Corsair PC3200 XL Low Latency RAM Review - Benchmarks: 3DMark01 and Unreal Tournament 2003
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3DMark01
The lower latencies net the PC3200 XL about 500 points in 3DMark01. While 3DMark01 was originally a video card test, video cards have become so powerful that the benchmark is CPU/memory limited and has become primarily a benchmark of system performance. 3DMark01 is also based on the same game engine as Max Payne, therefore giving a strong indication of the improvement that could be gained in DirectX 8 games.
The PC3200 XL manages to maintain a lead of the higher latency TwinX PC4400 even though it is running with the 5:4 ratio, 20% slower than the PC4400.
Unreal Tournament 2003
The lower timings of the PC3200 XL equates into about an average of 4 frames per second in the Unreal game engine. It is nice to see the real benefit of the PC3200 XL. It is nice to see strong performance in synthetic benchmarks, but it is the real world tests that will get us to spend extra money for this memory.
Very little difference here between the two memory modules. The PC4400 does have a slight edge in the High FPS, but the average and the low frames per second are virtually identical. It is amazing how the low latencies can make up for the memory running at 100MHz (DDR) slower.
Overclocking
All overclocking results with memtest86, Prime95, and game play for at least a 24 hour period. Increasing the voltage above 2.8 volts (2.7 V actual) did not yield any better results.
| Timings | Highest Front Side Bus |
| CAS 2 (2-2-2-5) | 216 MHz - DDR432 |
| CAS 2.5 (2.5-3-3-6) | 249 MHz - DDR498 |
| CAS 3 (3-4-4-8) | 250 MHz - DDR500 |
As you can see the PC3200 XL memory modules still have quite a bit of room in them to go to higher speeds. 216MHz was obtained in this system setup, and there are reports of the modules being pushed to 220MHz. The CAS 2.5 results were very impressive, basically reaching PC4000 speeds. Going to CAS 3 didn't show much improvement, only 1 MHz.
Next: Conclusion >>
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