Corsair TWINX2048-4000PT
Corsair is the most widely recognized brand of Enthusiast or high-performance memory in the world. Corsair also maintains very visible support in the form of RamGuy, who provides support for Corsair products at www.asktheramguy.com and as a participant in many Forums.
The 4000PT include matte silver-colored aluminum heatspreaders that are appropriate for the Corsair Platinum series. There are no LEDs or diagnostic strips that would increase the cost of the 2GB kit. Corsair also markets an Expert line of DIMMs, which include programmable LEDs that can display memory speed, memory voltage, and other useful memory diagnostic data if that is an important feature for the buyer. The 3500LL PRO that we reviewed in Part 1 of the 2GB roundup used Infineon memory and featured diagnostic LEDs. Whatever you are looking for in your 2GB memory purchase is likely available as a Corsair product.
Specifications
The TWINX2048-4000PT is rated at CAS3 at DDR500, with slow rated timings of 3-4-4-8 at default voltage.
Test Results
To be considered stable for test purposes, Quake3 benchmark, UT2003 Demo, Super PI, Aquamark 3, and Comanche 4 had to complete without incident. Any of these, and in particular Super PI, will crash a less-than stable memory configuration.
Despite the somewhat slow rated timings of the Corsair 4000PT, the memory managed to work fine at faster timings at almost every speed setting. While it is not included in the chart, we were able to run at the rated DDR500 speed at 3-3-3-8 timings at 2.8V instead of the specified 3-4-4-8 timings. The Corsair 4000PT is not the fastest 2GB memory in the roundup, but it manages to perform within a few frames of the fastest 2GB kits at every tested speed. In addition, the 4000PT turned out to be a really excellent overclocker, reaching a stable DDR580 speed.
While this Corsair kit will not satisfy those who want the fastest 2GB kit available, the 4000PT will be a good choice for those who are willing to give up a few frames at each speed in exchange for a 30% to 40% lower price. The one thing that you won't have to give up is great overclocking capabilities, since this Corsair is one of the most overclockable 2GB kits in the roundup.
Corsair is the most widely recognized brand of Enthusiast or high-performance memory in the world. Corsair also maintains very visible support in the form of RamGuy, who provides support for Corsair products at www.asktheramguy.com and as a participant in many Forums.
The 4000PT include matte silver-colored aluminum heatspreaders that are appropriate for the Corsair Platinum series. There are no LEDs or diagnostic strips that would increase the cost of the 2GB kit. Corsair also markets an Expert line of DIMMs, which include programmable LEDs that can display memory speed, memory voltage, and other useful memory diagnostic data if that is an important feature for the buyer. The 3500LL PRO that we reviewed in Part 1 of the 2GB roundup used Infineon memory and featured diagnostic LEDs. Whatever you are looking for in your 2GB memory purchase is likely available as a Corsair product.
Specifications
The TWINX2048-4000PT is rated at CAS3 at DDR500, with slow rated timings of 3-4-4-8 at default voltage.
| Corsair TWINX2048-4000PT Memory Specifications | |
| Number of DIMMs & Banks | 2 DS |
| DIMM Size Total Memory |
1GB 2GB |
| Rated Timings | 3-4-4-8 at DDR500 |
| Rated Voltage | Standard (2.6V) Voltage |
| SPD | 3-3-3-8 |
Test Results
| Corsair TWINX2048-4000PT (DDR500) - 2x1GB Double-Bank | |||||||
| CPU Ratio at 2.4GHz | Memory Speed |
Memory Timings & Voltage |
Quake3 fps |
Sandra UNBuffered | Sandra Standard Buffered |
Super PI 2M places (time in sec) |
Wolfenstein - Radar - Enemy Territory fps |
| 12x200 | 400DDR | 2.5-3-3-7 2.5V |
528.3 | INT 2448 FLT 2599 |
INT 6001 FLT 5973 |
83 | 116.0 |
| 11x218 | 436DDR | 2.5-3-3-7 2.6V |
536.2 | INT 2592 FLT 2741 |
INT 6427 FLT 6345 |
83 | 117.3 |
| 10x240 | 480DDR | 2.5-3-3-7 2.7V |
549.0 | INT 2796 FLT 2910 |
INT 6703 FLT 6642 |
81 | 119.3 |
| 9x266 | 533DDR | 3-4-4-8 2.7V |
545.0 | INT 2844 FLT 3088 |
INT 6960 FLT 6880 |
81 | 118.9 |
| 9x290 (2.61GHz) |
Highest Mem Speed DDR 580 |
3-4-4-8 2.8V |
580.8 | INT 3201 FLT 3357 |
INT 7542 FLT 7393 |
74 | 128.6 |
Despite the somewhat slow rated timings of the Corsair 4000PT, the memory managed to work fine at faster timings at almost every speed setting. While it is not included in the chart, we were able to run at the rated DDR500 speed at 3-3-3-8 timings at 2.8V instead of the specified 3-4-4-8 timings. The Corsair 4000PT is not the fastest 2GB memory in the roundup, but it manages to perform within a few frames of the fastest 2GB kits at every tested speed. In addition, the 4000PT turned out to be a really excellent overclocker, reaching a stable DDR580 speed.
