Corsair DOMINATOR XMS2-10000
Our final contender, Corsair's Dominator XMS2-10000 PC2-10000 kit, represents the current pinnacle of DDR2 evolution.
Operating at a mammoth 1250MHz with 5-5-5-18 timings and a
standards-shattering 2.4V, this product should offer a level of
performance to make early entrants into the DDR3-arena blush.
There again, you'd certainly hope so, as it carries a staggeringly high
price tag for 2GB of £469.
To put this into perspective, Corsair's own DDR3-based TwinX XMS3 1333MHz are currently available for £140 less, though with DDR3 levels of latency, of course. So the Dominator XMS2-10000 will have to deliver some special performances to justify its pricing.
The money certainly hasn't gone into packaging, not that we'd want it to.
As one of the companies that worked with NVIDIA to create EPP profiles, Corsair offers support for EPP across the entire DOMINATOR range, naturally including the PC2-10000 kit.
For more information about how the DHX coolers
work and how they compare to the normal Corsair heat-spreaders, check
out our review of the Corsair
Dominator TWIN2X2048 - 8888C4DF modules.
As with all DOMINATOR products, the modules use
Corsair's
own Dual-path Heat Exchange (DHX) cooler. This
has heat-spreaders
attached to the memory chips and to the PCB itself.
Corsair claims this is done because the solder between the BGA memory
chips and the PCB forms a very effective heat-transfer path that would
cause up to
half the heat to pass into the PCB, and not necessarily get transferred
to the heat-spreader. The PCB-mounted sink is
reckoned
to dissipate this heat and
reduce the memory's overall operating temperature.
How this works in practice we'll see over the next few pages but it certainly sounds impressive.
If
the fancy heat-sinks aren't
quite enough, Corsair also throws in its DOMINATOR Airflow fans.
These provide dedicated airflow for the memory
modules and
should help in overclocking.
Given that
we usually loudly applaud passively-cooled motherboards,
graphics cards and even processors, it might seem perverse to describe
active cooling of memory as a plus-point. But Corsair's fans are quiet
and the product is aimed at hardcore overclockers who'll think
them worthwhile additions.
Warranty
Another lifetime warranty and, once again, returns are made direct to the maker.
Corsair states a 72-hour turn around, with three working-days' shipment back to the owner. However, with a ticket of £469, we'd like to see the response to failure more along the lines of next-day delivery, together with a written apology from the CEO and a promise to try harder next time.
Summary
Corsair DOMINATOR XMS2-10000 represents the highest-performing DDR2 that money can buy. But, at £469, so it should.
SCAN Computers is the only UK stockists we could locate but currently, it's awaiting stock, with no known arrival date. Delivery would add a further fiver but is free to regular HEXUS.community members.
You could buy 4GB of any of the other modules in the roundup for that money and you may have to (or at least opt for 2GB) if our experience accurately represents the current stocking situation.
