Legit Reviews

Corsair XMS2 DOMINATOR PC2-8888 Memory Review

Corsair's DOMINATOR memory series features Dual-path Heat Xchange (DHX) technology and has the world’s first PC2-8888 C4 (1111MHz at CAS Latency 4) speed rating on a production pair of 1 GByte modules. Today we take the XMS2 PC2-8888C4 modules out for a spin and see if they make a difference when it comes to system performance. Hold on tight because these modules reached over 1220MHz at 4-4-4-12 timings!

We were able to overclock the processor to it's limits and reached 305MHz on the HTT before our system became unstable. We were able to get the system running at 307MHz putting the memory at 1227.6MHz (CPU-Z Validation Link), but it would fail Prime 95 testing when we tried running it for hours on end. At just 2.42 Volts on the memory we were able to overclock them from 1111MHz to 1219.4MHz with stability before we threw in the towel because our processors (we tried several AM2 processors) wouldn't keep going.

Article Title: Corsair XMS2 DOMINATOR PC2-8888 Memory Review
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/388/1/

Would love to know the memory overclock that isn't CPU bound. Maybe the RD600 will be able to help when it comes out, as that has independant memory overclock ability.

Man, I wish I could win the lottery or something!

Dan

This is some sweet stuff!

Those are some sweet sticks. Very impressive.

Very interesting read!

damnit apop through those in a high clocking 965 board and see if they can fly

Did I miss the MSRP somewhere?

I avoided the price for two reasons:

1) In the conclusion I said, "If you have to ask how much this memory is then this isn't the memory kit for you." The reason for saying this is because the modules feature an MSRP of $599 in the US.

2) They are shipping but not listed for sale yet. Newegg got their kits three days ago and haven't listed them on the site yet.

Yeah we're starting to see both modules of Dominators show up on Aussie pricing engines too now

http://www.staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/sea ... ?q=8500c5d

http://www.staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/sea ... ?q=8888c4d about twice price of 6400C4 http://www.staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/search.cgi?q=6400c4

strange the 8500C5D is cheaper than 6400C3 http://www.staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/search.cgi?q=6400c3

The C5's use the same IC's as the regular 8500C5's so the only thing you are paying for is the Dominator Airflow heat sinks and new PCB. Since PCB's are well under $5 each it shouldn't add much to the price.

€640 euros here in Ireland

could buy a whole Dell + TFT monitor for that money.......OR could pay for flights to visit eva2000 in Oz.

Apoptosis wrote:The C5's use the same IC's as the regular 8500C5's so the only thing you are paying for is the Dominator Airflow heat sinks and new PCB. Since PCB's are well under $5 each it shouldn't add much to the price.

Yeah seems to be a drop in price on 8500C5 too in OZ

I would like to ask why those cames were played at 1024X768? Most 17' LCD's have a native resolution of 1280X1024.

Yeah, I'm going to OC the heck out of my PC and RAM, and then turn down my resolution to play a game, just doesn't make sense. I know that at that resolution, the CPU and RAM play a greater part than the video card does, but then why the heck pay out for an SLI system when you are going to just turn down the resolution anyhow?

FeRaL wrote:I would like to ask why those cames were played at 1024X768? Most 17' LCD's have a native resolution of 1280X1024.

Yeah, I'm going to OC the heck out of my PC and RAM, and then turn down my resolution to play a game, just doesn't make sense. I know that at that resolution, the CPU and RAM play a greater part than the video card does, but then why the heck pay out for an SLI system when you are going to just turn down the resolution anyhow?

This is the first memory review that I have done game testing on at over 800x600 resolutions, so be happy that we did them at that with graphics quality left to high! If you want performance on SLI systems we could crank everything up to 2560x1600 with settings on ultra high and guess what no difference would be found on a ton of things as you'd be GPU limited... I think running benchmarks at 1024x768 is still valid. While we would like to test at all resolutions and settings we don't have the man power or a budget to do that.

