Published: April 17, 2008 | Source: Corsair | Author: Llwyd Johnson

Corsair XMS2 DHX PC2-6400 4GB Kit

Conclusion

As I said at the start of this review, technology is moving forward at an eye watering pace. DDR3 memory solutions are slowly starting to saturate the enthusiast market and are getting faster and faster by the month. The XMS2 DHX kit with us today though has shown that this trend is not becoming refined to DDR3, with the ability to reach speeds of DDR2 1149 with a minimal slackening of latencies this 4GB kit has outperformed a most of 2GB kits we have seen in both overclock percentage and overall speed.

While the looks of a memory kit do not in any way correspond with performance levels, it can sometimes contribute to the feel of quality. The huge heat spreaders, while giving the modules an intimidating look, feel very solid. Unlike the very papery feel of some cheaper heat dispersing solutions, the DHX kit feels like one well built piece. The bond between the spreader and the modules is steadfast, allowing for no movement whatsoever and the fins along the spine would take a fair degree of cack-handedness to damage.

While the results seen in gaming performance against the OCZ Platinum kit seem inconsistent with those obtained in benchmarking tests, this fractional but consistent difference can likely be attributed to the default sub-timings on each kit. Having been largely left to automatic during testing we can only speculate that the OCZ Platinum’s sub-timings were slightly better suited to running these particular games.

Retailing at £69.99 with Komplett, the kit really does offer outstanding value for money for those still operating on DDR2 (the vast majority). At such a low price and high performance, the XMS2 DHX kit is more than the perfect accompaniment to a copy of Vista 64-bit or the latest resource hungry games.