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Here comes OCZ's Flex II series - DDR2 PC2-9200 4Gb kits with a unique heatsink that's watercooling ready.

INTRODUCTION

It's amazing what OCZ Technology Group have achieved over the past 6 months. The group now includes OCZ, PCPower & Cooling, HyperSonic and . They're really driven forward in terms of innovation and high performance products. This year alone, we've seen OCZ's innovative NIA (Neural Impulse Accuator) system ... a product that allows you to control movements within a game by using your brain waves!! Other industry first is OCZ's DIY gaming laptops ... it's a great idea and allows you to customise the laptop to your own specification. But one can't forget OCZ's roots and where they originally came from ... and that's the memory business. Yes, that's right ... memory products are still OCZ's main business and we've seen many new memory products over the past few months, including their high-end DDR3-2000 kits and now new Flex2 DDR2/3 memory kits with built-in watercooling.

As the enthusiast market expands so will the demand for extreme hardware. Be it overclocking, watercooling or extreme modding, there will always be a demand for these enthusiast products. We've seen watercooling for processors, graphic cards and even motherboard chipsets ... and it's only a matter of time before extreme overclocking enthusiasts will be watercooling their ram too. In fact, when we covered the last i34 LAN event only last week, we've seen lot of modified systems with watercooling ... for the processor, chipset, gpu and ram too.

There is one more question which I would like to ask ... are you running 32-bit or 64-bit Windows? For a lot of us, 32-bit Windows would be the standard operating system, be it XP or Vista. For this, 2Gb of memory is plenty, and if you install 4Gb or more ... 32-bit windows will only report a maximum of 3.5Gb in the system properties. It's not an error ... it's just a limitation of the 32-bit windows. However, nowadays many enthusiasts are actually opting to go for 64-bit Windows. Why? ... well, running 64-bit Windows will allow users to take full advantage of the 4Gb of memory installed. .

The labelling and classification of DDR2 memory can be a little confusing at times. OK, I'll try and give you some DDR2 terminology ... More information can be found HERE

•  - PC2-4200 : DDR2-533 : 133FSB : 266Mhz
•  - PC2-5300 : DDR2-667 : 166FSB : 333Mhz
•  - PC2-6400 : DDR2-800 : 200FSB : 400Mhz
•  - PC2-8000 : DDR2-1000 : 250FSB : 500Mhz ** 
•  - PC2-8500 : DDR2-1066 : 266FSB : 533Mhz
•  - PC2-9200 : DDR2-1150: 287FSB : 575Mhz **
•  - PC2-10000 : DDR2-1200 : 300FSB : 600Mhz **

  ** Unofficial DDR2 specifications

In this review, we take a look at the OCZ DDR2 Flex2 XLC PC2-9200 4Gb memory kits. These modules are designed with watercooling in mind, and feature a unique heatsink that has 4 inlets/outlets, two on each end of the module. The heatsink also have 6 rows of serrated edges to increase the surface area, which help to dissipate the excess heat more efficiently. These 4Gb kits are rated at DDR2-1150, they're able to run at 575Mhz and offers low memory timings of 5-5-5-18. The XLC, which stands for Xtreme Liquid Cooling ... it's OCZ's new feature on their Flex II series. Here's a little blurb taken from OCZ's website.

Whether these memory kits are specifically designed for the watercooling enthusiasts isn't the real issue. At the end of the day, we're more concerned with its performance ... the watercooling heatsink is a great feature and it's an added bonus. We expect these modules to perform as well as the Kingston HyperX DDR2 PC2-9200 kits, which we tested last month. But more importantly, we'll find out how well these 4Gb kits can overclock.

In our tests we'll be using our test rig which is copmprised of an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ default 2.4Ghz, Gigabyte GA-X48 DQ6 (X48) motherboard, Radeon HD4850 PCIe graphics card, PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 860W PSU and a 24" Samsung SyncMaster 245B LCD monitor. 

Ok, let's not waste any more time and take a closer look at the OCZ DDR2 Flex2 XLC PC2-9200 4Gb memory kits ...