Test System

     Hardware used in testing is as follows:

Testing

     For benchmarking, I'll be sticking to an old trusty favorite of mine, SiSoft Sandra. To make things interesting, I started benchmarking the memory at 400MHz DDR, and will work my way up until the memory fails. I'll first start out using the Albatron 865PE Pro II motherboard, just to see if this memory is compatible with the 865PE chipset. Once I come to a stopping point with the 865PE, I'll turn to the Pro875B (Canterwood). Why not run the Canterwood first? The reason why I'm sticking with the 865PE is because I know for a fact that this board will run all the way up to 290MHz FSB with other brands of memory. Besides, I want to see if this memory will indeed work with other motherboards.

     The testing started out great with the 865PE. I was able to run the memory at 2.5-7-4-4 at 2.75v all the way from 200MHz to 266MHz FSB. I'm was extremely impressed because this is the first memory I've tested that could run at such tight memory timings at 266MHz bus (533MHz DDR).  Here is how it looks on paper so far:

     Pretty impressive memory bandwidth, but what about this memory's rated speed of 275MHz FSB? Well, this is where I had problems. No matter how I tweaked the settings, I could not get the PC4400 to run stable at 275MHz. The highest stable clock speed I could achieve was 270MHz FSB.

Is 275MHz FSB even possible?

     If you remember from the first page, Corsair only promises you 275MHz FSB on an Canterwood based ASUS motherboard. It's unfortunate that this memory has such a narrow market, but we'll play along and test the PC4400 on an ASUS P4C800 Deluxe, as well as the DFI Pro875B.

     Surprisingly, switching to Canterwood based motherboards did make a big difference. Both the DFI Pro875B and the ASUS P4C800 motherboards handled the memory very well and I was able to raise the bus speeds to 275MHz. However, the ASUS board pumped out the best performance. Check it out:

Conclusion

     As advertised, the Corsair PC4400 worked like a champ with not only the Canterwood based ASUS P4C800 Deluxe motherboard, but the Canterwood based DFI Pro875B as well. Just don't expect more than one or two MHz beyond spec. Canterwood or not, this memory is pretty much overclocked as far as it can go. Why the memory is so picky as to what chipset based motherboard it can run on is beyond me, but it looks like to me that the Canterwood based ASUS board is the best way to go.

     Performance wise, the Canterwood chipset is very impressive, blasting past the 6000mbps mark.  No wonder the P4C800 is such a popular motherboard in the overclocking community. PC4400 definitely isn't for everyone, but if you own a Canterwood based ASUS motherboard, this is the perfect memory for you.