memtestx86 for 8 hours looking for errors. For the final test, we ran
memtestx86 for 22 hours against the memory to prove it was stable.

{mospagebreak title=Performance}

Performance (4.6 / 5.0):

Test System:

Intel E6300 processor running at 1.86GHz / 2.3GHz

Intel ‘Bad Axe 2’ motherboard

Crucial 4GB CT2KIT25664AA53E memory (4-4-4-12)

Leadtek Nvidia 7800GTX 256MB graphics card

Maxtor SATA 80GB 7200RPM hard drive

Enermax ELT500AWT power supply

Microsoft Vista Ultimate edition x64

CPU-Z – version 1.39

SiSoftware Sandra XI – version 2007.4.11.22 x64

ScienceMark – version 2.0 build 171102

Lavalys Everest – version 4.00.976

Memtach – version 0.39 Alpha

CPU-Z

The first port of call for testing any memory is CPU-Z to
verify that they are being run at the speeds advertised. As you can see, at
stock speeds they were running at 533MHz, but when over-clocked we pushed them
to 660MHz! Please note that CPU-Z shows the memory frequency before the memory
speed is doubled, so the below figures have to be doubled to get their DDR
speeds.

SiSoftware Sandra
memory bandwidth

Over-clocking the CT2KIT25664AA53E increases Sandra’s memory
bandwidth score by roughly 30% – corresponding to the 30% over-clock on the
processor.

SiSoftware Sandra
memory latency

Over-clocking sees the random access time drop by about 23%,
although you can’t really see this on the graph.

ScienceMark memory
test

Strangely, our ScienceMark screenshot did not want to
display the text correctly from
Vista. The important
information is shown though, over-clocking increased the bandwidth from
4614.82MB/s to 5932.44MB/s, an increase of 29%.

Lavalys Everest

Everest’s results were a mixed bag. Although memory read
speeds increased by over-clocking by about 30%, the write and copy speeds only
increased by 23-24%. Memory latency was definitely an interesting result, as it
only improved by 8% over the stock speed.

Memtach

Overall memory results were much
better when over-clocked, and the Memtach testing finished almost 2.5 seconds
faster.
 

{mospagebreak title=Price and Warranty}

Price and Warranty (4.8 / 5.0):

At £281.99 the 4GB kit definitely isn’t cheap, especially
when you can buy exactly the same specification modules in 2GB form for only £79.89.
However, for a 4GB kit, it’s on the cheap side compared with some of the other
kits we found in the shops.

Compared to its ECC brethren, the CT2KIT25664AA53E is
roughly 14% cheaper.

Crucial offer a Limited Lifetime warranty on the
CT2KIT25664AA53E, so if stops working at any time, just send it back and
they’ll replace it. 

{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}

Conclusion:

Overall, we were quite impressed with the CT2KIT25664AA53E.
It over-clocks well, has a decent price tag, and good latencies.

Over-clocking the memory brings some real performance
increases, thirty percent in some cases, and that’s without tweaking the
latencies to push it even further.

With that said – we would have liked to have seen some heat
spreaders this memory, as it did get a little toasty when the voltage to it was
increased, but as you’re not meant to be over-clocking this memory anyway, we
can forgive Crucial for that.

If you do need 4GB of memory in a 2 x 2GB kit and don’t want
the error correction, cost and speed decrease that ECC memory brings the CT2KIT25664AA53E
kit won’t disappoint.

Packaging and looks: 4.3 / 5.0

Over-clocking: 4.8 / 5.0

Performance: 4.6 / 5.0

Price and warranty: 4.8 / 5.0

Overall: 18.5 / 20

Pros:

Good over-clocker

Low latencies

Cons:

Lack of heat spreaders

Expensive compared to a 4 x 1GB kit

We’d like to thank Crucial

UK
for supplying us with this memory to review.

