Corsair XMS 3500 Platinum Series DDR RAM

Company: Corsair Micro
Product: 256MB XMS 3500 Platinum Series DDR RAM
Street Price: ~$130 USD
Date Reviewed: November 22, 2002
Reviewed By: Joey C. aka Chong345
Rating: (9/10)

Overclocking:

Using the Soft Menu III Bios to overclock the memory made things very easy. For a good starting point, we decided to put the memory at PC2100 266 MHz (133x2) speeds. The timings that we used were set to the most aggressive at 2-2-2-5. The voltage was set to stock at 2.5V. This was just to make sure that we had no incompatibility issues and that the memory was not damaged or defective. The memory displayed no instabilities throughout all of the testing procedure except when the memory was not receiving proper voltages or was just overclocked too high. The memory was then set to 333 MHz DDR using the 3:4 memory ratio at 125 FSB. Once again, stock voltages were used. The max speed that the memory was able to achieve with the most aggressive timings at stock voltage was 346 MHz DDR. This is not bad considering that only stock voltages were being used. Using higher voltages the memory would not go any further with the most aggressive settings.

Since the memory is not rated using the most aggressive timings, Corsair’s recommended values were then applied. 2-3-3-7 was used for the rest of the review. At stock voltages, the memory ran fine all the way up to 418 MHz DDR. This was very good, as some memory would require much more voltage to reach those speeds. At 2.6 V, the XMS3500 was able to do its proper 434 MHz DDR using the recommended Corsair timings. So yes, the Corsair does run its rated speed with very little voltage, which is good for memory that runs so fast.

The very highest overclock that we were able to achieve was 461 MHz DDR using 2.8V with the 2-3-3-7 timings. Adding any more voltage did not help at all and the 8H BIOS on the ABIT motherboard allows for options up to 3.2V. Softening the memory timings did not help either.

This memory overclocks very well and requires little voltage to run its rated speed of 434 MHz DDR that is very fast. Even still, there is more room for overclocking afterwards. Most motherboards support voltage options up to 2.8V so this memory should have no problem overclocking as long as the CPU is willing.

Test Scores:

Continue To Page 3 For Sandra Benchmarks -->