Corsair Dominator GT TW3X1600C6GT Memory Review

ajmatson - July 26, 2009
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Testing:

Now we get to the testing phase. Will the ultra low latencies make a difference in the performance of the memory running at 1600MHz? To test this set and see if the latencies make a huge difference, I will be running a series of benchmarks designed to push the memory and show its performance. I will be comparing this set of memory against two other 4GB sets running at 1600Mhz with their stock latencies. One set is the Corsair XMS3 DHX series, which is the little brother to the Dominator GT, and the second set is the OCZ Spec Ops Urban Elite, which is designed for gamers. All hardware will be run at their stock speeds, timings, and latencies unless otherwise noted to keep any variables from interfering with the scores.

Testing Setup:

Processor(s): AMD Phenom II X4 955
Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair III Formula
Memory: Corsair Dominator GT 2x2GB DDR3-1600MHz 6-6-6-18
Video Card : NVIDIA GTX 260 (216)
Power Supply: Mushkin 800w Modular Power Supply
Hard Drive: 1 x Seagate 7200.11 750GB SATA w/ 32MB Cache
Optical Drive: Lite-On 8x DVD+/-RW
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate Edition

Comparison Modules:

Comparison Module #1: OCZ Spec Ops Urban Elite DDR3 2x2GB 1600MHz 8-8-8-24
Comparison Module #2: Corsair XMS3 DHX 2x2GB DDR3-1600MHz 9-9-9-24

CPU-Z: This application shows us the settings that we have chosen in the BIOS. Items shown in this application include CPU speed and bus settings, motherboard manufacturer, BIOS revisions, memory timings, and SPD chip information.

Task Manager: We use this utility to show physical memory, kernel memory, page file, and processor usage.

Overclocking:

Overclocked settings:

Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 955 @ 215x16 = 3440MHz
Memory: Corsair Dominator GT @ 6-6-6-18 DDR3 1720MHz

Overclocking the Dominator GT memory was tricky. I could get close to 2000MHz, however I had to really loosen the timings to the point that the bandwidth suffered a lot. It would not run anything stable at less than 9-9-9-22 timings and that was a big jump from the stock settings. So I took a different approach and left the timings at 6-6-6-18, pushing the reference clock up a little at a time until I could not boot and pass memtest86+ without any errors. I was at a wall at 215MHz above the reference clock even when I pushed the voltage of the Dominator GT set up a bit. When I ran some tests, it was stable and performed a lot better than when the timings were loosened with the higher speed. So for the overclocking tests, I will be running the Dominator GT set at 1720MHz with latencies of 6-6-6-18.