Corsair XMS Xpert RAM


Compatibility & Our Test System

Compatibility Testing: Before we sat down in front of our test machine to evaluate Corsair's TWINXP1024-3200XL memory modules, we installed them into some of the systems we had available at the time to see if there were any compatibility problems to speak of.  We tried the sticks in a total of 5 different systems, powered by various popular chipsets, and didn't encounter a single problem.  All of the systems booted into Windows and worked without a hitch.  We tested these modules on the following platforms...

Brand Model Chipset
DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR nForce 4
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum nForce 3
ATI Bullhead Reference Radeon XPress 200
Shuttle FB81 Intel i915
Abit IC7-Max 3 Intel i875

With the exception of the DFI Lanparty NF4 SLI-DR, which we used for the benchmarks in this article, to quickly test these modules all we did was install them, power up the systems, made sure Windows booted and we ran SiSoft SANDRA's burn-in wizard for a few minutes. This limited compatibility testing wasn't extensive, but it does bode well for the TWINXP1024-3200XL memory modules. The fact that they worked properly on the popular platforms listed here, means most consumers shouldn't have any problems with them either.

HotHardware's Test System
Not all are created equal...
SYSTEM:
S939 - AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (2.4GHz)

DFI Lanparty NF4 SLI-DR Motherboard
NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI

Corsair TWINXP1024-3200XL
Kingson HyperX PC3500
Corsair TWINX1024-3200XLPRO

GeForce 6800 GT
On-Board 10/100/1000 Ethernet
On-Board Audio

WD "Raptor" 36GB Hard Drive
10,000 RPM SATA

Windows XP Pro SP2
Forceware v71.89
DirectX 9.0c

How we configured our test systems:  When configuring our test systems for this review, the first thing we did was enter the system BIOS and set each board to their "Optimized" or "High-Performance Defaults".  The hard drives were then formatted, and Windows XP Professional (SP2) was installed. When the installation was complete, we installed all of the necessary drivers for our components, and removed Windows Messenger from the system.  Auto-Updating and System Restore were also disabled, and we setup a 768MB permanent page file on the same partition as the Windows installation.  Lastly, we set Windows XP's Visual Effects to "best performance", installed all of our benchmarking software, defragged the hard drives and ran all of the tests.  Throughout all our benchmarking, we had the memory voltage set to 2.8v, unless otherwise noted.


Tags:  Corsair, RAM, XM, MS, XP, air, rsa, RT, AI, AM

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