Each stick of Corsair DOMINATOR Twin2X2048-9136C5D memory is cooled by four separate aluminum heatspreaders; two large external black ones and two smaller silver internal aluminum strips.

The two large black heatsinks come in direct contact with all 16 DDR2 BGA memory modules, and pull heat away from the memory in the conventional heatspreader manner. The thin black aluminum heatsink extends up past the DIMM PCB with a series of short fins. The aluminum is bonded to the DRAM with permanent adhesive.

With the way BGA chips are designed, most of the heat generated by the IC actually travels through the solder balls that bond the DRAM to the circuit board. A percentage of the heat generated by a BGA chip travels out through the top, and the remainder down through the solder balls into the PCB substrate.

Unfortunately, PCB is made of materials which are excellent electrical and thermal insulators, so it is a horrible heatsink compared to metal.

With that in mind, Corsair has redesigned the PCB for board level thermal management. Basically, the copper trace lines act as thermal vias, conducting heat towards a large metal pad at the top that two small silver aluminum heatsinks are attached to.

These heatsinks draw the excess heat away from the PCB, and are cooled by system airflow and convection. Essentially Corsair have designed the DOMINATOR memory such that the entire DDR2 memory module is cooled, RAM and circuit board combined.

Corsair's stab at better memory cooling through careful design is a refreshing change from what we're accustomed to. This solution is new for desktop memory modules, but similar approaches have been used for cooling aircraft avionics for many many years. In any event, the main point is that this method of cooling memory with heatsinks does a much better job at keeping DDR2 memory cool than conventional heatspreaders.

Furthermore, a separate fan system called the DOMINATOR Airflow Fan can also be clipped on just above the memory modules for active cooling of the small aluminum fins. The Dominator Fan contains three 40mm fans, and draws power of any available molex connector. On the whole, Corsair's Dominator Twin2X2048-9136C5D memory kit really ushers in a fresh new approach to performance memory cooling.

EPP - Enhanced Performance Profiles:

Enhanced Performance Profiles take over from where the Serial Presence Detect (SPD) EEPROM that is on every stick of memory leaves off, and adds extra information about how much faster the memory can run while remaining completely stable.

The EPP information permits compatible motherboard chipsets and BIOS' to dynamically adjust memory timings and voltages for improved overall performance without any user interaction. If you're an expert overclocker EPP provides a jumping off point, if you're a novice it does all the hard work for you automatically.

With automatic motherboard overclocking already a hit in the retail market, Enhanced Performance Profiles compatibility adds memory tuning to the performance mix. At the moment EPP memory is only compatible with the nVIDIA nForce 590 and 680i SLI chipsets, but VIA and Intel are expected to follow suit as the idea is being proposed to JEDEC as an open standard. We expect all chipset manufacturers will adopt EPP memory support in the BIOS for high end products.