Product: Crucial 10th Anniversary PC5300
Author: Paul Mercer
Category: Enthusiast/Overclocker
Date: October 2006
Product cost: MSRP US $339.99 / ?204.44 / ?304.31
Manufacturer: Crucial
Spelling and Grammatical Editor: Sean Kalinich
 

Introduction:

Crucial are a large company known mainly for their excellent memory products, they?ve been in the business for quite a while now… 10 years to be exact.
To commemorate the occasion they have released a limited edition low-latency memory module.

Quoting from the Crucial website:
?In recognition of Crucial’s 10th anniversary, the company has released a special commemorative version of our DDR2 PC2-5300 module. This limited-edition 240-pin DIMM is premium Crucial memory encased in a blue and silver aluminium heat spreader featuring the 10th anniversary logo.?

The memory is rated at DDR2-667 3-3-3-12 using 2.2V. With low latencies like this, you can usually expect something good.

Lets see how it performs under testing.

{mospagebreak title= Packaging and Features}

The Crucial 10th Anniversary memory arrived in familiar Crucial packaging. An inconspicuous plain brown cardboard box with nothing but a bright blue label to tell me that the contents were something from Crucial.

?Can you guess what it is yet??</Rolf>

   

Opening the box, the memory is held in place by a cardboard separator, with the sticks individually packaged in their own little antistatic packets. Printed on the side of each pack are the modules specs.

Cutting open the packets with a pair of scissors, I was eager to get these sticks out and have a proper look at them.

Ain?t they purdy?
     

The heatspreaders are an attractive metallic blue with a silver surround and the Crucial 10th Anniversary logo centred on each side. There are no stickers on the heatspreaders to spoil the looks. The edges have been finished in such a way that fingerprints become slightly less of a worry.

Looking closely at the edge of the PCB, it appears to be the same dark board as is used on the Ballistix line of sticks.

?    Part Number: TY2KIT12864AA663
?    Module Size: 2GB kit (1GBx2)
?    Package: Tenth Anniversary 240-pin DIMM
?    Feature: DDR2 PC2-5300
?    Configuration: 128Meg x 64
?    DIMM Type: UNBUFFERED
?    Error Checking: NON-ECC
?    Speed: DDR2-667
?    Voltage: 2.2V
?    Memory Timings: 3-3-3-12
?    Specs: DDR2 PC2-5300 ? 3-3-3-12 ? UNBUFFERED ? NON-ECC ? DDR2-667 ? 2.2V ? 128Meg x 64

{mospagebreak title=Performance}

Test System
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 Cooled By Tuniq Tower 120
Asus P5B Deluxe Wi-Fi/AP BIOS: 0711
2GB Crucial 10th Anniversary PC-5300 (2x1024MB)
XFX 7900GT
1x Hitachi Deskstar 80GB 7200RPM SATA2 Hard Drive
Generic DVD Rom Drive
Tagan 580W EasyCon PSU.
Windows XP Professional and Windows XP x64

As always, Windows was fully updated and no tweaks applied. A number of software applications were installed onto the system and drives defragged before any testing started.
Software installed included the following:
Avast Antivirus
Microsoft Office 2003
Diskeeper 10.0
Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0
CyberLink Power DVD

This kit ran at the specified speed and timings with only 1.9V.

Sandra Memory Bandwidth:

PCMark 05:

Divx Encoding:

FEAR:

Super Pi Mod 1.5:

During testing I noticed a strange issue with the Asus P5B Deluxe and found confirmation on XtremeSystems forums. There is a problem with running the tRCD (or RAS to CAS Delay) set to 3, when doing so it results in much slower performance and can be shown by comparing the previous Super PI time with a run when the timings are set to 3-4-3-12.

I hope Asus can fix this in a future BIOS update.

{mospagebreak title=Overclocking}

A maximum of 2.45V was used to testing the overclock capability of the Crucial 10th anniversary kit. Maximums were found and then benchmarks were run at the tightest latencies possible at DDR800, 888 and 1067.
I chose these speeds so that the processor speed would not play a part in any improvements shown.

