oliver, just take any random micron ddr3 kit and check what speeds and timings you can run with 1.5v and you will see for yourself, the different bin levels are almost identical

lol dinos, how come i get the impression your laughing whenever you post a reply? you always seem to be in a really good mood, whats your secret? ^^

yeah the compatibility lists from mfgs are rather useless imo...
it means that at least one board, of some revision of the board, with some bios revision, did work
which is at least something, but it doesnt mean every kit of said mfg will work in all of those boards.
the only thing they are good for imo is to see if the mfg has optimized their bios for a certain memory CHIP.

interesting to hear that xmp worked well... im rather skeptic towards xmp... the bios needs to be programmed properly for it to work and its a lot of extra work only few board mfgs will be willing to do i think. if you use a different cpu the bios has to select a different lower multiplier for xmp to work properly without ocing the cpu clockspeed. from what ive heard this didnt work perfectly on a few occasions.
It would be nice if intel would provide the bios code necessary to adjust the board for every combo of xmp mem and cpu and board mfgs only had to inluce this code in their bios... but i think its not possible cause every bios and board works slightly different :/