While this Corsair kit will not satisfy those who want the fastest 2GB kit available, the 4000PT will be a good choice for those who are willing to give up a few frames at each speed in exchange for a 30% to 40% lower price. The one thing that you won't have to give up is great overclocking capabilities, since this Corsair is one of the most overclockable 2GB kits in the roundup.
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Beenthere - Monday, January 23, 2006 - link
Crucial use to be a pretty good memory supplier at one time and I've bought plenty of their products. There seems to have been a philosophical change at Crucial a number of years ago and I stopped buying and recommending their products after a major hassle over one failed DIMM out of the many we had purchased. Seems like their submission of a discontinued product to this 1 Gb review is another example of mis-management and manipulation of the media...In regards to 1 Gig. DIMMS vs. 512 Mb it seems to me relatively few people really need these DIMMS. If you are a serious gamer playing the latest game versions, sure you'll see some small performance improvement for a PRICE. And that is the point really - what do you get in tangible system performance gain and is it of enough emotional value to you to pay the premium price. Obviously for some it is as they will pay $1000 for a CPU, $700 x 2 for 7800 GTX 512 Vid cards, etc. I doubt however that most PC enthusiasts can really justify those prices nor the price premium for 1 Gb DIMMS based on system performance gains.
And along those lines... how often do PC enthusiasts and / or gamers replace their entire PC hardware??? If for instance you are building a new PC now because the Opti 165 / X2 3800+ are a sweet deal, would you really be in the market for a new AMD AM2 system in a 4-6 months when they are readily available??? I doubt many folks replace their hardware that often but I could be wrong. If it is true then I wonder where all the good hardware ends up after it's used for a couple months and then trashed for the latest trick-of-the-week hardware???
xsilver - Monday, January 23, 2006 - link
its called ebay - or as some say "egay" :por I think option 2 is the not so rich friends who suck up a lot
option 3 is "damn, I overvolted the cpu to attain max overclock and the damn thing fried itself -- oh well, just buy another fx-60"
note that option 3 people probably fuel the reason for why manufacturers think they can charge us $500+ for a gfx card and $1000+ for a cpu
JarredWalton - Monday, January 23, 2006 - link
Worth note - and not shown in the benches here - is that 2GB of RAM can have a massive impact on load times for some of the latest games. It is also incredibly useful when you're editing a bunch of images in Photoshop. The difference in level load times on BF2 is amazing, even when comparing 4x512MB 2T to 2x512MB 1T.BF2 is something of an exception right now, but over the next year I expect more and more games to push the memory requirements beyond 1GB. FEAR is another reasonable example, though not quite as pronounced as BF2. Some of the MMORPGs also get a lot of use from 2GB.
Personally, I won't be buying 512MB DIMMs anymore, but I still use them in systems I build for other people.
johnford64 - Monday, January 23, 2006 - link
Why is the OCZ PC4000 XTC and Normal Gold not covered in either article??? The Platnium EB's are too much money, and i would like a good read and comparison on the XTC/Golds. As a side note, Crucial stopped making their 2GB DDR1 kit, so they couldnt replace my dead det, which is why i got the OCZ'sbigtoe36 - Monday, January 23, 2006 - link
XTC and golds do feature the same IC, OCZ are moving to replace all old heatspreaders with XTC so you will see some older stock using the old spreader in stores.So apples to apples they should clock near the same but the XTC moduls running a little cooler.
johnford64 - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
But my question is why neither XTC or Gold kits have been reviewed here, if there have please let me know whereMiggle - Monday, January 23, 2006 - link
not much difference (in RTCW at least) between 400mhz and 533 (must be the timings). Good review tho.Now, i'm looking for a link that shows how mem timings impact A64 (2-2-2-6 vs 2.5-3-3-7). Hope someone could give me one.
still, me thinks that fast mem = costs too much and not that worth-it. I just bought geil value ram that does 2.5-3-3-6 @ 200mhz and quite happy /w it (on AXP still tho).
android1st - Monday, January 23, 2006 - link
I was just trying to decide about my next system whether I should wait for DDR2 or increase the memory on my old system. I think I'm going to wait for DDR2, hopefully AMD will roll out 65nm around the same time as the new socket. And prices will be reasonable and availability will be high. Guess we'll wait and see...Nocturnal - Monday, January 23, 2006 - link
Crucial recently pulled their Ballistix 2GB kits due to unforseen circumstances. Everyone at XS is speculating that all of the RMAs that have been going on is culprit.johnford64 - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
That happened to me, 2 dead kits. They tried to offer me 2GB of PC3200. Like hell i am taking $150 ram in place of my $400 USD ram.