IntroductionSince 1994, Corsair has been producing some of the best memory known to end users. Corsair continues to set the pace for innovation and availability for speedy, large capacity memory. Today, we have just such a sample of their ever popular dual channel memory. The memory featured today is the XMS3500-LL PRO 2GB DDR. This particular memory has many attractive features. The numerical designation of 3500 is the industry standard for the real-time speed of 219MHz. "LL" is short for "low latency" and comes with module timings of Cas 2; Ras to Cas 3; Ras Precharge 2; Tras 6; Trc 7. That's some very tight memory timings! PRO is the nick for the LED lights that come with this awesome memory. Nice package, tight timings, relatively high speed and flashy activity lights all rolled up into one large package of 2 gigabytes of random access memory! Great job Corsair! The MemoryI removed the memory from the plastic enclosure to get a clearer picture of the memory sticks. Looks good, doesn't it? The black aluminum heat spreaders are very attractive. Next we have a close up of the memory label so we can see the version codes. The second pic is my attempt at giving you a shot of the LED lights on top of the memory stick. Memory SpecsOur 3500-LL samples come equipped with Infineon 267N rev-b IC modules, which have been embedded upon the world famous Brainpower PCB. A memory kit with a combo like this just reeks of quality! Below is a rip from the Corsair's site concerning the particulars of this fine memory. "The TWINX2048-3500LLPRO is a 2GByte matched memory pair specifically designed for motherboards using chipsets with dual memory channels. This memory kit consists of two CMX1024-3500LLPRO memory modules that have been tested together on a current production AMD motherboard at DDR437 (218 MHz) and extremely Low Latency of 2-3-2-6 T1. These TwinX memory kits are designed to provide the ultimate in performance and stability in dual channel boards. As part of Corsair's XMS ProSeries, each module includes the high-efficiency aluminum XMS heatsink, and 18 activity LED's that show the level of memory activity on each bank." Test System Specs

• AMD Athlon 64 FX-57
• DFI LP-UT nF4 Expert
• Corsair 3500-LL Pro 2x1gig
• ATI X800 XL - Catalyst 6.2
• 2 x 74GB WD Raptor in RAID 0
• Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty
• Sintek 600W SLI PSU
• VapoChill LS
• NEC 3500 DVD/CD
• Windows XP Pro SP2

Memory PerformanceWell, installation was nothing to write home about. I guess you could say it was a snap! It was a total piece of cake installing this memory due to the wide backing of the aluminum heat spreaders. You can press these sticks in very firmly without the memory PCB digging into your keyboard softened fingers. Yeah, I'm talking to you, gaming everyday, reading e-mails, staying up all night surfing the forums, you're fingers are soft just like…erm, me! Anyways, back to business. Here are a couple shots of the memory in action. First off, I want to bench these sticks at the motherboard default memory setting of 200Htt. Pretty decent bandwidth here folks! At bone stock setting with no tweaking, I receive a bandwidth size of 5,947 MB/s. That's a very hefty amount of information traveling through your memory to the CPU in one second. My testing methodology will be to use three sets of timings, tight (2-3-2-6), medium (2.5-4-3-8) and loose (3-3-3-8). I will move up in speed by 10MHz increments while leaving the CPU multiplier at auto (14x). Performance scores are produced with three benchmark products, SiSoftware Sandra v10.69, Everest 2006 v2.50.480, and Super Pi v1.1. Be sure to click the charts below to see them bigger. SiSoftware Sandra v10.69 & Everest 2.50.480 Stock Timings 2-3-2-6The highest overclock I could achieve with this memory at the stock timings was 223Htt. That was with the stock voltage of 2.6V, and even with an increase to 2.8V, the memory would not budge past 223Htt. *219Htt is the JDEC speed for pc-3500 Super-Pi 1M Test Stock Timings 2-3-2-6Our next test is with Super-Pi. This little benchmark program tests how fast your computer can calculate 33.55 million digits in its quest for Pi. *Lower score is better SiSoftware Sandra v10.69 & Everest 2.50.480 Medium Timings 2.5-4-3-8This