Corsair Blog - Intel

A report recently published over at the VR-Zone discussing the new 4th generation Intel Core processors, code-named "Haswell", and their ability to go into a lower power sleep state than any previous processor has caused some concern about PSU compatability with the new processor.

When an Intel Core (i3, i5, i7) processor is idle, it goes into a sleep state that requires less power than when the CPU is active. Since the motherboard voltage regulation modules that provide power to the CPU gets their power from the power supply's +12V rail, these sleep states can dramatically reduce the load on the power supply's +12V rail.

Back in October there were two large LAN events going on in Northern California, while some of us at Corsair went to NVIDIA’s GeForce LAN event, I decided to check out Intel’s LANfest 2011 in Folsom, CA. The most popular games at the party were League of Legends, World of Warcraft, Battlefield BC2, Team Fortress 2 and of course Starcraft 2. Corsair sponsored some of the events and gave away a bunch of gear ranging from speakers, headsets, cases, memory and more! There was a great crowd and we were able to catch a lot of the highlights on film, check out the video below. I had a great time and even got to participate in the Starcraft 2 tournament, although it didn’t take long before I was knocked out!  Thanks to Intel for hosting the event and thanks to the event goers that made it a great LAN party. If you missed us, hopefully we will see you at the next event!

When it comes to choosing the right memory for your system there are three main factors to consider regarding performance. These factors are memory frequency, latency and density. This presentation will briefly go over these performance factors and also explain Intel® XMP (Extreme Memory Profile). With XMP the days of trial and error memory overclocking are gone. XMP allows guaranteed overclocked memory performance to be enabled with the “flick of a switch”, while still allowing expert users the option of manual configuration and tweaks, beyond the officially tested and guaranteed overclocked settings.

Click the picture below to launch the presentation:

Introduction

This application note will explore the benefits of using 8GB of Corsair DDR3 system memory in a dual-channel DDR3-based PC, such as an Intel® Core™ i5 or Core™ i7 (Lynnfield) system, or an AMD AM3 Phenom II™ PC. It will show how the additional RAM allows for a 'snappier' and more responsive PC, with performance improvements of up to 186% versus a PC with 4GB of RAM. And it will also show how adding more RAM allows you to change the way in which you use your PC, by allowing you to 'do more'. This includes running more applications (and never needing to close them), working with more data, and even running another 'virtualized' operating system. For example, you could run a virtual Ubuntu Linux operating system as a pure email / home admin PC, leaving your Windows installation free for office duties, or just as a pure gaming system.

These benefits will be discussed in more detail during the course of this application note, but a summary of the performance results and benefits is shown below.

Read the rest of the Application Note after the jump.