Eventually, the following Memtest stable levels were reached:

DDR2-800 4-4-3-4 @ 2.30V
DDR2-888 4-4-3-8 @ 2.35V
DDR2-1067 5-5-4-8 @ 2.30V

Higher voltages did not seem to help at all, and will cause errors if too much is applied.
It was possible to run benchmarks at DDR2-800 3-3-3-8, but these settings failed Memtest within a few minutes. Even with timings relaxed to 3-4-4-12, I couldn?t get an error free run using HCI Memtest for more than 30 minutes.

Sandra Memory Bandwidth:

	Windows XP x86	Windows XP x64
DDR2-800 4-4-3-4
DDR2-888 4-4-3-8
DDR2-1067 5-5-4-8

PCMark 05:

	Windows XP x86	Windows XP x64
DDR2-800 4-4-3-4
DDR2-888 4-4-3-8
DDR2-1067 5-5-4-8

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                                            Windows XP x86                                          Windows XP x64

Maximum Overclock
A final test was performed at the kits maximum frequency while keeping the 5-5-5-15 timings and maintaining complete stability. For this test, overclocking the CPU was unavoidable. DDR2-1150 was the final speed reached at a voltage of 2.45V, while the CPU was at 2880MHz.

While running at this speed and voltage a small, low speed 80mm fan was placed over the memory to assist in cooling as the modules started to get quite warm above 2.3V.

Sandra Memory Bandwidth:

Windows XP x86	Windows XP x64

PCMark 05:

Windows XP x86	Windows XP x64

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Super Pi Mod 1.5:

As I mentioned, it?s important to me that the speeds shown are stable because I see misleading benchmarks around the web all the time. Each memory setting was tested to be a minimum of 6 hours HCI Memtest stable. The Final maximum speed of DDR2-1150 5-5-5-15 2.45V was tested using HCI Memtest for over 12 hours and found zero errors.

{mospagebreak title=Price and Warranty}

The Price of the Crucial 10th Anniversary is very competitive, it may not be the cheapest memory available but it?s certainly cheaper than buying a PC8500 kit.
Looking at the Crucial website these kits are the same price as the Ballistix PC5300 kits with the same timings and are quite possibly the same product with new spreaders attached.

After a quick search on the web, I found these selling at Newegg for $229.99, which in my opinion is a bargain.

As per usual, Crucial sells high-quality products backed by a limited lifetime
warranty (1 year warranty on graphics cards) and a 30-day money-back
compatibility guarantee.

{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}

These kits are great value. When Crucial said ?This limited-edition 240-pin DIMM is premium Crucial memory? they weren?t kidding, this kit performed as advertised and then some..
With the recent spike in interest (and price) for performance DDR2, it?s good to know that there are some reasonably priced kits that can still overclock with the best of them. The amount of headroom, together with lifetime support from Crucial makes the 10th Anniversary memory certainly worth considering spending your pennies on.
The range of overclocking is great; with over a 70% increase over stock speeds, this kit flew through the tests and definitely earned our BOTP award.

Pros:

• Good Price
• Nice new heatspreaders
• Lots of overclocking headroom
• Flexible timings
• Lifetime warranty

Cons:

• ummm…

Scores
Packaging: 4.25 out of 5
Design and Features: 4.5 out of 5
Performance and Overclocking: 4.75 out of 5
Price/Warranty: 4.75 out of 5

Final Score: 18.25 out of 20

We would like to say Congratulations to Crucial on their 10th anniversary and thank them for our review sample.