round of tests will start out 230Htt and continue until there is failure. So far I am quite impressed with this RAM. It does very well with low latency, but how does it do with the timings loosened up a bit? Although I was able to get the RAM up to 250Htt with the looser timings, it failed the Everest read bandwidth test at that speed. Each time I ran the test it locked up my rig, and I had to reset it in order to continue the testing. Super-Pi 1M Test Medium Timings 2.5-4-3-8Again you can see the failure of the higher speed shown here in the slower calculation in the 250Htt category. It should be lower but is in fact slower due to the memory reaching its limit at this speed and timings. The longer calculation time here indicates some missed data cycles in the 250Htt speed. *Lower score is better SiSoftware Sandra v10.69 & Everest 2.50.480 Loose Timings 3-3-3-8For this round of tests, I had to drop my CPU multiplier down one notch to 13x. This is due to my FX-57 having a cold bug which limits my CPU overclock to a paltry 3,150 MHz, even with a Vapo-LS. I was able to successfully push this RAM to 260Htt with the looser 3-3-3-8 timings, but anything beyond that resulted in a black screen. Super-Pi 1M Test Loose Timings 3-3-3-8Here we have the Super-Pi scores for the highest benchable overclock. The looser timings have produced some lofty bandwidth scores as seen in our previous test yet that performance does not seem to carry over into the number crunching of Pi test. The Pi scores for the tight timing of 223 and the medium timing of 240 tie to edge out the higher but looser timing of 3-3-3-8. *Lower score is better Memory Performance (cont'd)In-Game & Synthetic TestingSo now that the limit and bandwidth have been discovered, we need to see what it can do in real world environment such as gaming. For in-game testing, I have selected two popular games, Half-Life 2 and Quake 4. For this round, I will leave the memory at the factory timings of 2-3-2-6 and bench it up to the limit of 223Htt. All graphic tests are done with Catalyst 6.2 and drivers at AAx2, AFx2, mip map level on "Quality." Resolution is set to the native 1920x1200 of my Dell 2405fpw 24" widescreen LCD monitor. The graphs will reflect an average and maximum FPS (frames per second) for each game and Htt setting. This is achieved through the use of FRAPS, which has the option to save FPS in-game performance to a log file. *219Htt is the JEDEC speed for pc-3500 Futuremark 3DMark05 & 3DMark06 BenchmarkLastly, for all of you synthetic benchmark addicts, I have run a few tests with the ever popular 3DMark05 and 06. The first two graphs are set to the advertised low latency timings, and for a comparison I have run a couple tests with the loosest timings at the highest frequency. The test results below show the lackluster performance of a "theoretical" set of loosely timed (3-3-3-8) 2GB set of PC4100 DDR memory. This is still the same memory featured in this review but with loose timings for a comparison. The lower timed and lower frequency PC3500 beats it in both benchmarks. That's even at a 41MHz disadvantage! Looks like the well known performance gains of low latency versus high latency reveal themselves once again! 260Htt 3-3-3-8 TimingFuturemark 3DMark05: 5490 3DMarksFuturemark 3DMark06: 1881 3DMarks ConclusionCorsair has done it again. They have produced some excellent memory with the 3500-LL PRO kit. The low latencies that this memory sports are slanted towards the performance minded power user due to the obvious performance increase it has over looser timed memory. The LEDs are always a plus and look good when used with a case window. The aluminum heatspreaders help draw heat away and allow for ease of installation. The performance is great and awesome timing flexibility! Overclocking is very good too; I was able to get an extra 41 MHz with looser timings. There is actually nothing bad I could say about this memory except for the price. But you know what they say? You get what you pay for! If you want 2 gigabytes of high performance DDR memory that looks good and performs even better, then this is the stuff to get. The Good: LEDs, aluminum heatspreaders, 2gig, tight timings, OC abilityThe Bad: Price - $305Rating: 9.5 out of 10