Verdict: Shiny, black and expensive
Corsair was one of the first companies to release DDR2 memory, even before motherboards were available.
These particular modules exceed the JEDEC standard with timings of 4 - 4 - 4 - 12 instead of the suggested 5 - 5 - 5 - 15. This is why Corsiar refers to them as PC5400 instead of the more usual PC5300.
These modules have the sleek black heatspreaders we've come to expect on Corsair DIMMs, which actually do very little other than add eye candy.
We used an Abit AA8 DuraMAX motherboard for testing. The FSB on this board won't go above 240MHz even with the CPU multiplier lowered from 17 to 12, and 1.7V tearing through the Northbridge. Using the 4:3 FSB to RAM ratio in the BIOS, this set the RAM to run at an effective speed of 640MHz, 27MHz short of its advertised rating.
Reaching the guaranteed speed (667MHz), let alone exceeding it, will be a task in itself with current 925X motherboards, but with a little more voltage and better Northbridge cooling, it should be possible. However, you'd also need a CPU that's capable of such a hefty overclock, as retail CPUs are multiplier locked, unlike our engineering sample.
Aside from the lifetime warranty, which should comfort the careless or unlucky among us, this memory does little to distinguish itself from other DDR2 modules.
