Corsair TwinX PC3200 XL Pro (2-2-2-5) DDR Memory

Reviews: Hardware

Motherboards | Power Supplies | Memory | Systems | Video Cards

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Brian Kristensen
Kurtis
Corsair
Aug. 21, 2004

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Conclusion

Corsair has always been the leader in the memory market. Whenever something new pops up, you can be sure Corsair had something to do with it. It was no different when Corsair got a hold of Samsung's new chips and introduced 2-2-2 memory back into the market.

These PC3200 XL modules are specifically designed to run at 2-2-2-5 timings at DDR400 speeds in both AMD and Intel systems. While it is well known that Intel systems benefit much more from memory bandwidth, AMD systems can benefit from the lower latencies provided by this memory too.

The PC3200 XL showed some awesome performance in our benchmarks. While the memory was not able to reach much of an overclock with timings of 2-2-2-5, relaxing the timings showed just how much headroom these modules have. While an overclock from 200 to 209 MHz with timings of 2-2-2-5 isn't much, the ability of these modules to reach 254 MHz is quite a feat and those speeds are right up there with PC4000 memory we have tested!

Besides excellent performance, the Pro series of memory features the memory activity LEDs which no other memory line has. However, the LEDs are a bit of a gimmick and shouldn't really be a selling point, just an added bonus.

A 1 GB set of this PC3200 XL Pro can be found for as low as $308, which is very competitively priced (as always). If a GB of memory is a little too much for your budget, you can also check the pricing on a 512 MB stick (~ $160 - $170). If you are looking to upgrade your AMD or Intel system, and memory bandwidth isn't your only concern, Corsair's PC3200 XL is definitely worth a look.

Pros

Extremely low latency
Great performance
High quality
Insane overclock w/ relaxed timings
Competitively priced
Flashy happy lights!

Cons

Little overclock @ 2-2-2-5

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Page 5 of 5

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Page 1: Introduction & A Closer Look
Page 2: Test Setup / Overclocking
Page 3: SiSoft Sandra 04 / PCMark04
Page 4: ScienceMark 2 / Super Pi
Page 5: Conclusion

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5 User Comments

1 - Posted by Guest on August 23, 2004 - 8:33 pm

To test this you used SiSoft Sandra’s Burn-In wizard? Why not something like Memtest which actually does it properly?

Also no single stick result to see what babies can really do? And please lets up the voltage a little.

hmmmmm

2 - Posted by Guest on August 23, 2004 - 9:20 pm

"Pushing the voltage past 2.8v did not help the overclock"

3 - Posted by mrwagner on December 7, 2004 - 1:26 pm

Those are the ones that have the leds on them right? And how much better are they then the kingston hyper x?

4 - Posted by Kurtis on December 7, 2004 - 2:49 pm

do you actually read the reviews or just look at the conclusion? :P

if you look at the review you will see some pictures showing the lights on top of the memory. and we don't have any kingston hyperx to compare to, otherwise we would have had them in the benchmarking pages. :)

5 - Posted by mrwagner on December 7, 2004 - 4:12 pm

LOL my bad sorry im at work and I just kind of skimed your post I guess next time I will have to read more into it huh! 8)

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