Product:
Kingston HyperX PC8500
Author: Paul Mercer
Category:
Enthusiast/Overclocker
Date: September 2006
Product cost: MSRP $284
($248.50 at allstarshop.com)
Manufacturer: Kingston
Spelling and Grammatical Editor:
Jason Hambly
This email address is being protected from
spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Introduction:

It?s been a while since we have had a memory review at PlanetX64;
this time round we have a kit from reputable manufacturer – Kingston.
We’ve
had a few Kingston products for review in the past and they have always been good
quality kits. This is Kingston?s fastest memory to date, their PC2-8500 HyperX DDR2.

Let?s see how well they perform and overclock…

{mospagebreak title= Packaging}

The Packaging of the Kingston PC8500 kit is both lightweight and
practical, easy to open to get the goodies out and it should be strong enough
to make it to your home in one piece (provided certain shipping companies don’t get their hands on it).

Included in the box is a small leaflet explaining the
correct precautions to take when handling and installing the modules.

 
{mospagebreak title= Design and Features}

The design of the module
matches what we have become used to seeing from Kingson?s HyperX line. Using
blue coloured heat spreaders emblazoned with the Kinston logo?s, these are
firmly attached using metal clips on the outside and thermal tape underneath. I decided
not to try removing the spreaders for fear of removing one of the memory chips or components with them.
The modules have been tested and certified to run at DDR2-1066 (533MHz) with
latency timings of 5-5-5-15 using just 2.2V. The SPD has been programmed to
JEDEC standard latency 800 MHz timing of 5-5-5-15 at 1.8V; this is to ensure
stability and compatibility with a wider range of motherboards.
 

FEATURES:

Power supply: Vdd: 1.8V ? 0.1V, Vddq: 1.8V ? 0.1V
Double-data-rate architecture; two data transfers per clock cycle
Bidirectional data strobe (DQS)
Differential clock inputs (CK and CK)
DLL aligns DQ and DQS transition with CK transition
Programmable Read latency 5 (clock)
Burst Length: 4, 8 (Interleave/nibble sequential)
Programmable Burst type (sequential & interleave)
Timing Reference: 5-5-5-15 at +1.8V / 5-5-5-15 at +2.2V
Edge aligned data output, centre aligned data input
Auto & Self refresh, 7.8us refresh interval (8K/64ms refresh)
Serial presence detect with EEPROM
High Performance Heat Spreader
PCB: Height 1.180? (30.00mm), single sided component

PERFORMANCE:

Clock Cycle Time (tCK) CL=5 2.5ns (min.) / 8ns (max.)
Row Cycle Time (tRC) 51.5ns (min.)
Refresh to Active/Refresh Command Time (tRFC) 105ns
Row Active Time (tRAS) 39ns (min.) / 70,000ns (max.)
Single Power Supply of +1.8V (+/- .1V)
Power 2.025 W (operating)
UL Rating 94 V – 0
Operating Temperature 0o C to 55o C
Storage Temperature -55o C to +125o C

{mospagebreak title=Performance}

Test System:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6700
Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi/AP BIOS:0706
1GB Kingston HyperX PC-8500 (2x512MB)
XFX 7900GT
1x Hitachi Deskstar 80GB 7200RPM SATA2 Hard Drive
Generic DVD Rom Drive
Tagan 580W EasyCon PSU
Windows XP Professional and Windows XP x64

As always, Windows was fully updated and a number of software
applications were installed onto the system and drives defragged before any
testing started.

Software installed included the following:
Avast Antivirus
Microsoft Office 2003
Diskeeper 10.0
Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0
CyberLink Power DVD
Firefox
 

The Asus P5B Deluxe board with its newer 965P chipset allowed me to run
the memory at the specified speed without having to overclock the CPU.

Incredibly, this kit ran at the specified speed of DDR2-1067 with only
1.9V

SiSoftware Sandra 2007 (Win x86)	SiSoftware Sandra 2007 (Win x64)
Memory Bandwidth	Memory Bandwidth
Memory Latency	Memory Latency

Memtach (Win x86)	Memtach (Win x64)

{mospagebreak title=Overclocking}

With Micron D9GKX chips on the PCB these kits are
already overclocked. Micron designed and specified the default speed of D9GKX
chips at DDR2-800, CAS 5, 1.8V. With this in mind, I was not expecting a huge
amount of overclocking room.

