Corsair and OCZ: New Standards in Fast DDR2

The Fastest DDR2 from Corsair and OCZ

DDR2 memory has zoomed to the forefront recently, after several years of benign neglect by the enthusiast community. AMD, which has led the enthusiast market for the last couple of years, moved from DDR to DDR2 in late May. Intel Core 2 Duo was recently introduced and finally gave enthusiasts a reason to want to own Intel processors again. Suddenly, no matter what platform you wanted to buy, you found it was fueled by DDR2 memory.

As a result of the increased spotlight on DDR2, memory makers pulled out all the stops in creating new and faster DDR2 memory. The two newest platforms support DDR2-800, and enthusiast memory makers quickly brought DDR2-800, DDR2-1000, and DDR2-1066 modules to market. The new DIMMs, mostly based on Micron memory chips, established memory timings of 3-3-3 as the newest standard for enthusiast memory at DDR2-800. All of these new memories also reached DDR2-1067 and beyond. You can read more about high-performance DDR2 in our Conroe Buyers Guide.

Even value DDR2 became faster very quickly. Most of the value sticks are now using Elpida memory. These were rated at DDR2-667 or DDR2-533, but most managed to run at DDR2-800 at 4-3-3 timings at around 2.2V. None of the value RAM tested could reach DDR2-1067, but DDR2-800 at good timings is plenty fast for the majority of users. You will find a recent roundup of value DDR2 in the Value DDR2 section of the Conroe Buying Guide.

The enthusiast, by definition, is always looking for more - more speed, more power, more performance. The quest is for the best - performance so good and speeds so fast that no one can touch their results. You may even consider the enthusiast an elitist, but that is no different than the car enthusiast, a photography enthusiast, or any technology area where hobbyists can be found.

Corsair has a long and illustrious history as an innovator in the memory market. For many years the only recognizable brand of enthusiast memory was Corsair. OCZ has firmly established itself in recent years as one of the most creative makers of enthusiast memory with innovations like Extended Latency memory and high-voltage VX DIMMs for extreme overclockers. It was no surprise then, given the history of these two companies, to be contacted for a look at their newest and fastest DDR2 memory.

Both memory companies consider the modules tested here the best DDR2 they currently offer on the market. It is surprising then to see Corsair rate their DDR2 at DDR2-800 with specified 3-4-3 timings. OCZ rates the new Titanium Alpha at DDR2-1000 at 4-4-4 timings. As seen in the past, both OCZ and Corsair are often quite conservative in their ratings of their best memories. We were curious to see what these "best-of-the-best" could really do in our new Core 2 Extreme memory test bed.