Introduction

DDR3 may cost more per MB over DDR2 at the current time of writing, but there is one thing that DDR2 can't do as well as DDR3 and that's a higher clock ceiling. DDR2 has reached its limits at DDR2-1200 or 600MHz.

DDR3 has been progressing slowly, but at a steady pace and it's not looking like stopping. While the JEDEC officially only supports 1333MHz DDR3 on its records, Intel has gone a step further; something we wouldn't have expected them to do. They've pushed the boundaries of DDR3 by introducing the XMP profiles that allow speeds of 1600MHz and very soon 1800MHz on its X38 and X48 chipsets with DDR3 memories.

While this may seem quite impressive, it's still not enough; not when the 2000MHz barrier is in sight and quite a few companies are pushing to reach it. Corsair says it has managed to hit speeds well beyond that.

Today we are testing out Corsair's Dominator DDR3-2133MHz memory; the fastest DDR3 modules to hit the market thus far. Let's see just how high we can go.