Intel
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who has the fastest DDR3 RAM of them all?
Vying for the fastest system RAM at the show - which we define as
modules that are categorically stated to go into production and
available to the end-user, soon - Corsair was leveraging the
as-yet-unreleased NVIDIA nForce 790i SLI chipset for some ultra-high
DDR3 action.
Available next week, and run on an eVGA board, Corsair is
validating a 2GiB kit (2 x 1GiB) DDR3 kit at 2,133MHz, with 8-8-8-24
latencies, at 1.9V - or 0.4V above default. A 4GiB kit (2 x 2GiB) is
currently hitting around 2,000MHz in internal testing, we learned, with
the largest impediment to faster speeds not the DRAM but the memory
controller on the chipset.
Corsair expects high-density RAM frequencies to scale as the 790i SLI
chipset
matures.
The memory is programmed with NVIDIA's EPP 2.0 for auto-speed settings
but, interestingly enough, the XMP settings, for Intel boards, can also
be inputted without overwriting EPP, allowing Corsair to brand
ultra-high-speed DDR3 depending upon demand.
Uber-fast DDR3 is an absolutely niche market right now and having
the very fastest RAM has more to do with prestige than practicality,
though.
At slightly more sane prices, Corsair is also releasing a 4GiB DDR2
kit, based on Powerchip's ICs, that operates at 1,142MHz with 5-5-5-15
latencies - speed and capacity in one package.
Keeping the capacity theme going, another 4GiB kit of DDR3-1,600 memory
imbued with 7-7-7-28 latencies was shown. Indeed, Corsair had two
packs, totalling 8GiB, on an ASUS P5E3 Premium motherboard, as pictured
below.
Speed is the name of the game and Corsair continues to increase,
albeit incrementally, the speed of high-quality DDR2/3 RAM.
DDR3 still remains too expensive to recommend to the average user, and
they would be best-served by looking at DDR2-based motherboards and
then, OS-permitting, opting for 4/8GiB of high-quality RAM, we feel.
All HEXUS CeBIT 2008 content
printer friendly layout 
discuss in the forums 
email to a friend
IE7 Search
Firefox 2 Search
HEXUS.community :: your right2reply
it's gonna take years before CPUs even take advantage of all of 2133MHz.. but by then we'll be at about 3 or 4GHz memory!Quote
dual QuadCore could be done with that kind of memory bandwidth.
Is memory latency not a big deal these days, CAS8 is quite lathargic isn't it?Quote
who needs 2133MHz!??!?!!??
it's gonna take years before CPUs even take advantage of all of 2133MHz.. but by then we'll be at about 3 or 4GHz memory!
... you clearny never played crysis or rendered 50 gig worth of 3D HD video material!Quote
Reply