Thermal Testing
I put Corsair’s included “Airflow Fan” to the test using an external temperature probe placed between the DIMMs. See the testing methodology section for detailed information.
It certainly looks the part, but is it able to significantly reduce the temperature of the modules?
You bet. Not only is it very effective, it is nearly silent. Small, 40mm fans are usually very ‘buzzy’ but not Corsair’s “Airflow Fan”. I measured a 10°C delta between the DIMMs and they were noticeably cooler to the touch. It is true that a case fan and creative use of cable ties could produce similar results, but not as cleanly or as quietly as this.
Power Consumption
Although CPUs and graphics cards tend to draw the most power in systems, other components do add up. As we saw in our recent PC2-8500 roundup, there are indeed power consumption differences between like memory kits. Since this is the first 4GB kit we have tested to date, I decided to see what kind of difference can be observed over Corsair’s TWIN2X2048-8500C5 XMS2 kit. Please note that due to testing configuration differences, power consumption figures in the PC2-8500 roundup can not be compared to these.
With both kits operating at 1066MHz, 5-5-5-18 timings and 2.1V, there is a very small power consumption delta between the two. I was actually expecting there to be a larger discrepancy, but a 3-4W increase at the wall is all I could observe. This is positive news for energy conscious buyers, especially considering that the XMS2 kit we compared the dominator kit to above is actually the most energy efficient 2GB kit we have in the lab.
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