Corsair's Dominator memory modules
Cooling the bleeding edge of DDR2
WE DON'T COVER MEMORY
much here at TR—it's largely a commodity product; performance doesn't vary between modules running at the same speed and timings; and true overclocking potential is difficult to quantify with a limited sample size. However, when we spotted
Corsair's innovative new Dominator memory modules and cooler at Computex, we knew we had to get our hands on a set to test. At the time, the DIMMs were running at an effective 1224MHz with surprisingly reasonable 5-5-5-15 timings and what appeared to be relatively simple air cooling.
Cooling is the crux of Corsair's new Dominator modules, and there's more to the equation than forced airflow and a flashy clip-on heatsink. The actual DIMM design has been tweaked for more effective heat dissipation, allowing for higher speeds with tighter timings than we've seen from other DDR2 modules. Read on to see just how far we were able to push Corsair's Dominators and what it takes to keep them cool.