When you think of high performance memory, names like Corsair, Crucial, and Samsung tend to come to mind. Well, there’s a new name on the block that could bring even more competition to the world of high performance RAM, that being XtremeDDR. With a name like that, it should be rather obvious what crowd they are geared towards, overclocking and performance. With the recent release of chipsets either “officially” or “un-officially” supporting speeds of up to DDR400, the overclocking crowd is look to higher end memory to allow for the utmost in performance. Today, we’ll be taking a look at XtremeDDR’s lightning fast PC-3500+ which utilizes Samsung C4 memory modules. We’ll be throwing it up against a stick of Corsair XMS3000v1.1 and a stick of Samsung DDR333. Let’s see if this RAM can hold up to its cliché, “The Gamer’s Memory.”

     Just for a quick refresher course, here’s some background information on DDR RAM. DDR memory itself utilizes a 184-Pin DIMM, unlike its old brethren SDRAM which relies upon a 168-Pin DIMM slot. This type of RAM theoretically offers double the bandwidth of the older SDRAM. How does it accomplish this feat? Simple. DDR RAM operates twice per clock cycle. The wave itself is a square wave, a.k.a. a digital wave. DDR transmits data on the rising edge of the clock, the “0” and “1”. Data is also transmitted on the falling edge of the clock, between the “1” and the “0”. Older SDRAM only transmits data on the rising edge of the clock, while DDR transmits twice that, hence the name Double Data Rate.

     

     

     The Corsair 512MB module comes along with an attractive black heat spreader with the Corsair logo printed on it. The module itself is double sided, utilizing eight 32M x 8 DDR SDRAM chips with an access time of 6.0 nanoseconds. 512MB modules tend to fair worse with overclocking than smaller modules, but on the other end, they usually tend to outperform two 256MB modules. Corsair’s XMS3000 is tested to operate at 166MHz (2-2-2, 1T Command), and 185MHz (2-3-3, 1T Command).

     Our Samsung memory stick doesn’t come with any eye catching heat spreader unlike we see with Corsair. Corsair’s memory is aimed directly overclockers, and although Samsung memory is too, it isn’t as decorated as the Corsair stick. Not that that will really matter to overclockers out there since they can just throw on their own high performance copper heat spreaders, but hey, I felt obligated to mention it. Our Samsung module is single-sided sporting chips rated at 6.0 nanoseconds, and a module rating for a CAS Latency of 2.5. Now that we’re familiar with the sticks, it’s time to void a few warranties and see how they perform!