For the final overclocking tests and results, I used
a maximum VDimm of 2.30V. 2.35V would allow me to benchmark at DDR2-1260, but Memtest
would display errors after only a couple of hours of testing… this particular kit also
seemed to have a ?sweet-spot? at around 2.3V. I could also benchmark at 4-4-4-8 1067MHz, 2.35V, but since it was not memtest stable, those results will not be shown.

For the first test, I decided to try to
see how much I could tighten the latencies at the default speed of DDR2-1067.
Eventually I was able to get 4-5-4-8 stable, these tighter timings should reduce the
latency over the default timings.

DDR2-1067 4-5-4-8 & 2.3

When testing the speed limit of the default timings
( 5-5-5-15) and  raising the memory above
1067MHz it became necessary to overclock the CPU as well. Although, this was
unavoidable, I did reduce the CPU multiplier to x9 in an attempt to minimise
the affect of increased CPU speed.

I started increasing the FSB a couple of MHz at a
time and testing at each point. I was very surprised when the modules passed
550MHz and amazed when they passed 600MHz (DDR2-1200). Eventually though, they did
finally reach their limit with 5-5-5-15 timings and 2.30V at a final speed of 624MHz
or DDR2-1248, which was very impressive indeed.
We can see from the following results that the Core 2 Duo chips really enjoy the extra bandwidth made available by increasing the speed of the memory and FSB.

DDR2-1248 5-5-5-15 & 2.3V

All results shown in this review are stable results.
I occasionally see memory reviews around the web that display all manner of
amazing results and timings, but these are often only stable enough to run the
benchmark shown. I do not really like testing like this and to me, stability
means more than fast benchmarks (although stability and speed together is
nice). So as well as having to pass each benchmark, final speeds were tested
using HCI Memtest for a minimum of 6 hours to ensure the results I obtained to be
not just benchmark stable.

{mospagebreak title= Price and Warranty}

 
Looking at prices of other memory kits with similar specifications, it
seems that the Kingston HyperX can be found for roughly the same price. Higher
prices on PC8500 memory can be attributed to the more stringent speed binning
process that takes place.

Kingston Memory modules including ValueRAM, HyperX and Kingston system
specific memory, Flash memory cards (e.g. Secure Digital, CompactFlash,
MultiMediaCard, SmartMedia) ATA Flash, and Linear Flash; memory
expansion-boards, networking adapters; routers, hubs and switches without cooling
fans (excluding the power supply), Flash adapters and microprocessor upgrade
products are all covered by a Limited Lifetime Warranty. For more details, please
visit

http://www.kingston.com/company/warranty.asp

{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}

All I can say about these modules is ?WOW?
I expected a little
overclocking room, but nowhere near as much as I got. This was a nice
introduction for me into overclocking DDR2 and I would highly recommend these
modules to anyone looking for a really overclockable 1GB kit….
Unfortunately these days not a lot of people are interested in buying 1GB kits anymore and want 2GB or more
in their PC’s. Kingston also produces a 2GB kit of HyperX PC-8500 memory,
but I was unable to find prices at this time.
Although the saying goes ?you get what you pay for?, to some the price
may seem a little high, especially with the recent DDR2 price increases. As mentioned previously though, a lot more work goes into
producing high speed memory such as this and of course you get a lifetime guarantee and support from Kingston.
These Kingston HyperX PC8500 kits would certainly suit the overclockers
out there. Capable of DDR2-1200 and above, these modules were very flexible and easy to work with, if it weren’t for the high price, these sticks would have undoubtedly won a Best on the Planet award.

