Aeneon Xtune DDR3-1866 (PC3-15000) 4GB DDR3 Kit
Conclusion
Whether it be intentional or not, Aeneon have positioned themselves as a possible favourite memory manufacturer for the new Nehalem/Core i7 based systems when they become available in the next few weeks. As I’m sure most of us will have heard, these systems are rumoured to require DDR3 memory modules that can operate at voltages of 1.65v or lower as the CPU vCore is supposedly directly linked to vDIMM.This, of course, makes the Aeneon Xtune DDR3-1866 kit an extremely favourable choice thanks to its stock 1.5v operation, along with its ability to overclock to DDR3-1974 without any further voltage adjustments. Additionally, with a small amount of extra voltage the kit is capable of coming within a whisker of DDR3-2000, which is pretty damn impressive indeed at such a low voltage.
On the down side, the Xtune modules hated low latency settings with a passion and blatantly refused to run at CAS9 on our 790i motherboard no matter what voltage setting was used. Even slightly lower settings such as 10-9-9-28 caused system instability and occasionally failure to boot, which isn’t good news for those of us who enjoy a combination of latency and speed.
The Good
• Very low voltage requirements for a DDR3-1866 kit.
• Overclocks to DDR3-1974 with only 1.5v, and DDR3-1994 with 1.56v.
• Support for XMP & EPP2.0 profiles, ensuring stability on newer chipsets.
• Possibly a good choice for an i7 setup.
The Mediocre
•10-10-10-30 timings are a bit slack
• Refused to run at CAS9 no matter what voltage.
The Bad
• Poor availability in the UK.
