Corsair needs no introduction, when they say they have the industries most highly awarded memory, it is not an idle boast. Quite simply, Corsair has been making some of the fastest memory in the world longer than any other performance maker in this test. You can read more about the way Corsair operates in our RAMguy seminar article here.
The Corsair XMS4000 memory shown here is identical to the XMS4000 reviewed by Ben here, but is a retail sample, again provided by the guys at www.overclockers.co.uk
As you can see the heat spreaders have the funky new holograms on them to protect buyers from fraudulent sticks, and come in nice new retail packaging with instructions and links to reviews. The corsair uses HY5DU56822BT-D43 hynix memory wafer, which is a CAS 3 DDR400 part.
Voltage
Speed
Timings
Result
2.8V
200MHz
CAS 2 3-3-6
PASS
2.8V
250MHz
CAS 3 4-4-8
PASS
2.8V
250MHz
CAS 2.5 4-4-7
PASS
2.8V
260MHz
CAS 3 4-4-8
PASS
2.8V
260MHz
CAS 2.5 4-4-7
PASS
2.8V
265MHz
CAS 3 4-4-8
PASS
2.8V
265MHz
CAS 2.5 4-4-7
PASS
2.8V
270MHz
CAS 3 4-4-8
FAIL
2.8V
270MHz
CAS 2.5 4-4-7
FAIL
2.8V
275MHz
CAS 3 4-4-8
FAIL
2.8V
275MHz
CAS 2.5 4-4-7
FAIL
2.9V
200MHz
CAS 3 4-4-8
FAIL
This particular sample actually clocked higher than the sample provided by corsair themselves. This is probably because as a line becomes more mature, yields increase and batches will in general go higher. Bare in mind also that not all modules are created equal, there will always be a spread! One thing you will notice is that the corsair does not like voltage above 2.8V on the IC7 Max 3. This was NOT however an issue on the Asus P4C800, which also offers high VDIMM settings.
Top quality memory, the PC4000 can currently be bought from www.overclockers.co.uk for a rather more expensive £323 inc VAT.