Pros

• High Overclocks
• Kingston brand and support
• Flexible Latencies

Cons

• 1Gb kit
• High Price

Specifications/Features: 4.5/5
Appearance: 4.25/5
Performance: 4.5/5
Price/Warranty: 4/5

Overall: 17.25/20
 

 We would like to thank Claudia Martinez at Kingston for our review sample.

{mospagebreak title=Packaging} Packaging: 3.6 out of 5
In the event of poor performance smash case with hammer?

I am not sure if there is an unwritten law that says that if you make high-performance and highly overclockable RAM you must package it in flimsy plastic that is able to slice your fingers if miss-handled.Corsair is known for high-performance RAM, Corsair is known for being highly overclockable, Corsair is known for having packaging that, once torn open, you could shave with. The plastic clam shell packaging on the XMS2 is not impressive. The simple insert has the name of the product and the kit size printed on the front and on the back you can find a small sampling of awards that have been heaped on Corsairs name as well as a few review quotes and techsupport information. One new item is that the insert opens up, on the inside are instructions for installing your RAM complete with color pictures. The packaging, it can be argued, is this way to reduce the overall cost to you, the consumer, I personally think that RAM of this quality and speed deserves a better box. That, however, is a very trivial item in the greater scheme of things. 

{mospagebreak title=Design and Features}

Design and Features: 4.5 Score out of 5
He designed it mainly to annoy his wife?

With a jet-black aluminum heat spreader and a purple label the Twin2X1024-8500 pair is quite eye catching. The heat spreader is attached to the RAM using either thermal tape or another form of thermal adhesive as I was unable to remove them. Corsair designed the Twin2X1024-8500 to run at the same speed as the Pentium4s with the 1066MHz FSB. This is to help compensate for the inherent latency of the memory controller residing in the northbridge and not in the CPU. One of the problems with most Intel performance is memory speed. In an AMD setup the memory runs at the same speed as the CPU FSB (or HT) this improves memory and CPU performance considerably. With an Intel System all data has to go though the northbridge to get from the memory to the CPU and back. This is already a handicap, added to this is the fact that until recently most DDR2 RAM did not run as fast as the CPU FSB, so you are already at a disadvantage. Most DDR2 speeds have not surpassed the 1000MHz range and while this is good for those running the 800MHz FSB CPUs, what happens when you have a CPU with an FSB of 1066? You are stuck either overclocking your RAM to meet that speed, granted not a large OC, or you simply run at a slower speed and loose a small amount of your performance. Corsair has changed all of that with the release of the Twin2X1024-8500, you can run your memory at the same speed as your 1066 CPU and see the full performance possible from these parts.   

Features:
Two matched 512MB 240-pin DDR2 DIMMs
SPD Programmed to DDR2-800 at 5-5-5-15-2T
2.2vDimm
64mx8 DDR2 SDRAMs
Aluminum Heatspreader
Latencies:
CL 5
RAS Precharge 5
RAS to CAS Delay 5
RAS Active to Precharge 15
Command Rate 2T
Lifetime Warranty  

{mospagebreak title=Performance}

Performance: 4.7 out of 5
Test systems:
Intel Extreme Edition 840
Asus P5WD2-E Premium Mainboard
Corsair Twin2X1024-8500 1GB (2x512MB)
ATi X1800XT

One issue I ran into with my test setup was the inability to run the Corsair RAM at 1066 without overclocking the CPU.

For the Kingston HyperX PC2-7200 I was able to run them at 4-5-5-12.

One foot note, I was able to run this memory at the rated speed ot 1066MHz by over clocking the XE840 CPU to a 266MHz FSB.  It ran at this speed without issue.
For easier labeling I list both types of RAM tested as DDR2-800.

Sisoft Sandra:

RightMark Memory Analyzer:

SuperPi:

Time in Minutes and Seconds

Although the gain here is small it is still noticeable and a 16 second improvement in the SuperPi 32M calculation is nothing to thumb your nose at.