Introduction

It has been some time since A-DATA memory has crossed our lab table; either they have been hiding or they have been waiting; waiting for a product that would make them into millionaires. Well, maybe not millionaires, but something to impress.

In today's consumer PC market, if you want to get ahead, you need speed, performance and a product that people will want to buy. Graphics cards are held by either NVIDIA or ATI; there are no others of real contention, and this market is cut throat.

One of the biggest performance parts in the system today is the memory or RAM. Your system memory is what makes or breaks your PC; if it's too slow, your CPU can't get fast enough access to the data stored, and with today's ever growing fast paced PCs, you need to keep up.

Intel added what it termed XMP or Extreme Memory Profiling to its X38 and X48 chipsets; this in terms of technology is the same as NVIDIA's EPP which adds extra instructions into the memory SPD, allowing the memory to tell the system how fast it can run, what extra voltages it needs and what timings can be used for certain extreme profiles.

Today we have A-DATA's Vitesta Extreme Edition DDR3 modules designed for XMP with a rating of 1600MHz; the fastest that Intel currently supports on its X series chipsets. Let's see how well it performs.