Apoptosis wrote:

FeRaL wrote:I would like to ask why those cames were played at 1024X768? Most 17' LCD's have a native resolution of 1280X1024.

Yeah, I'm going to OC the heck out of my PC and RAM, and then turn down my resolution to play a game, just doesn't make sense. I know that at that resolution, the CPU and RAM play a greater part than the video card does, but then why the heck pay out for an SLI system when you are going to just turn down the resolution anyhow?

This is the first memory review that I have done game testing on at over 800x600 resolutions, so be happy that we did them at that with graphics quality left to high! If you want performance on SLI systems we could crank everything up to 2560x1600 with settings on ultra high and guess what no difference would be found on a ton of things as you'd be GPU limited... I think running benchmarks at 1024x768 is still valid. While we would like to test at all resolutions and settings we don't have the man power or a budget to do that.

Fair enough. I know what you mean about the man hours it takes to do a reveiw. If you were to count your hourly wage at your job and then multiply it by the hours put into a review, I would say 99.999% the value of your time weighs in at a measure of 2x the cost of the item being reviewed.

I was just wondering as I, as well a many friends, like to play at the native resolutions of our monitors and was hoping to see some results that were closer to what would be seen in real world gameing. Heck, my 17" LCD isn't even the norm these days, it's sub par.

I appreciate your rapid reply and look foreward to more reviews.

Welcome to the forums FeRaL!

Just to add this was a memory review not a graphics card review!
As Nate said, the benchmark was done to show the difference between the various RAMs....not the gfx cards. IF you run ultra high settings (like we all love to) there would be no difference........the GFX card would be your bottleneck.

Thanks for the welcome. I think the memory is awesome, and most of the review was as well.

But, like you said, this is a memory review, not a GFX card review. Why bother doing a FPS comparison if there is going to be no real difference in real world resolutions.

I just think the memory review would have been done more justice had it showed just that. At real world gameing, the memory realy isn't going to show much of a difference. And, then go on to say "but, if you look at the other bench's..."

Where as showing, like MP3/MPEG/AVI encoding, and the other benches that were don on the review, where the memory is going to get a real work out, that shows where it is shining.

I thik doing the GFX comparison at those resolutions gives the lay man a false reading on just what he can expect out of the memory in the gaming aspect. Where as an enthusiast would pose the questions, "how would this look like at xxxxXxxxx resolution..."

MP3/MPEG encoding depends ono the CPU......Just Like Hi-Res gaming you wouldn't see much difference between the different RAMs.

The gaming benchies were only done so you can see a difference between the RAMs.......think of it like another Sandra/Everest Memory bandwidth test........They are not done so you can see what this ram would be like in your gaming rig!
Hi-end ram does not help with hi-res gaming.......Corsair etc would love you to think it does.....
Checkout this review by Xbitlabs Link
It shows a benchmark of F.E.A.R when the gfx card is the bottleneck.
A Celeron is only 1FPS behind an FX57
If that test was done using different RAM instead of CPUs the difference between would look the same!

kenc51 wrote:MP3/MPEG encoding depends ono the CPU......Just Like Hi-Res gaming you wouldn't see much difference between the different RAMs.

The gaming benchies were only done so you can see a difference between the RAMs.......think of it like another Sandra/Everest Memory bandwidth test........They are not done so you can see what this ram would be like in your gaming rig!
Hi-end ram does not help with hi-res gaming.......Corsair etc would love you to think it does.....
Checkout this review by Xbitlabs Link
It shows a benchmark of F.E.A.R when the gfx card is the bottleneck.
A Celeron is only 1FPS behind an FX57
If that test was done using different RAM instead of CPUs the difference between would look the same!

Ok, after I have reread everything, I see where I was reading it wrong now. My appologiesto all those involved concerning this matter. I knew you guys were "Legit" and having gone over it again you still are.

No need to apologise mate! LR's whole ethos is based around giving it's readers & members the facts.........

And welcome again!