Corsair CMK32GX4M4A2400C14B Prospecto

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Figure 1: Operating voltage of DDR standards.

DDR3 was introduced in 2007, and at the time, DDR2’s effective mainstream speed had 
standardized at 800MHz with JEDEC’s peak spec at 1066MHz. DDR3’s introductory 
speeds were 800MHz and 1066MHz, but performance could actually be slightly lower in 
some instances due to higher latency. Yet DDR2 was a mature technology and at its limit; 
mainstream DIMM density topped out at 4GB and operating voltage was between 1.8V and 
2.5V. 
 
DDR3 was more forward thinking; specified voltage was 1.5V, speeds were designed to 
scale well past 1066MHz, and Intel (working with Corsair) created and incorporated the 
XMP specification that allowed end users to easily fine tune speeds and timings for high 
performance memory. So while DDR2 had a better value proposition when DDR3 launched, 
it was quickly eclipsed by the new specification’s headroom.

 

Figure 2: A history of DDR SDRAM memory speeds.

Seven years later, JEDEC has specified DDR3 speeds all the way up to 2133MHz, 
mainstream DIMM density is 8GB (with server DIMMs at 16GB), and an adjoining DDR3L 
standard has been adopted that operates at a reduced 1.35V. High performance DDR3 even 
exceeds 2133MHz; internal Corsair testing has seen Intel Haswell processors show continued 
performance benefits up to 2400MHz, while the GCN-architecture graphics cores powering 
AMD’s Kaveri processors are demonstrably bottlenecked even then. While the mainstream 
has settled on 1600MHz as the standard speed for DDR3 and Corsair memory continues 
to drive speeds well beyond that, it is possible to be performance limited by even exotic 
2400MHz memory on current generation hardware. Beyond that speed price can increase 
dramatically, reflecting the careful binning of ICs that has to take place to produce those 
extremely high speed DIMMs. DDR3 has scaled well beyond the performance of DDR2, but 
is now approaching its own limits.