Do you want to overclock to extremely high bus speeds, but you are tired of lowering your memory performance settings in your motherboard's bios just to hit 166MHz or even 200MHz+ front side bus (400MHz+ DDR)? DDR memory has become much better this year, but there is one company that has surpassed them all - Corsair. Corsair has a line of memory called "XMS" or "Xtreme Memory Speed" that is designed just for the extreme hardware lunatic! Just this month they have released the ultimate memory module that has people drooling; a 512mb module that can run at extremely aggressive memory timings at CL2 while running at a DDR bus speeds up to 434MHz (217MHz FSB)!

     I have yet to see any other memory manufacturer out there offer anything close to this spec. The great thing about the Corsair XMS modules is that they are TRUE speed memory modules, not "over spec" crap. My question is, do these modules really live up to the rumors on the web or is it just hype? To find out, we obtained one of these big bad sticks from Corsair for testing!

Specs

• 512mb of memory

• Implemented using 32m x 8 DDR SDRAMs with 5.0 nanosecond assess time.

• 100% tested at 434MHz in high performance KT400 based motherboards.

• Integrated aluminum heat spreader for improved thermal performance

• Benchmarked over multiple chipsets, processors, and motherboards.

• Legendary Corsair reliability and service.

• Lifetime warranty.

Test Specs

• Each module is tested in an ASUS A7V8X at 434MHz.

• Latency: 2-4-4-8-T1 (one module installed).

• SPD programmed at expected JEDEC values for PC3200.