Corsair Dominator PC2-10000 is in fact DDR2 memory specified at the impressive frequency 1250MHz. On a market that today only supports up to 800MHz (AMD Socket AM2, Intel Socket 775) these are some impressive speeds. The question is what you will gain from buying a DDR2 memory that can run at these extreme speeds. Corsair offers the world’s fastest DDR2 memory, but is it really worth spending money on these instead of similar models running at more than 1000MHz? At Anandtech they’ve taken a look at Corsair’s monster memories and it comes as no surprise that there are some really high memory frequencies to be seen here.
But at the same time, it’s a bit as we’ve feared, just as monitor manufacturers have their response times, memory manufacturers have too much focus on high frequencies. Many times frequencies over 800Mhz can result in better performance, but when you go beyond 1000MHz the differences get smaller and smaller. Especially as the memory settings has to be loosened, which reduces the performance.
“There is also the reality that Core 2 Duo and AM2 really don’t need the highest memory speeds to perform best. What they need is low latency DDR2-800 or possibly 4-4-3 DDR2-1067 to get the best performance possible. The unfortunate reality that we see again and again in memory tests is that the super high memory speeds are great for bragging rights and flexible overclocking, but they really don’t do much for increasing actual real world performance on either the C2D or AM2 platforms.”
This is far from unique with Corsair and its PC2-10000 memory, but a problem of the whole market. Those who want a glimpse of the world’s fastest DDR2 should take a look at Corsair Dominator PC2-10000.
