Verdict: Memory for extreme overclockers
The Corsair corporate logo shows three disembodied sails filled with wind; it brings to mind huge ships charging wildly into furious seas, crewed by rum-warmed mariners. What does this have to do with high-performance memory? To be truthful, I couldn't tell you, but you can be sure there's a mission statement in there somewhere.
Matched memory is nothing new, but with more motherboards now supporting dual-channel memory controllers, the fight is on to provide the best performance and reliability at increased clock speeds.
Corsair's latest 512MB (2 x 256MB) PC4000 modules are ideal for overclockers looking to bump up FSBs to silly heights. They worked stably at 500MHz using SPD timings in our EPoX EP-4PDA2+ board, fitted with a 2.6GHz Pentium 4C running at 3.25GHz with a 250MHz FSB.
Fuelled by this early success we swiftly set about trying to raise the clock speeds bearing in mind we already knew that our Pentium 4 would happily pass the 3.5GHz mark. Sadly, they wouldn't go any higher at standard timings.
One reason for this could be the relaxed memory timings (3-4-4-8), which could be why the modules run at a significantly higher speed. Our overclocking exploits foiled, we checked to see if we could get any performance increases by tweaking the CAS. It did manage to run stably at CAS 2.5, but we didn't see a performance increase.
CONCLUSION
Like the sails on Corsair's logo, this memory is designed to extend an existing technology to new levels of performance, but it's effectively running to its limits. We'd advise sticking to slower RAM with more aggressive timings, but if you have your heart set on synchronicity, you will be able to overclock your FSB to 250MHz. However, Corsair needs to produce PC4000 RAM with aggressive timings before we'll be seriously impressed.
