Corsair DDR2 XMS2 PC2 8500 Memory Kit Review :: Corsair XMS PC2-8500

Before we start the fun, let's do a little exercise, one in futility. In the image below, you'll see four sticks of memory. Can you tell which set will shoot you into performance nirvana, and which set will satisfy all your low latency dreams? We thought so. With such similar packaging, heat spreaders and PCBs as before, it's hard not to wonder if the fashion sense of these sticks hadn't crawled from the past. Indeed, with the exact same packaging found here as we had found on our CMX6400 sticks so many moons ago, we wonder what's been going on at Corsair HQ. There's one thing we can tell you about that here, and it's that all the money has been going into R&D, rather than the packaging. But just what can that mean for us?

Package

Which is Which

To make things a little simpler, we flipped the sticks around, and showed them off piece to piece. Can you spot the difference yet? Apart from the weathered and faded print on the sticker (a notoriously common problem in the community, so it would seem), we can see that these sticks boast their ratings and top speeds right on the modules themselves. Though voltage information is disappointingly missing, the ability to pick off your serial number or revision number at a glance is definitely a nice touch. Now, while we'd like to peel back the heat spreaders and have a look underneath, it's not quite an option right now (due to it's result being most certain death by a certain Editor In Chief, if the sticks should happen to go south in the process). What we can tell, is what we told before - these aren't just any sticks - each chip onboard of these modules comes from a big, hearty batch of UTT chips sent out at a discount by Micron to Corsair. Corsair then tests them, chip by chip, in order to ensure the best performance of all the chips that combine together to form this sizzling set of memory. The result? Amazingly low latencies where needed, along with smoking performance just a step away. Interested in seeing how these new kids on the block can perform and just what those little red buttons that'll sprout on the keyboard do? We knew you were.

Four Brothers

Data up-Close

Wee Chips